Howto Replace Sky+ with a HTPC

8kvscdpglqnyr4

I'd like to start a thread on howto set up a HTPC to replace a Sky+ box in Ireland (withoutfor the extra pay channels ... i.e. Sky1, Discovery ... etc). Think this could be very useful as there is lots of information out there, but it's very difficult to tie it all togther. If we can capture all the information in one thread, then it might be worth having it as a sticky.

The requirements of such a HTPC are:
- pause, rewind live TV.
- EPG (with record capabilities)
- Support for RTE/TV3/TG4 Terrestrial and BBC/ITV Satellite channels.
- Record one channel while watching another
- RED button works from interactive services (such as BBC)

I don't actually know how to do this myself - I'm kinda stuck! That's why I'm posting here I guess.

Here's my setup currently: HTPC with DVB-S2 card (Terratec Cinergy). I can receive all the FTA channels using DVBViewer and I have EPG working (the EPG downloaded and updated daily via a scheduled task). It's not a dual card so I can only watch/record the same channel. I do not have a DVB-T card yet. I have pause rewind working.

So I would really like to complete this project and get all of my requirements working and give Sky the boot.

SI have a bunch of questions and I hope there are poeple on here who have come across this before:


1. Does Vista MCE support DVB-S (is there any special DVB-S cards that are only upported)?
1a. If yes, does Vista MCE support 2 DVB-S cards or a dual card so I can record one channel and watch another?
1b. If no, can DVBViewer do the job for me?
2. Can Vista MCE support 2 DVB-T cards or a dual DVB-T card so I can record one channel and watch another?
2a. Does DVBViewer support this?
3. Can I use DVB-S and DVB-T in Vista MCE?
4. Can I use DVB-S and DVB-T with DVBViewer?

mediacentre.ie

1. No DVB-S support. Only the new Vista OEM TV pack 2008 gives native DVB-S support. Most card manufacturers have DVB-T emulation software to get around this. you then can use a DVB-S card in MCE.

1a. It does support more than one card.

1b. DVBViewer works with more than one card.

2. yes

2a. yes

3. With DVB-T emulation

4. yes

You didn't say anything about a CI or CAM? do you have these already?

here is a good guide:

http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/skymceintegration.html

8kvscdpglqnyr4

thanks mediacentre.

I've installed TV Pack and the EPG seems to be fine. But I can't see any channels. I get this message: "there is currently no tv signal detected for this channel". That's the message for all channels. My DBV-S card is a Terra Cinergy. All channels are available using DVB Viewer. Any ideas?

TV Pack is exactly what I'm looking for. The EPG and the overall look and feel is much cleaner than DVBViewer. Now all I have to do it get it working.

I've ordered one of these: Pinnacle 7010ix. It's got a dual DVB-S and a dual DVB-T tuners. It's supported within Vista MCE too. If this works, then it's good bye Sky!

I will post back here with the results from Pinnacle 7010ix.

8kvscdpglqnyr4

mediacentre.ie wrote: »

You didn't say anything about a CI or CAM? do you have these already?

I mentioned in the initial post that I didn't want any of the pay channels and I don't want to continue a sky subscription.

I want RTE via an antenna and BBC etc via Satellite.

mediacentre.ie

sorry I should have seen that. RTE won't be available on DVB-T untill Q3-4 09.

The DTT was just a trial for the dublin and outskirts area. It looks like a good card though.

I use freesat as well. BBC HD is great. not sure why it isn't working for you? did the channels scan ok? your card might need different drivers for the TV pack. Try BDA drivers.

8kvscdpglqnyr4

I'm hoping to get "analogue" RTE via an antenna and use the Pinnacle 7010ix to tune in the stations. From the description of the Pinnacle:
"Automatic Antenna Signal Matrix
Depending on the antennas connected, up to 4 channels can be received simultaneously (2x DVB-T / analogue and 2x satellite). ... In order to simplify the connection to cable TV and antennas in analogue TV and DVB-T reception modes, the Automatic Antenna Signal Matrix ensures that the signal(s) of connected antenna(s) will always reach both the tuners."
Do you think that will work with RTE at the moment? I'm hoping it will.

From reading about my card, it sounds like it's a driver issue. I'll have a look for a BDA driver later on. Thanks again.

8kvscdpglqnyr4

So my new Pinnacle 7010ix arrived yesterday. It is probably the easiest piece of hardware I've ever installed.

I put the Pinnacle 7010ix into the PC, connected the 2 co-ax cabels from the sat dish and booted. Vista immediately picked it up and downloaded the correct driver without any input from me. No need for a reboot!

