Automated scan

[zodiak]

Hi everyone!

Does anybody know if it's possible to control a receiver from a computer. What I basically think about is allowing some script to scan certain sats then download the results and then process is somehow (for instance, have my SS1 tune to each usable channel and take a snapshot of the stream).

You see, I never used a true receiver so far and unfortunatelly PCI cards cannot blind scan. If there was such a card I wouldn't be even looking for a receiver.

Speaking about "looking for". I'd also appreciate if you could offer your expert advice on the receiver choice. As you might understand my top priority would be blind scan performance and ability to interface with computer-- both in terms of data and control (at least channel list I/O) and ability to reliably daisy-chain with the PCI tuner.

The price is also a serious factor since this is going to be a secondary device-- I don't care about HD DVI or AC3 sound or even PAL/NTSC conversion but if I fit within say $100 it would be great.

Thank you very much!

 

[zodiak]

Ahem...

 

[Cascade]

The only receiver that'll interface with a PC as far as I'm aware is the Dreambox, it's a Linux-based receiver and runs at $300+ which uses an ethernet port, not sure of what's available on the port though.
You may want to look into other receivers which may have serial port control protocols embedded into their software, unfortunately I don't know of any, if you found one 112kbps is far too slow to be useable for stream capture or anything other than channel changing.

 

[zodiak]

Thanks for your reply, Cascade!

No I'm not going to capture stream-- I can easily do that with my PCI card. What I (ideally) need is to be able to tell the receiver what to scan and then download the results. Now, I've heard of the gtools that can supposedly do the latter (BTW, I have yet to find any user-friendly how-to for it) but I have no idea if I can do the former.

Anyway, let's simplify the question. What is in your (Cascade's and everyones') opinion the best receiver for blind scan (both in absolute terms and bang-for-buck)?

Thanks again!

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I would actually like to do this myself and be able to see when Dish Network adds and removed channels from the datatable, much like JohnH does at Dbstalk.

 

[Cascade]

Thanks for your reply, Cascade!

Most welcome

tell the receiver what to scan and then download the results.

Channel Master is a nifty app if you can find it, it'll let you download channel mappings via the serial port after a blind scan which you can save into a variety of formats although I have no clue on how you'd automate the process.

As for the best receivers I'm sure somebody will step in with their recommendations (See the review section)