HOWTO: Sky through DVB-S card within MCE

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I know all that. It's a decent rooftop aerial. I suspect it's the signal level, rather than the S/N ratio. Still experimenting really. It was raining heavily last night, so it might just work tonight.

I'm on the fringe of the freeview area, but have a decent aerial and distribution amp. My IDTV and 4 other freeview cards are all happy with it - just this one is being a bit fussy.
 
sat-guy said:
Why do you need a Tv booster? speaking as a aerial and satellite guy if your signal is poor then by adding a booster you are amplifying the poor signal and all the noise which would not cure your problem.
I'm not an aerial & satellite guy but I do know that with DVB-T (Freeview) signals that a signal booster can be a great help with a marginal signal. There is no real substitute for a proper aerial installation but whereas with an analogue system you will boost the snow on digital it can make all the difference in whether you receive a particular channel or MUX.
 
It seems to me that what is needed to implement this solutuion more painlessly are two files;

- Text file to map the DVB-S frequencies onto DVB-T
- XML file with EPG listing

I've had a go at producing the text file, this lists (I think) all frequencies required on the Astra, Eurobird and Hotbird satellites and could be used by someone with a dual LNB set-up. The hotbird data comes from Technotrends own text file, so I've not checked that (eg. I don't know if the launch of Hotbird 7A will add to this list). Encrypted cjhannels on Hotbird won't decode as you won't have the required smartcard - no piracy.

One concern I have is regarding the DiseqC settings. DiseqC is set to on (1) in the attachment, but I don't know what is meant by 'position' and 'option' - presumably settings on the LNB? As this file contains data for two satellite positions, would you need to change the position and option settings?

Once the EPG has been mapped to the new channels, does this produce an XML file that could be shared?

Anyway, comments welcome, please add to tthe file if anything is missing.

regards,
Paul
 

Attachments

  • Test Sky,Eurobird,Hotbird tdr listings for Technotrend.zip
    1.8 KB · Views: 251
If you don't want any of the channels on a particular transponder then don't map that frequency to a DVB-T frequency. As I found out the combined transponders for the satellites at 28.2 & 13E exceed the number of UHF DVB-T frequencies. It's also a good idea to omit transponders that aren't wanted as it keeps the numbers of channels down to a more manageable number. I think it was over 1500 channels that I found on one scan of 28.2 & 13E combined! MCE handles the few dozen channels for DVB-T OK but the same interface for hundreds or thousands is very unwieldy.

Another tip is to arrange order of the transponders in the text file as far as possible in the order that you want the channels numbered e.g. your BBC 1 region at 1, BBC 2 at 2, your ITV region at 3 Channel 4 at 4 etc Again this saves time reordering the channels.

DiseqC switches like this http://www.dvbshop.net/product_info.php/info/p83_DiSEqC-Switch-4-1-waterproof.html allow you to switcth between multiple LNBs & they can be cascaded. If you aren't using DiseqC then the relevant entries in the file should be 0, 0, 0, I can't recall exactly how my DiseqC switch is set up but what works for me is 28.2 1, 0, 0, & 13E 1, 1, 0,

It is possible in the registry to create an exclusion list of channels that you don't want MCE to scan for you.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\GLID\ExclusionList

This is to take account of channels that for some reason MCE can't handle in DVB-T. Originally this was the DVB-T radio stations but now includes Bloomberg, BBC Parliament. There are a few ways of populating this list. You can just do it by hand. Alternatively you can take the "dumper" tool from the QuickGuide package to dump a simple clear text list of all the DVB-S services MCE has found in a scan. Then enter in the ExclusionList all those that you don't want. Then you scan again. This time the scanner will ignore all services found in the ExclusionList and not even add them to the database so you end up with a more manageable number of stations. However the "opportunistic scan" of MCE will always run in the background during live TV or recording and pick up any new stations which are not in the ExclusionList, so you will every so often get some unwanted stations.

I just found a nice tool on a German site that allows you to edit the exclusion list, filter & re-order channels all from a Windows interface & seems much better able to handle hundreds of channels rather than the MCE interface. Unfortunately my German is very limited so I am not quite sure of all the functionality yet. I have got it to generate the entry for ExclusionList in the registry before rescanning but then discovered that it had zapped all m EPG data which I had to download again. It all seemed to work OK & does allow for quicker sorting of channel order & setting channels blocked or unblocked. At the moment as far as I can see all it is missing is a function for mapping EPG listings to channels http://www.mce-community.de/forum/index.php?showtopic=10503&st=0

I have attached my current .TPS file used as input for the DVB-T Mapping tool. This has only the transponders that I am interested in on 28.2E & 13E i.e. no Sky Sports or Movie channels. It should be a reasonable starting point for anyone.

