HOWTO: Sky through DVB-S card within MCE

[nigelbb]

I have been in contact with various people on this forum regarding getting DVB-S & in particular Sky working within MCE. There are also a number of threads with discussion of DVB-S within MCE but I thought that I would start this new thread as I have made a breakthrough at the weekend. I can now confirm that running within MCE I have UK Sky TV decoding automatically & to forestall a lot of questions I will try & describe in detail the procedure here.

I use a Technotrend TT-budget S-1500 DVB-S card with add-on CI daughter card
http://shop.technotrend.de/shop.php?...6e4d5&s=&id=12
http://shop.technotrend.de/shop.php?...6e4d5&s=&id=27


The CAM that I use is the only one to support NDS (the Sky encryption method) it is called the T.Rex but was formerly called the Dragon. Technotrend's own software is very good & the decryption is totally transparent. Note that decryption of Sky channels requires a legitimate subscription card & there is no question of piracy here. One caveat is that it is possible that Sky will change something about their encryption that would mean that the CAM would no longer work with Sky. You need a programmer for the CAM (I have a CAS3) to load it with the Predator firmware as it will be supplied without. You can find the latest version of the Predator firmware 3.31 here http://www.satnet.ch/file/download.php or any number of other satellite sites on the Net just do a Google.

Technotrend supply their MCE Tools that in conjunction with their BDA driver give you control of CI & DiSEqC so you can switch between up to four dishes. You can download the TT software, BDA drivers & MCE Tools from here http://www.technotrend.com/english/d.../download.html When you install the tools a detailed User Guide in PDF format is installed.

To work within MCE the Technotrend driver pretends to be a supported DVB-T (Freeview) card. You use the DVB-T Mapper application to map satellite transponder frequencies to DVB-T MUXes. You then edit the channels & add back all the encrypted channels which by default are not displayed in the EPG. Then you can change the channel order so e.g. BBC1 was channel 1, BBC2 channel 2 etc

Technotrend's first CI implementation within MCE allowed you to select a channel on a transponder to be decrypted & then you hit the 'Decrypt' button which was OK but now they have an application that automatically decodes when it detects a programme change to an encrypted channel. For these encrypted channels you use the Technotrend provided tool & map the SIDs to the channel numbers which creates an XML file that you can edit. You can get full listings of satellite transponder frequency & SIDs for each channel at http://www.lyngsat.com/

To get a full Sky EPG after setting up MCE as DVB-T you need to edit the registry & change the headend number to a valid one for Sky then do an EPG download & then map EPG listings to the channels. The registry key for the headend ID is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Medi a Center\Service\EPG but if you just do a Find on headend there is only one entry.

DVB-S within MCE works very smoothly & decrypts transparently. It is very stable & has great picture quality when compared side by side with an MCE system with a Sky+ digibox feeding a Hauppauge WinTV PVR250 card by s-video.

There is one outstanding problem in that unattended recordings of encrypted channels fail as the TT_CI_Autodecoder process does not kick in when the channel changes for an automatic recording. Scheduled recording while tuned to a channel that is already being decrypted works OK as of course does recording of Free To Air channels. Technotrend are evidently aware of the problem & have promised a fix.

I bought my CAM & programmer from this German supplier they have very good prices & rapid cheap delivery by DHL http://www.dvbshop.net/ They also have a good forum that has some discussion of using the Technotrend card within MCE http://www.dvbshop.nt/forum/ I have also found one or two Dutch or German forums where DVB-S in MCE is discussed. The Germans are very keen to get this working as they of course have many FTA satellite channels plus Technotrend is a German company.

I know that there are a couple of other MCE DVB-S experimenters on this forum so let's pool our knowledge & get Sky working within MCE in top quality.

Perhaps this thread could be made a Sticky?

[Media-Man]

Interesting stuff. I've just had a look at the t-rex cards as I want to have a go at this myself at home; I see 2 versions one with a 'Loadercard', one without. Does it matter which one I get?

