What's your DVB-S2 card of choice?

[SATire]

I'm trying to build a PC based solution that can handle KU and/or C-band, and local HD antenna.
I've read til blue in the face but haven't found the answer to the hardware solution. Lot's of posts on things that work and things that work but don't do it all. Many of the posts are a few years old so hoping that things have changed.

What I am hoping to achieve is at least one DVB-S2 card which can handle DiSEqC/USALS motor control and fine tuning for KU and C-band. I may end up installing two of these cards if there is no one card which does both.

Problem is, from what I'm reading, to this day, there seem to be problems with motor control, blind scanning, things of that nature.

Are you using something which works well and if so, can you share your thoughts.

Thanks.

Mike

 

[pro96]

For me, the Prof 7500 USB card is great. Has a very sensitive tuner so it gets a lot of signals other cards don't even pickup. Has no blind scan, but I can live with that.

 

[SATire]

I was looking at the one yesterday and was impressed. I was looking at the PCI card.
The price however makes it impractical for my needs in that I want to build multiple boxes.

 

[WTguy]

"Mulitple boxes"? Depending on the number of boxes, if you contact the vendors one might give you a discount. Perhaps enough to make the units doable for your project.

 

[SATire]

"Mulitple boxes"? Depending on the number of boxes, if you contact the vendors one might give you a discount. Perhaps enough to make the units doable for your project.

Not enough to get a discount unfortunately .
However, my thinking is that if I could pull together a box that is reasonably priced, I could get more people involved in FTA. Initially, I just need a system for myself and my wish list is pvr, dual ku and c-band receiver.

 

[Vorg]

There are some dual tuner cards out or coming out and some are said to have blind scan.

There is also a card coming out that has hardware h.264 video decoding kind of like the old Nexus-S cards. With that you wouldn't need to mess with xorg/xine/vdpau if you go with a linux system.

 

[SATire]

I tend to avoid MS for anything other than desktop use and definitely going Linux. In fact, I've been wanting a reason to try MythTV again, haven't used it in many years. I've read that some folks are doing fun things with DVB-S2 cards installed.

 

[signal.quest]

I am also looking for the best linux friendly DVB-S2 device. I am leaning towards the USB version. I run mythtv at home for clear QAM cable channels, but have found that the frontend crashes on many sat. feeds. I use VLC to play sat feeds using a twinhan 102g.

 

[SATire]

That was another thought, to simply capture the output and then broadcast it on my lan as an ip tv channel. Then use a set top box for the rest.
The problem is trying to make all of these things work together, that's the nightmare unless people get together and work on it together.

 

[srinath]

Has any one tried TBS cards that we find on ebay ?

 

[SATire]

It's so difficult to decide on hardware sometimes. I know for myself, I spend a lot of money on trying things that don't work out and they end up sitting on the shelf, waste of money. That's why I thought I would ask more questions from end users.

I see the TBS cards you're talking about on ebay. A very quick search on google leads me to many complaints, at least, when using it with mythtv for example, which usually means to me that a piece of hardware is too proprietary when it doesn't work to some degree right off the bat.

Of course, some hardware just takes more work and the results are better than average so again, the need for input .

I have yet to grab one but am close to just 'grabbing' one to give it a try, go from there.

Next problem is I've noticed that c-band actuators aren't 13-18v, they are well over that which means a card won't be able to control a c-band dish, that sort of setup would need an external motor control.

 

[crackt]

It's so difficult to decide on hardware sometimes. I know for myself, I spend a lot of money on trying things that don't work out and they end up sitting on the shelf, waste of money. That's why I thought I would ask more questions from end users.

I see the TBS cards you're talking about on ebay. A very quick search on google leads me to many complaints, at least, when using it with mythtv for example, which usually means to me that a piece of hardware is too proprietary when it doesn't work to some degree right off the bat.

Of course, some hardware just takes more work and the results are better than average so again, the need for input .

I have yet to grab one but am close to just 'grabbing' one to give it a try, go from there.

Next problem is I've noticed that c-band actuators aren't 13-18v, they are well over that which means a card won't be able to control a c-band dish, that sort of setup would need an external motor control.

i have a tbs6920. rma-ed it after a month becuz i could never get it to lock reliably. against my prof or dvbworld tuners it loses hands down.

all cband actuators require 24-36v to operate. they do not use coax voltage to operate.

crackt out,.

 

[SATire]

Since they don't use coax for the operation, I'm guessing that the c-band card I'll use will still be able to send a DiSEqC or USALS signal to a separate motor controller. My plans so far include one c-band receiver and one ku receiver in the server, along with a local hd card as well.

As for the TBS, I didn't get a good feeling right off the bat but am eager to find a card to try.

 

[Tron]

I am looking at the DVBWorld, the new version of the card that will blind scan. I've read some good things about it here on the forum.

 

[SATire]

Only one way to find out so I've ordered a wintv-nova-hd-s2 to try along with an Hauppauge WinTV1600 for local reception. It's a start and I'll see how these work out and go from there.