BTW There are no listings for Hotbird in your attached file
 

Attachments

  • AstraSkyAndFTAplusHotbird-DiSEqC.zip
    1.2 KB · Views: 239
deksawyer said:
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.

Sky digiboxes unlike other satellite STBs have the encryption on the motherboard rather than on a CAM. Its unlikely that Sky will change their encryption method (Videoguard NDS) as that would mean replacing the STBs, somehow having an update sent through to the STB or have an engineer to update the encryption on the digiboxes. All of this sounds a bit too much of a hassle for Sky, so I suspect the encryption will not change.
 
nigelbb said:
I have tested with a Sky subscription card too but that is only possible for short periods when the missus isn't watching heartwarming dramas on Hallmark:)

All Sky cards are the same (yellow house on blue background) & all can be upgraded & downgraded to receive various channels. So for example if you cancel your Sky subscription it becomes a Freesat card.

@Nigel

First let me add my thanks for bringing all this information to the forum - it must have taken some time to research! My order went off for all the equipment earlier today.

Now my Q...
Given that a Sky card is married to a particular digibox is it still possible to freely swap between a box and the CAM in your HTPC setup? I guess it is from your quoted posting but thought I'd ask and get a definitive answer.

Regards
Andy
 
boez said:
Given that a Sky card is married to a particular digibox is it still possible to freely swap between a box and the CAM in your HTPC setup? I guess it is from your quoted posting but thought I'd ask and get a definitive answer.
The Sky card is only married to a particular box if you subscribe to premium channels (sports & movies). Standard subscription & FTV cards are not married & can be used in any digibox (or Dragon CAM:). There is an option in one of the Dragon CAM menus to enter the serial number of your box if necessary.
 
nigelbb said:
The Sky card is only married to a particular box if you subscribe to premium channels (sports & movies). Standard subscription & FTV cards are not married & can be used in any digibox (or Dragon CAM:). There is an option in one of the Dragon CAM menus to enter the serial number of your box if necessary.

I asked the same question to DVBshop support and they confirm what you said. The T.Rex/Dragon CAM could imitate your digibox. I havn't tried this yet. I was going to wait for Vista and hoping for some kind of Sky supported CAM to capture premium channels in digital. But now this is very tempting. Vista is not comming till Jan 2007, give it 6 to 8 months to mature and that brings me to 2007 Summer. More than a years wait, and that's hoping there will be some sort of Sky CAM support. Now I'm waiting for the new version of the BDA drivers for the Technotrend card to sort out the MCE schedule bug. Once released I will take the plunge!.

Thanks once again to Nigel for bringing this to our attention :clap:
 
paulm187 said:
Now I'm waiting for the new version of the BDA drivers for the Technotrend card to sort out the MCE schedule bug. Once released I will take the plunge!.

Lol! Know what you mean, I've put this off for a few months now and having watched nearly £200's worth of purchases yesterday hope my plunge doesnt drown me!

My main concern is that currently I'm getting an excellent Sky picture through a sweetspot card/Dscaler route but really miss the PVR aspect. My fingers are very much crossed that I will get an equally good PQ using the setup described in this thread.

Andy
 
Thank you Nigel for alla that informations.

We are now very close to the goal we were waiting for since 2 years.

Just a question, do you know if BDA drivers are only design for the Budget family or if they can work with the Premium one (I own a Hauppauge Nexus-s) ?

Thanks again.
 
vpinon said:
Just a question, do you know if BDA drivers are only design for the Budget family or if they can work with the Premium one (I own a Hauppauge Nexus-s) ?
If you check over on the Technotrend forum at www.dvbshop.nt/forum you will find some discussion of the possibility of an Italian company providing a driver for the TT-Premium cards but it all seemd a bit inconclusive.

Given that the Budget range is already supported by Technotrend you would be better off selling the Nexus-S on Ebay & buying a TT-Budget they are pretty cheap.
 
Thank you Nigel.

OK for the Budget series.

I have 2 LNB on my dish, with the Nexus-S, I had a 3.5 "" CI with 2 slots : one with an Aston CAM and the other one with a Viaccess CAM.

This CI +2 CAM is not suitable with the Budget S1500 wich daughter CI accept only one CAM.