[deksawyer]

I don't know if this will effect you, but I heard that Sky are changing their encryption methods fairly soon.

I don't know the full details as I don't have Sky, but read it on a few other forums....

D.

[nigelbb]

Originally Posted by deksawyer

I don't know if this will effect you, but I heard that Sky are changing their encryption methods fairly soon.

I don't know the full details as I don't have Sky, but read it on a few other forums....

D.

Ah well c'est la vie if the T.Rex/Dragon CAM no longer supports Sky there still remain all the FTA channels BBC1/2/3/4 ITV1/2/3/4 plus various movie & music channels.

[nigelbb]

Originally Posted by mediaPC.tv

Interesting stuff. I've just had a look at the t-rex cards as I want to have a go at this myself at home; I see 2 versions one with a 'Loadercard', one without. Does it matter which one I get?

It depends how you are going to program the CAM. I use a CAS3 programmer which programs the CAM directly without the need for a loader card. http://www.hisat.com/twp/prod_detail.asp?ID=542 The CAS2 Plus evidently can program the CAM directly too http://www.hisat.com/twp/prod_detail.asp?ID=600

An alternative programmer like the Dynamite http://www.hisat.com/twp/prod_detail.asp?ID=444 can be used to program the loader card which is then used to load the Dragon from the CAM menu

Using a loader card is a bit more fiddly & takes longer

[Media-Man]

Thanks - I was going to get a CAS3. Can't find it on that German site, but I've seen it in the UK for £70

Thanks for the post. I have been thinking of trying this also. Probably a daft question but can/will this method work with the HD channels ? I'm aware that a dragon can be used successfully in a Pace 810 to view the HD feeds but haven't seen anything to say whether it will work with a PC card.

[mark.carline]

This is very very good if it works just as good as some of the existing DVBT cards

Do you think that this may apply to the Hauppauge NOVA-S cards ?

Surely the quality should be the same as isnt it just copying the mpeg stream to an MSDVR file ?

You might want to let Ian Dixon know from the Media Centre podcast as he was saying its one of his main bug bears with MCE in the UK:
http://mediacenter.thepodcastnetwork.com/

[applevenus]

Thanks Nigel - this should definitely be a sticky.

One piece of help you gave me was in preparing the DVB-TMapper.exe data.

Here is the data you suggested I use as a starting point:

The DVB-T Mapper is pretty easy to operate. There is a good description of how to operate it in a PDF file that gets installed along with the MCE Tools.

The best way of using it is edit a text file with the required satellite frequencies & then import that information into the mapper application. To get you started here is a working file for most of the FTA channels at 28.2E worth watching. Just snipp out & save as a .TPS file between the lines====


================================================== ======
#
#
#BBC East of England
10788000, V, 22000, 0, 0, 0, 10600000, 9750000, 11700000
#BBC 1 London BBC 2 Englang BBC News 24 BBC Four BBC Three
10773000, H, 22000, 0, 0, 0, 10600000, 9750000, 11700000
# ITV Anglia
10714000, H, 22000, 0, 0, 0, 10600000, 9750000, 11700000
# ITV 2 & ITV 4
10758000, V, 22000, 0, 0, 0, 10600000, 9750000, 11700000
# ITV 3
10906000, V, 22000, 0, 0, 0, 10600000, 9750000, 11700000
# CNN Travel Channel
12051000, V, 27500, 0, 0, 0, 10600000, 9750000, 11700000
# Sky News
12207000, V, 27500, 0, 0, 0, 10600000, 9750000, 11700000
# Men & Motors
12422000, H, 27500, 0, 0, 0, 10600000, 9750000, 11700000
# Classic FM TV
11222000, V, 27500, 0, 0, 0, 10600000, 9750000, 11700000
# Performance
11389000, H, 27500, 0, 0, 0, 10600000, 9750000, 11700000
# Horror Channel
11264000, H, 22000, 0, 0, 0, 10600000, 9750000, 11700000
# Movies4Men True Movies Wine Network
11343000, V, 27500, 0, 0, 0, 10600000, 9750000, 11700000
# end of file
================================================== ======

This saved me a bunch of time. If I can work it out I'll make a more comprehensive .tps file which provides all UK regions and available FTA channels.