I launched media centre and setup my region and the tv signal. Within 2 minutes I was watching BBC/ITV/...etc. Used EPG to recored one channel while watching another. I'm very impressed with Vista and the TV Pack 1008 update in combination with my new Pinnacle 7010ix.

Now I have to get an aerial in the attic and get the terrestrail signal setup for RTE and TV3/TG4.

Is there EPG available for the Irish channels in the Vista Media Centre EPG?

HLF

Hi divil_a_bit, How did you get on with the 7010ix. Can you confirm this card can receive Satellite, Terrestrial and Analogue TV in Ireland. For Terrestrial in Ireland does it have mpeg4?
If so I will have to get one.

8kvscdpglqnyr4

HLF wrote: »

Hi divil_a_bit, How did you get on with the 7010ix. Can you confirm this card can receive Satellite, Terrestrial and Analogue TV in Ireland. For Terrestrial in Ireland does it have mpeg4?
If so I will have to get one.

I'm going into the attic this evening or tomorrow and installing the UHF and VHF aerial. I'll post back with the results. I'm not living in a area where I can get digital so it will be analogue for now.

As for the card - I'm delighted with it. All satellite channels no problem including BBC HD.

HLF

I got the 7010ix and installed it noprobs. My OS is MCE 2005 SP3. When I went to “Set up TV Signal” and selecting the current region as Ireland I got a dialog box stating “Unsupported Region” Tuner hardware does not support the TV format from your region…..

Apparently there is a patch called Universal DVB Receiver (UDR) for MCE 2005.
http://dvbportal.dyn1.de/forum/index.php?board=14;action=display;threadid=510
It makes a DVB-S card look like a DVB-T card, which is supported by MCE. And can be found here.

http://www.reycom-mediacenter.ch/rmcdownload_mc.asp

I installed the patch but still get the same dialog box when I choose Ireland, however when I choose UK it now gives a choice of two DVB-T and one DVB-S tuners (did not do this before the patch was installed). When I proceed using the UK as region and scan for services, I get none detected. This is with one satellite and one analogue cable connected.

Any help appreciated.

8kvscdpglqnyr4

I'm using Vista Home Premium with Tv Pack 2008 installed.

When I go to “Set up TV Signal”, I can select my country as Ireland and I can also chose my county. It's fully supported.
For DVB-S Vista doesn't even perform a scan as Media Centre has all the DVB-S channel information built in for your reigon specified (frequency, polarisation ... etc). You'll still need to perform a scan afterwards as some of the frequency information is out of date and you'll need to retune some of the channels - it's really easy.
For Vista Media Centre with TV Pack 2008 there's no need to install the hack that tricks Vista into thinking it's a DVB-T card and not DVB-S. Tv Pack 2008 supports DVB-S.

I haven't tried analogue yet. I hope to get to this at the w/e. I'll post the results here.

HLF

Installed the PowerCinema software that came with the 7010ix and it would pick up satellite channels and the analogue Irish channels, SD and analogue picture quality is pretty good.
I will give DVBViewer a go over the weekend. How does DVBViewer compare to Vista Home Premium with Tv Pack 2008 installed. Would you recommend upgrading to Vista.

8kvscdpglqnyr4

Great to hear you got the 7010ix working with analogue feed - I have yet to try this. Will do it at the weekend hopefully. I have to buy aerials (UHF and VHF) and get into the attic.

I've tried a lot of media centre software. At one stage I had multi-boot on my machine: XP, Vista and Mythbuntu. I tried MediaPortal on Vista and XP, I tried DVBViewer, and I tried MythTV on Linux.
The easiest by far to configure/use was Vista Media Centre. It also was the nicest eye candy.
For a while when Vista hadn't release TV Pack 2008 I was using DVBViewer. It's a great little piece of software and well worth the price of the license, but since TV Pack 2008 was released, I haven't looked back.

There are some disadvantages of TV Pack 2008 with Vista you should be aware of:
1. One 2 of each tuner type supported (i.e. 2xDVB-S + 2xDVB-T ...)
2. The recodred TV format is DRM protected (WTV format) and you need to run a conversion utility to allow it to be played on anther machine.
3. H264 is not supported out of the box - there's a new DLL available on thegreenbutton that works for me though.

But even with those disadvantages, I still think Vista Media Centre is much better that other alternatives.

If you are upgrading, it might be worth getting Vista Ultimate as you can have 4 of each tuner type and are not limited to 2 of each tuner type.

Tech Overhaul

Korbin Eager Roadkill wrote: »

But even with those disadvantages, I still think Vista Media Centre is much better that other alternatives.

If you are upgrading, it might be worth getting Vista Ultimate as you can have 4 of each tuner type and are not limited to 2 of each tuner type.

