Digital cable on PC-card?

Lennoxschips

I have an analogue PCTV card, I was wondering if there was any software out there that would let me decode unscrambled digital cable signals. I.e. some kind of an MPEG tv viewer that gets the signal from the analogue PCTV card?

Is this possible, or is the analogue card unable to pick up the frequencies?

Also, on an unrelated question, are terrestrial DVB boxes usable on a digital cable system?

watty

a) No. You need a digital Cable TV card. And a card reader for the NTL viewing card.

It is very rare for a Cable company to support use of ANY equipment they do not supply. Though you can buy a PC Cable TV card, it is unlikely to work.

There are FIVE main flavours of TV card.
1) Analog Terrestrial, i.e. WinTV. Works usually 45MHz to 860MHz, PAL, Secam and NTSC and all varients. Decent ones have composite and S-video inputs. Some do BandII VHF radio. Only more expensive ones do continental Zwei sound or Nicam. Recording may be painfull for Disk and CPU resources as the signal needs to be converted to Digital. Only tunes AM video RF. Nearly impossible to get playback identical to original.


2) Digital Satellite or DVBs. Usually will tune from 750MHz to 2150MHz, though with a normal LNB nothing like this range is needed. Only tunes QPSK modulation. It may unravel MPEG2 or MPEG4 in a DSP chip or by PC SW. Viewing encrypted channels requires usually a card reader and HW or SW "CAM" and a valid viewing card. Most commonly used for FTA Satellite as no viewing card is needed and recordings simply copy the data. Playback is perfect, same as live TV.

3) Digital Terrestrial, DTT or DVBt. Usually will tune from 470MHz to 860MHz, but some do tune from 45MHz. . Only tunes QAM modulation, typically 2K or 8k COFDM signals. It may unravel MPEG2 (or MPEG4 soon) in a DSP chip or by PC SW. Viewing encrypted channels requires usually a card reader and HW or SW "CAM" and a valid viewing card. Most commonly used for UK Freeview as no viewing card is needed and recordings simply copy the data. Playback is perfect, same as live TV.

4) Digital Cable or DVBc. Usually will tune from 45MHz to 460MHz, t Only tunes cable TV QAM modulation. It may unravel MPEG2 (or MPEG4) in a DSP chip or by PC SW. Viewing encrypted channels requires usually a card reader and HW or SW "CAM" and a valid viewing card. NOT commonly used as a viewing card is needed and often the Cable TV company will not co-operate in suppling a CAM. If possible with your cable company recordings simply copy the data. Playback is perfect, same as live TV.

5) Analog Satellite. Works usually 800MHz to 1750MHz, 25MHz FM versions of Video with baseband PAL, Secam and NTSC and all varients. These are obsolete and now hard to get. Stereo or mono by choice of selecting any audio subbcarrier or choice of 9 preset frequencies. Recording may be painfull for Disk and CPU resources as the signal needs to be converted to Digital. Only tunes F.M. video RF. Nearly impossible to get playback identical to original.

watty

Lennoxschips wrote:

I have an analogue PCTV card, I was wondering if there was any software out there that would let me decode unscrambled digital cable signals. I.e. some kind of an MPEG tv viewer that gets the signal from the analogue PCTV card?

Is this possible, or is the analogue card unable to pick up the frequencies?

Also, on an unrelated question, are terrestrial DVB boxes usable on a digital cable system?

Both questions:

No. It's impossible. Though the frequencies of an Analog TV card do cover digital Cable. It won't work.

Only continental DTT boxes would do cable TV frequencies, UK boxes won't but it won't work ANYWAY as the modulation is totally incompatible. Also the encryption needs an NTL compatible CAM for the NTL card.

Lennoxschips

Thanks very much for the answers.

The reason I'm asking is because our cable company (Casema Amstelveen) relays the radio station Studio Brussel on digital cable, but not normal cable. (I still use analogue cable)

They are charging 99 euros for the receiver box and 30 euros for the card. I was trying to figure out where I could get a cheapo box, as I only want it so I can listen to the radio station through my stereo.

