TechnoTrend DVB-S software

Muf

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Just noticed Technotrend have released DVB S software for MCE that works with all of the Budget series cards. Haven't had time to try it yet.

Jim.
 
Fantastic! Thanks for the pointer. The Technotrend BDA driver & software is the smoothest, fastest & most stable that I have found for any DVB-S card. It also supports DiSEqC & CI so can be used with muliti LNBs plus CAM & decoder cards.

At present the TT MCE software only supports FTA although it does support DiSEqC so can be used with multi LNB setups. It actually says on the web site "for FTA channels at the moment" which gives hope that they will support CI in MCE as they already do it with thier standalone BDA software despite their being no support ifor DiSEqC or CI in the BDA specifications.

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

I already have a couple of TT budget cards so will try this out this evening. It's a pity I ddn't see this earlier as I have just ordered the new Hauppauge Nova-S that also supports MCE
 
I just had a half hour to test it Nigel and it works, but haven't tried setting up any of the HD channels yet. Have to go out now for a few hours.

Jim
 
If I have a Sky mini-dish and I connect it up to this card would I get the freeview channels or is something else required?
 
OneEleven said:
If I have a Sky mini-dish and I connect it up to this card would I get the freeview channels or is something else required?
Pull your Sky card out of your digibox & you will be left with all the Free To AIr channels that you can receive with this or indeed any other DVB-S card.
 
Does this work through the "live TV" command or is it a external program in "more programs"?

If it tricks mce to think it's a DVB-T card, how do you get a satellite EPG?

thanks

Whitey
 
Whitey, yes it works through the normal TV button in MCE and you scan for channels within MCE in the TV set up, it emulates a DVB-T card. I don't know about the EPG, I only played with it for about an hour and uninstalled it again. I had two problems, firstly I couldn't move my dish, the DiSEqC 1.2 commands are blocked and secondly it won't work with my CAM and Euro1080 card. I think both of these problems are due to the driver, I had to uninstall the BDA driver and go back to the XP driver. I am sure this is a work in progress and will improve with new releases. As it is, it would satisfy most users who don't have a motorised dish or CAM. It is a pity that MCE doesn't have DVB-S support built in and companies like TechnoTrend have to devise work arounds. This is what makes MCE a half-baked effort in my opinion.

Jim
 
Techno Trend just released a new Beta version of this emulation software, which supports the CAM. I may get a chance to try it later.

Jim.
 
Please keep us updated!

btw which techno trend card do you have?

Whitey
 
Muf said:
Techno Trend just released a new Beta version of this emulation software, which supports the CAM. I may get a chance to try it later.

Jim.
Wow! This is great news. I will try & check it out tomorrow. I have got my old TT-budget S-1300 working with MCE on the FTA channels but I couldn't get it to work with the current S-1500 with CI. If this works it will be fantastic as I can then use my Dragon CAM & Sky card in MCE.

I have also just bought a Hauppauge Nova-S-Plus which also supports MCE & has a rather easier setup than the Technotren card. Unfortunately it appears that the tuner on this card is not as sensitive as any other that I have & while it works great in MCE I cannot receive any of the Astra 2D channels i.e. 90% of what I would want to watch (BBC & ITV).

BTW The Technotrend standalone BDA Media Center application is far & away the best that I have found for any satellite card. Fast & bug free.
 
New versions of the MCE tools, BDA drivers & TT Media Center application released yesterday 12th December.

I won't get a chance to test until the weekend but here's hoping for CI support to work with my Dragon CAM. Unfortunately I couldn't get this to work with the previous version. CI support is also a bit kludgey in that you have a little application in More Programs that allows you to select the CAM & the click on a button to start decryption. I'm really not sure why this has to be manually instigated as the TT Media Centre application does it quite automatically.
 
Whitey1977 said:
Nigel

had a chance to play with this yet?

Whitey
No, too busy this weekend. May not get a chance now until the Xmas holidays. Will report back.
 
I only had a brief play with it but couldn't get the CI decoding working with a Dragon CAM & Sky card. It's very kludgey as you need to click on a button that says 'Decrypt' it's not automatic at all.

