Sky channels on PC

Zaphod

A few months back I said I'd write up a post on using a Phoenix/Smartmouse with your PC and finally got round to it.

Smartmouse I got was cheap (€15) and cheerful version from ebay which is connected via serial port and 12V DC. Couple of different versions, but important thing is it has 3.5MHz oscillator.


The software is fussy about which programs it'll work with. OK with AltDVB and MyTheatre but with slight freezes/glitches every 6 seconds as it reads card. New versions of ProgDVB crash, but version 4.56.2 is rock solid with no interruptions (I find lots of other problems with newer versions of ProgDVB on my PC).
http://www.progdvb.com/download.htm

C4 and non-premium channels work immediately.




Premium channels require digibox ID to be entered. All channels are recorded unencrypted as either mpeg2 or pva.

Comes with usual health warning - not official and is no way guaranteed to work. But significantly cheaper than CAM route so not much money lost if it fails. Still require digibox for updates. The software has an update feature but I've yet to test that - need FTV card to deactivate first.

Ronan|Raven

You need to overclock your card to a higher frequency. Should stop the freezing you are getting. Will look for the frequency later when im back home.

Also using newcs as the emu for reading the card is apparently recommended moreso than some other emu.

johnplayerblue

Zaphod you the man, that looks so sweet and something i've been thinking about for a while now. Could i be a pain and ask for a few more pics of your set up and a few pointers on hardware used. You would be a legend if you put a step by step pdf guide with pics up on the web, perhaps even charge a few €€s for the pdf? I'd buy it anyways.
ps. would you recommend using a usb version of the smarthouse?

watty

No uSB, use serial. Some however have a USB port purely for PSU.

ONLY discusion of YOUR OWN legitimate card and no card sharing discussion or the thread vanishes.

I must try with a Sky HD card and the technotrend Budget DVB-S2. I have two on a PC with X1600 graphics.

Supercell

Works fine with a Cas 3 in smartmouse mode too for those that have one.

I've a cam anyhow which it works fine in too - the pc acts as a great multimedia centre.

If it's posssible to keep the ftv card active withhout having to put into the Digibox every once in a while that would be great, afaik only the Dreambox can do this?

JohnC.

Very interesting. Would processor intensive PC use affect the picture or anything like that? I'm not at all familiar with that device, so I'm not sure how it works.

Zaphod

Actual oscillator is 3.57MHz and serial baud rate set to 38400 on PC.

CAM software is NCEMUCAM 1.02 which can only be used with legit card and cannot be used for sharing.

1. Install the version of ProgDVB mentioned above.
2. Extract ncemucam file to progdvb/plugins
3. Power up smartmouse and connect up serial cable.
4. Enable plugin in ProgDVB via menu or .ini file settings
5. Insert card and hit 'initialise' on plugin menu. You should see keys being read from card and 0.5sec later screen should clear.

USB could be troublesome. A USB-serial dongle might be OK though.

The software seems to have place little extra demand on PC resources.

johnplayerblue

Thanks very much for that, much obliged.
I'm gona purchase a Smartmouse Phoenix, it looks like it will do the trick. Fingers crossed.
http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=020&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=300049263016&rd=1&rd=1

jaggiebunnet

Does this not need some sort of connection to your satellite or am i being a bit dim here?

Zaphod

Have been messing with this a bit more. One extra feature is that you can record a channel stream encrypted (e.g. Channel 4) using TSReader and can then pass the stream offline through the smartmouse with your FTV card for descrambling a few hours later.

So you could have multiple DVB-S tuners in a PC and record different programs directly as encrypted streams onto HD and then pass the files back through the Skycard/smartmouse combination for later descrambling.

It could also potentially be used to overcome Sky's restriction of accessing encrypted programmes on a Sky+ HD. In combination with Extract+ you could transfer an encrypted file from your Sky+ HD to PC HD, pass the files through the Smartmouse/Skycard unit and then descramble them on your PC.

The additional piece of software required is Joshyfun's 'offline descrambler'.

Zaphod

Not such a bad idea after all...

If no one have already try, i can confirm that is possible to extract and decode the movie form a Sky+ box (legally).

The procedure is quite simple (but a little longer) :
1) Extract the .str files with +Extract.

2) Decode with Offline Descrambler 2.50, using a CSA engine (like FFDecsa.dll, MakroCSA.dll o CSA.dll) as CSA Engine (from progdvb binary) and using NCEMUCAM as softcam, of course using a serial smartmouse (in phoenix mode at 3.56 mhz) with a official and active Sky smartcard in it.

3) Clean/remux the decoded .str file to an mpeg file with a .ts processor, the ProjectX works perfect for this job (but many other is suitable as well).

This procedure works with mpeg2 files, i can't confirm if it works with Mpeg4-H.264 HD recording of Sky HD boxes.

I think that this procedure is legally because you MUST use your ACTIVE smartcard to decrypt the files and the procedure purpose is onyl & simply to re-use your personal recordings, exactly you can with many other satellite receiver with pvr functions (like dreambox or clarke tech).

http://www.satellites.co.uk/satellite/sky-pvr-systems/127520-extract-all-recordings-sky-skyhd-non-only-fta.html

richie.c

Hi thinking of trying to set this up myself but need a little advice. Would any of the following dvb-s2 cards work?
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=342676
or
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=19659&agid=782

with this programmer
http://cgi.ebay.ie/Phoenix-Smartmouse-Programmer_W0QQitemZ110314343009QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_ConEle_SatCableFreeview_RL?hash=item110314343009&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1301%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

Thanks

Fat_Fingers

jaggiebunnet wrote: »

Does this not need some sort of connection to your satellite or am i being a bit dim here?

Yes, you still need to have your sat cable connected to DVB-S2 card

Zaphod

Either card should be OK if they have BDA drivers. The programmer should be OK if it has the 3.57MHz oscillator. More info:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055377735

watty

Now that all the main UK channels are FTA, there is not really any need for a FTV card on PC.
Is Subscription card worth the hassle since Sky+ or SkyHD drive TV better and have better EPG?

Does the Humax HD PVR make a PC based solution for FTA look "clunky"?

richie.c

watty wrote: »

Is Subscription card worth the hassle since Sky+ or SkyHD drive TV better and have better EPG?

I will admit Sky+ or Skyhd is a much easier way to view live tv, but for recording you have a much bigger hard drive space in the PC and with some software you can have a 2 week EPG which can be searched by keywords etc.