The number of differing standards is quite annoying.

watty

Lennoxschips wrote:

--snip--

The number of differing standards is quite annoying.

Well the characteristics are very different:

Satellite: Plenty of bandwidth but weak signal, little interference basic PSK works best. 10.7 to 12.6GHZ as compromise between increase gain with frequency on a dish, decrease gain with frequency due to rain and cost of electronics.

Terrestrial: very variable signal, multipath reception, spot frequency variable interference, 8K COFDM works best. UHF as best compromise between band size, coverage and aerial size etc.

Cable: Limited bandwidth, strong fixed signal and no multipath. Basic 64 QAM is fine. VHF/Hyper band to reduce cable loss (UHF has too much loss in cable).


Hence incomaptible modulation methods as well as the different frequency bands used for each "platform"

rogue-entity

Do "all-in-one" cards exist? Is it possible to get a card that could tune and receive DVB-T and DVB-S. Do most cards provide CAM slots?

On another note relating to NTL. NTL (at least in Ireland) uses Syster's Nagravision system. NagraVision CAMs exist and can be gotten. IIRC Nagravision decoders have a serial that is tied to the card. With the CAMs that you can buy you can change the serial to that of your decoder. I think the serial is shown in the Engineers menu on the NTL decoder. This would in theory allow you to watch your NTL channels using your legal sub in another receiver, your PC or a Homebrew PVR (Dreambox).

gphelan

rogue-entity wrote:

Do "all-in-one" cards exist? Is it possible to get a card that could tune and receive DVB-T and DVB-S. Do most cards provide CAM slots?

There are 'Hybrid' cards available, but I'm not sure I've seen one for both T and S, only Analogue and some form of DVB.
To use a CAM you need to buy a card which has CI capability (CI stands for CAM Interface I think?) - you can then connect this card via a flat cable to a CI module or CAM interface card (generally PCI, sometimes a module to fit in a 3.5" floppy bay). You then need to buy a CAM and slot it into the CI module, and stick your (legal) viewing card in the CAM.
There's a good selection of these cards on dvbshop.net. You could also have a look at terratec.com or club3d.nl to name but a few.

watty

It is technically possible. But DVB-t and DVB-c use different modulation schemes and are different markets.

Almost no cards have CAM slots. But CAM can be added three ways:
1) Some CAMs will work in a PCMCIA / PC Card adaptor
2) Some cards have a header for a CI board, which is like a PCMCIA socket and takes a CAM
3) A PC can emulate a CAM. Then you just need any ISO card reader supported by the Emulation SW (soft CAM) to use the legitimate viewing card.

Solutions that don't actually need a physical card exist, but are seriously illegal in USA and EU. Very severe penalties here in Ireland.

Generally it is in T&C of Cable / MMDS that you can ONLY connect authorised equipment (unlike satellite) as they are renting you the Cable connection and have TOTAL control. So NTL/Chorus might cut you off. It would be best to try and get approval emphasing that you are only viewing the channels you paid for with the legitimate viewing card.

It anyone get permission to use their own Cable box or PC based PVR, we will be interested to hear it.

If there is ANY suspicion of getting more than you pay for or otherwise illegal activitiy then there is NO hope of being allowed the solution.

Only LEGAL and approved access to pay TV can be discussed anywhere on Boards.ie and ICDG.

rogue-entity

Thanks, that answers my question. I will look into getting a DVB-C/S card with CI support. I would not attempt to use an illegal solution to receiving pay channels. Of course I do not consider using "unauthorised" equipment to receive paid-for channels illegal although as you said, I could get myself cut off.
I will probably discuss it with NTHell first.

bk

rogue-entity wrote:

I will probably discuss it with NTHell first.

:rolleyes: Good luck to you trying to talk to NTL CS people about this, they won't have a clue, hopefully they will quickly put you through to someone in engineering with a clue.

Let us know how it goes, I'd be very interested in a legal solution to feed a media centre.

Wouldn't it be great if NTL supported the cable card standard. I'll stop dreaming now.