As for the EPG I did the setup with MCE thinking it had a DVB-T card. I then edited the registry & entered the HeadEnd number that I found on my MCE system that is connected to a Sky digibox. So it downloads a Sky EPG. You then need to edit the channels & assign the individual channels to the appropriate EPG entry.

MCE is definitely not designed to work with thousands of channels. It becomes very tedious editing & assigning the EPG entries.

I will have to have another play sometime when I get the time.
 
nigelbb

Does the freeview stuff look better than with a DVB-T card?
 
Anyone fancy posting an idiot's guide to getting Sky through MCE with a subscription card?

I've stayed away from Sky, as I don't want the digital-analogue-digital conversion messing up the picture. This could be perfect.

I'd like to get Sky to install the dish and give me a card. Then I'll stick the card in the PC and start recording masses of Sky programmes.

Could I get Sky to do a free/cheap install and give me a card without buying a Sky box? Obviously I'll have to pay for the subscription. Do I need one card per DVB-S card, or will one card cover two tuners?

Thank you to the pioneers!
 
Am I correct in thinking that I can use one of the spare LNB feeds on my Sky+ dish to get all the free-to-view TV channels on the Sky digital platform in MCE? If this is so, how does it decode the Free-to-view channels that still use Sky’s encryption (ITV, C4 etc)? Do you need the separate CI module and a Free-to-view card?
Also, how does the quaility of this compare to a DVB-T solution (so far I've been deeply unimpressed with DVB-T picture quallity compared to Sky Digital)
 
Embarker said:
Does the freeview stuff look better than with a DVB-T card?
I have no DVB-T to compare it with but in theory it should b much better as DVB-S is transmitted at a much higher bit rate (typically double).
 
WheresMyArtisan said:
Anyone fancy posting an idiot's guide to getting Sky through MCE with a subscription card?
Can't be done in my experience anyway. You can have Sky scrambled channels with Technotrend's own application if you use a Dragon (aka T-Rex) CAM. You can have the Free To Air channels within MCE.

Could I get Sky to do a free/cheap install and give me a card without buying a Sky box? Obviously I'll have to pay for the subscription. Do I need one card per DVB-S card, or will one card cover two tuners?
Depending on the deal that you get from BSkyB the digibox will be free or at least very cheap. You will want a digibox in any case as the card needs to be re-activated in the digibox every few weeks. You will need one card for each DVB-S card.
 
Norman said:
Am I correct in thinking that I can use one of the spare LNB feeds on my Sky+ dish to get all the free-to-view TV channels on the Sky digital platform in MCE? If this is so, how does it decode the Free-to-view channels that still use Sky’s encryption (ITV, C4 etc)? Do you need the separate CI module and a Free-to-view card?
Also, how does the quaility of this compare to a DVB-T solution (so far I've been deeply unimpressed with DVB-T picture quallity compared to Sky Digital)
The ITV channels are now Free To Air. The only channels that you need a Free To View card for are C4, Five & Sky 3. To use an FTV card you will need the CI module & a Dragon (aka T-Rex) CAM (Conditional Access Module). You cannot decrypt the FTV channels within MCE but it works fine with the Technotrend software.
 
nigelbb said:
you will need the CI module & a Dragon (aka T-Rex) CAM (Conditional Access Module).

I see that I can buy the CI module with the card, but where can I get a Dragon CAM from?
 
I think the only way we will get sky in to MCE digitally (ie no analogue capture) is if sky goes down the same route as Direct TV in the USA. AFAIK they are launching a STB that can connect to MCE (vista) via USB2/Firewire that will allow recording and STB control. This should suit all parties involved since DRM can be put in place by the broacaster and consumers get HDTV in MCE.

In the UK we will probably get this in 5 years time!

Whitey
 
Ah well, never mind. Thanks for the info.

I've now seen all 12 programmes that are available on Freeview. There's only so much Fred Dibner I can take. I'll wait a few years for Sky or NTL to get the idea.

I guess the problem is that the broadcasters think PC user = hacker. I want to pay for Sky, I just don't want two digiboxes, remote eyes and scart leads everywhere (and a crap picture).
 

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