Do you think that 2 TT Budget S1500, one with a daugther CI + Aston CAM and the other with a daugther CI + Viaccess CAM (4 PCI slots!), could work together and running OK with DVBTMapper, ttMCEAutoDecoder, CAM control sequences?

Cheers.
 
vpinon said:
Do you think that 2 TT Budget S1500, one with a daugther CI + Aston CAM and the other with a daugther CI + Viaccess CAM (4 PCI slots!), could work together and running OK with DVBTMapper, ttMCEAutoDecoder, CAM control sequences?
The CI daughter card is just connected with a standard 50 pin ribbon cable so you don't have to sacrifice a PCI slot for it as if you are inventive you can position it elsewhere.

The problem with two cards in MCE is that MCE wants a homogeneous programme source as it only uses one prgramme guide. You cannot for example have one tuner analogue & one DVB-T. I assume that you are using the two CAMs for separate packages in which case MCE will not be able use them as it cannot know which CAM is on ewhich card or rather cannot decide to use one card for one channel & the other for another.
 
OK Nigel, MCE with one package is still a big improvement.

Thanks for all.
 
You could keep your Nexus-S & use it independently of MCE. In fact you can have multiple TT-Budget cards in the system with DVB-T mapping only enabled for a particular card.
 
mark.carline said:
Hmm couldnt help but notice that there seems to be a dual input card on that site:

http://www.technotrend.de/english/download/download.html

Seems to be called a "TT-PCline premium family"

Does this mean we can use ONE sky card for two feeds like Sky plus yet ?
Sadl I think not. The picture of the tuner at the top of the download page does indeed appear to have two F-connectors but AFAIK neither Technotrend or any other manufacturer has ever produced a dual-tuner DVB-S card. Looking through the products & shop part of theri web site I can't find another picture of this card either.
 
@Nigel

After a bit of trial and error I've successfully managed to get this setup working as far as the AutoDecoder but here I've hit a brickwall!

So far...

I've mapped the required channels via a tps file based on your example and a search on Lyngsat. These channels are found and stored in MCE.

I've mapped these channels to the epg inside MCE. These now show the correct programme info.

I can use the CAM tool to manually Decrypt the encoded channels once I change to that channel.

BUT...

I cannot figure out the Auto decoder! Any tips?

TIA
Andy
 
boez said:
I cannot figure out the Auto decoder! Any tips?
The ttAutoDecode application needs to know the Service ID (SID) of the encypted channel. There are supposed to be two ways either SID presets where the programme name is mapped to the SID or SID mapping where the channel number is mapped to the SID. I haven't been able to get the first working although it would be preferable as it would mean that it wouldn't matter if channels got moved about renumbered.

The data for SID mapping is held in a file C:\Program Files\TechnoTrend\TT MCE Tools\ttAutoDecode.xml You can start populating this from the ttAutoDecode application by clicking on th SID mapping tab & then add Channel number & SID. However this creates a new file each time that you use it so will delete your existing entries. The best thing is to edit the file in notepad after entering a channel or 2.

Here is a simple example of a ttAutoDecode.xml file with entries for Channel 4, five, Sky One, Two & Three. Just take this & modify it to match your own channel numbering.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<TTServiceIDMapper>
<!-- Channel 4 -->
<Channel ChannelNumber="4" ServiceID="9201" />
<!-- five -->
<Channel ChannelNumber="5" ServiceID="9342" />
<!-- Sky One -->
<Channel ChannelNumber="6" ServiceID="4705" />
<!-- Sky Two -->
<Channel ChannelNumber="7" ServiceID="5104" />
<!-- Sky Three -->
<Channel ChannelNumber="8" ServiceID="5103" />
</TTServiceIDMapper>
 
All,

There are obviously multiple issues with this solution:

- No box office etc.
- Channels have to be programmed manually (as in the frequencies have to be mapped to the MCE channel numbers)
- The Sky card must be slipped in to a box overnight every so often. For Sky Multiroom users, there is an issue that the Sky box must dial up to the Sky service once a month.
- Sky terms and conditions DO say that the Sky cards should be in an AUTHORISED Sky box. And the software emulating the Sky box is a no-no.
- Updates to the cards will be missed, new channels won't be automatically added.
- From what I can tell, if people want to watch one channel while recording another, they need two Sky cards.

I may have an idea, however. I'm going to create a petition to get Sky to co-operate with the community to make this a real solution.

I will post a link to the petition once I have created it.

If anyone has any ideas as to how we could add value/impact let me know.

D
 
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