This thread is of particular interest to people in Ireland. Although we can subscribe to SKY+ we don't get BBC3,4 or any of the ITV channels on the EPG. I initially explored all of this so that I could get BBC3 &4.
Now I'm thinking of adding the CI to my S-1500...

[nigelbb]

Originally Posted by ealingblue

Probably a daft question but can/will this method work with the HD channels ?

Not as far as I know. Sky HD uses DVB-S2 & MPEG4. I don't think that you can even buy a DVB-S2 card yet although some have been announced. The TT-budget S-1500 is plain old DVB-S & Sky SD is MPEG2.

[nigelbb]

Originally Posted by mark.carline

This is very very good if it works just as good as some of the existing DVBT cards

In some ways this is better as there is no way of getting TopUpTV to work within MCE. Of course there is the problem with recording encrypted channels but recording FTA works just fine. For those people who cannot receive Freeview & who want Digital TV just receiving the FTA channels through a DVB-S card is a real improvement.

Originally Posted by mark.carline

Do you think that this may apply to the Hauppauge NOVA-S cards ?

It depends. The original Nova-S was a re-badged Techotrend budget card & that will work with the Technotrend BDA drivers for FTA channels. Later Nova-S are Hauppauge design & will not work with MCE. Hauppauge do have two new satellite cards (AFAIK not currently available in the UK) the Nova-S-Plus & Nova-SE2. There are fake DVB-T drivers available for these cards & they work fine for FTA but there is no CI support.

Originally Posted by mark.carline

Surely the quality should be the same as isnt it just copying the mpeg stream to an MSDVR file ?

The quality is better than DVB-T as the bit rate on DVB-S is typically that of Freeview.

[nigelbb]

Originally Posted by applevenus

This saved me a bunch of time. If I can work it out I'll make a more comprehensive .tps file which provides all UK regions and available FTA channels.

Just in case you are wondering why I didn't just enter all the transponder frequencies in order from the list on Lyngsat I will explain my cunning plan.

There are literally hundreds of channels picked up including many radio stations. It is a very awkward task to edit the channels, change the channel order & map listings to channels. While the DVB-T support in MCE will handle 40-60 channels OK when you have hundreds it takes a long time to shuffle one from the bottom of the listings to the top. So it is best to only scan those transponders that you really want to have in your EPG e.g. leave out all the Shopping etc. I also realised that it saves time if the transponders are scanned & channel numbers automatically allocated in roughly the order that you want them to appear in the EPG to save having to move them about too much.

[applevenus]

Indeed. You are a twisty turny thing.

[WheresMyArtisan]

This is brilliant news. Many thanks for experimenting and taking the time to report your findings. I will try doing the same for topuptv using their DVB-T card.

A question - are the recordings UNencrypted? I have 3 MCE PCs. If I record a program on the PC with a subscriber card, can I watch the recording on another MCE PC that is just freeview only? I suspect the answer is yes, but I need to be sure this will work. I want to record loads of programmes on the desktop PC, then watch them on the lounge and bedroom PCs. If this won't work then I'd need four topuptv cards (one per tuner).

Would you be prepared to email me a short 1 minute Sky recording as a DVR-MS file? I'll then try it in my freeview MCE PCs and report back with my findings. I'll PM my email address if you are able to do this.

Ta muchly.

[Kramer]

Great thread .

I'll update the MCE FAQ (long overdue) & add a link to this thread in the next few days.

I run a SS2 within MCE with DiSEQc for Astra/Hotbird etc. & it works well but I'll probably have a play with this too .