International Datacasting IRD

[jaray]

I have an International Datacasting SRA1200 DVB iRD to play with. We used them at our c-band earthstations for strictly data.
The receiver has composite video and audio outputs but no video or audio comes from the ports at all. In the web interface of the receiver, there is nothing having anything to do with video at all.
Does anyone know much about these receivers at all? Perhaps they're purchased with specific firmware/licences for whichever purpose they'll be used for?

I'll be checking with our network admin who managed these units as well, but maybe someone here might know something.

 

[manderson]

All i can tell you about them is we have two of them that we use to pull VoD down.

 

[jaray]

And how do you output video from them?

 

[photoman76]

Do you mean SRA2100? I'm not seeing any SRA1200.
http://www.prss.org/media/websiteimages/SFX Quick Start Guide.pdf

 

[Stefan2K8]

I picked up one of these a while back on ebay. I haven't been able to do anything with mine as I don't know the password to log in. Anyone know how to possible reset or retrieve the password on one of these? The seller didn't have any idea what the password was as they were basically a liquidator who obtained the unit from a company that went out of business.

And how do you output video from them?

Actually, I'm not sure you do, or at least not in the way you have in mind. From looking at the insides of the one I have, these are basically PCs with a 900Mhz Pentium III processor running some form of Linux off of an IDE to compact Flash adapter and card. You'll note there's a VGA connector as well as PS2 mouse and keyboard connectors on the back as well. If you hook up a VGA monitor and keyboard you'll be able to see the system POST as it boots up. If you press the right key combination you can enter the bios CMOS setup. I'm not sure but I believe it's possible that in CMOS settings somewhere you can enable the video out. However, when and if you can enable it your just going to get the same things you'll see on your VGA monitor as I don't believe these have any kind hardware video decoder for decoding video streams. I think these are used more or less as as streaming device to receive data or transport streams and then either stream it to a server or broadcast it onto a lan. So, the video out, like the VGA out, is used more for monitoring and control.

 

[Tron]

Does the unit have an ASI output? It might be just a tuning device.

 

[Pixl]

We used one of these to receive weather data at our radio station awhile back, now out of service. I got into it with windows Hyper terminal and a rs232 cable. An interesting menu comes up with changeable values, but when you try, it prompts you for a password. I called the company located then in a small town outside Toronto. They would not help, said support comes from the vendor I bought it from, which was The National Weather Service. Those people told me any changes to the box are made by satellite downloads.
All of the outputs, video,etc are connected to the motherboard and would probably do something if you could get in to its menu and turn them on. Now that was 10 years ago, most of these are probably out of service, and maybe someone could let out the password now. I scrapped mine out at the electronic salvager's last year, probably turned into a Toyota by now.

 

[jaray]

It does have an ASI output. What are ASI output typically used for? I think Stefan2k8 is likely right, in that its a streaming/transport device and sends data out of the unit to be further processed if need be.
I have the manual somewhere for it, and I believe the default password is listed, I'll post if I can find it but the manual is very basic.

 

[Tron]

The ASI output allows the compressed stream to be sent from the tuner to any number of different devices, for display, multiplexing on a QAM digital cable system, or even for recording. Basically, the box is a tuner without built-in display capabilities.