[Jon Read]

I bought a SkyStar HDTV PC card the other month along with the CI slot. But the problem is I use the card in my other normal TV box too, which means I have to swap over the cards a lot. When my PC is in its normal place it is hard to get to the back often. I am looking for a 3.5" or external CI slot to use with the Skystar HD. Is there one ? If not, is there a HD PC card that does have one ?

[Stephen Neal]

Originally Posted by Jon Read

I bought a SkyStar HDTV PC card the other month along with the CI slot. But the problem is I use the card in my other normal TV box too, which means I have to swap over the cards a lot. When my PC is in its normal place it is hard to get to the back often. I am looking for a 3.5" or external CI slot to use with the Skystar HD. Is there one ? If not, is there a HD PC card that does have one ?

Don't know about moding the Sky Star but the FireDTV FloppyDTV can be mounted in a 3.5" floppy slot - though it uses firewire not PCI/PCIe. You can also get an external version as well as Hauppauge and Technotrend external USB2 DVB-S/S2 tuner cards with CI slots.

[Jon Read]

Thanks. I think I might sell my Skystar HD card and get that FireDTV S2 box, seems perfect, a breakout box.

Can someone tell me, does it support MPEG4 HD channels or just MPG2 HD ? Cheapest price I can find is £150, which doesn't sound bad, but anyone know if I can get it for cheaper then that anywhere ? There is a £90 DVB-S box, but I am guessing it is best to go for the DVB-S2 for future reasons ?

[Stephen Neal]

Originally Posted by Jon Read

Thanks. I think I might sell my Skystar HD card and get that FireDTV S2 box, seems perfect, a breakout box.

Can someone tell me, does it support MPEG4 HD channels or just MPG2 HD ? Cheapest price I can find is £150, which doesn't sound bad, but anyone know if I can get it for cheaper then that anywhere ? There is a £90 DVB-S box, but I am guessing it is best to go for the DVB-S2 for future reasons ?

The FireDTV S2 box doesn't do anything in video terms - it just tunes, demodulates and streams out transport stream data via the Firewire connection (just like most PCI and USB2 cards - apart from a couple with on-board SD MPEG2 decoding and external video outputs like the Nexus-S).

It is up to the PC to decode the video in these transport streams to display video etc. If the PC and video card are up to it then there is no problem with watching H264 content as well as MPEG2 - though it is a much more demanding codec than SD or HD MPEG2. (DVB-S2 is mainly being used for HD H264 video rather than MPEG2 AIUI - though there is also some DVB-S H264 - like BBC HD and Luxe TV who both share space with SD broadcasts)