Hi guys, Well, straight off I gotta tell ya, this is the most frustrating thing I've ever tried to do... All I want is to be able to watch satellite FTA through the Vista frontend with my Technotrend S2-3200 card. Not even encrypted channels! To check the actual sat equipment (dish, LNB, cable, S2-3200) was okay, I installed DVBViewer - all Astra 2D FTA channels come in loud and clear (even BBC HD!) The problem lies in trying to get it to work in Vista MCE... I've installed the latest drivers from Technotrend, but to no avail. The TT_MCE_tools.zip that was listed on their site is gone, so I'm using Universal DVB in an attempt to do the whole "DVB-S to DVB-T" thing (at Technotrend's own suggestion, incidentally). So far? Nothing. It's configured under "Online Media" to go for Astra 2D, but I'm not getting a single channel in the channel scan. Please, PLEASE can anyone suggest what I can do?!? Thanks for your time! (And believe me, I tried reading the 104 page thread on Sky in MCE many, many times - none of the suggestions in there have helped, unfortunately...)
The Technotrend Media Center tools are for MCE 2005 only & do not work with Vista. I have never used the Universal DVB Receiver so wouldn't know how to start configuring it. It certainly does work with FTA channels from all the reports that I have seen. The UDR does work so it must just be some configuration error on your part. I would start off nice & simply & just aim to scan one transponder that is mapped to a DVB-T frequency first. One problem with the UDR may be that as it was developed in Germany where the first dozen or so DVB-T channels actually use VHF frequencies then if you map to these then Media Center will not scan them if your location is the UK. I encountered this problem with the Hauppauge fake DVB-T drivers for their DVB-S cards. The lowest valid DVB-T frequency for the UK is 473.833MHz I have given up on the Technotrend cards for Media Center as their support is so poor. There is a fundamental problem with their driver architecture too as it is impossible to use two of their devices each with a CAM decrypting two channels simultaneously. The card is excellent for HDTV & I use it exclusively with DVBViewer now. If you want reliable problem free DVB-S TV in Media Center FTA or encrypted then get a FloppyDTV or FireDTV device. BTW for any owners of Floppy/FireDTV devices there is a new all-in-one package of drivers from Digital Everywhere that now includes a special free version of DVBViewer renamed FireDTV Viewer plus the support tool, BDA & MCE drivers etc etc Go to http://www.digital-everywhere.com/ choose Downloads from the menu in top left of screen & then Integrated Drivers Setup. There is a good user manual that tells you all the steps that you need to perform. You can setup so that you can use Media Center for SD viewing & FireDTV Viewer for viewing HD channels without having to reconfigure the system.
JUst a quicky, sorry to but in to the thread. Nigel, do you use the DVBviewer on your HTPC with a link in MCE or do you not use the MCE interface these days Cheers Jon
I use Vista Media Center most of the time for scheduled recordings from the Media Center EPG but I now use the new FireDTV Viewer which is a customized version of DVBViewer available to Fire/FloppyDTV users. This means that provided that there is a free tuner that I can use FireDTV Viewer to watch e.g. BBC HD but this is outside of Media Center.
Hi Nigel, Thanks for that info i was wondering if i should try free to air Sat but i would want to keep the Digital tuners i have in MCe. Jon