I went and bought a Pinnacle 7010iX to play around with. I had an old P4 machine doing nothing so I thought I'd try windows 7 on it and then I went and got the tv card. Plugged the pinnacle card in and started windows 7. It installed the drivers itself and I didn't need to install the tv pack that vista needs. Windows 7 seems to have everything install already.

@HLF I think that you should try windows 7 before buying vista might save you some cash!!

One question: When I was setting my region I picked Carlow and Astra2 satellite 28.5 but it didn't pickup any channels but when I changed it to UK and astra2 it worked fine. Not sure why this is. Is this the only satellite that can be used in ireland or is there others as well? (Don't know much about this end of the deal)

fanny_mae

Well I finally finished building my HTPC with a Pinnacle 7010ix and everything works perfectly.

I'm using Vista with Tv Pack 2008 and all works a treat. I have 2 analogue feeds for RTE/TV3/TG4 and 2 DBV-S feeds for satellite. I hired a guy to install the aerial as I needed UHF and VHF (I live in Galway) and I wasn't confident to install myself.

This is an ideal card for us here in Ireland. And when RTE swap over to digital, the card should work also.

irishgeo

anyone got any links to the cheapest place to pick on a Pinnacle 7010ix?

google search doesnt bring up any hits.


also where does one get this tv 2009 upgrade for vista.

stephene

Just bought one myself from BigPockets.co.uk for £44.99 + shipping
Pinnacle 7010iX
Seemed a decent enough price.

I have a Blackgold BGT3540 6 in 1 in Windows 7 working lovely with DVB-S, however, DVB-T is another story. I can scan all the Irish DVB-T channels ok, but it refuses to view them. AltDVB and DVBViewer work perfectly with the terrestrial channels. I had the same problem with the TV Pack in Vista, more than likely a driver issue.

So I'm going to give the 7010iX a shot.

You can never have too many TV tuners

I'll let you know how I get on.

Stephen.

irishgeo

stephene wrote: »

Just bought one myself from BigPockets.co.uk for £44.99 + shipping
Pinnacle 7010iX
Seemed a decent enough price.

I have a Blackgold BGT3540 6 in 1 in Windows 7 working lovely with DVB-S, however, DVB-T is another story. I can scan all the Irish DVB-T channels ok, but it refuses to view them. AltDVB and DVBViewer work perfectly with the terrestrial channels. I had the same problem with the TV Pack in Vista, more than likely a driver issue.

So I'm going to give the 7010iX a shot.

You can never have too many TV tuners

I'll let you know how I get on.

Stephen.

yeah got one from bigpockets myself

Beno

Would this card work with ntl cable.

HLF

Got Vista HP on eBay for a good deal, so went ahead and upgraded. Also got the 7010iX on eBay but they were all gone when “irishgeo” was looking for one last week. Found links about the setup of TV Pack 2008 on Green Button and to the and the needed software here and here.

@Beno – I don’t have any cable TV in my setup but there is an option to select a cable input when setting up the card in Media Centre.

I have had a few problems setting up the card.
1)The Satellite reception is fine however the Analogue channels sometimes have the audio out of sync. Can’t seem to stop it happening, tried different drivers for the 7010iX including the BlackGold 6in1 with no luck.
2)Also the card does not pick up Channel4 and Film4 which would be my most used Satellite channels. I can pick these up with the Sky Box.
3)When changing channels sometimes the picture gets stuck on the previous channel in a 1second replay jitter but the audio changes to the new channel. Maybe my system is not powerful enough. PentiumM 2.26GHz, 2GB Ram.

lotas

the one thing i have learned from MCE work is the processor is usually not the bottelneck... Graphics horsepower and Tuner encoding is though... what kind of graphics card do you have?

8kvscdpglqnyr4

I have a Pinnacle 7010ix also.

HLF wrote:

1)The Satellite reception is fine however the Analogue channels sometimes have the audio out of sync. Can’t seem to stop it happening, tried different drivers for the 7010iX including the BlackGold 6in1 with no luck.

I have the same problem and I tried to fix it via the same route.
I posted a description of the probelm on avforums, thegreenbutton, and on the pinnacle forums. I've found no solution to the problem. I had 2 other analogue terrestrial TV cards lying around so I stuck them into the new HTPC and they both worked fine for RTE/TV3/TG4.

HLF wrote:

2)Also the card does not pick up Channel4 and Film4 which would be my most used Satellite channels. I can pick these up with the Sky Box.

I can pick up these channels no problems (also Channel 4+1 and Film 4+1). The default frequencies Media Centre has for these channels is wrong and they don't work "out of the box". You need to do a full scan again of all frequencies and you'll discover there are lots more channels out there. When you have done that you can still getting EPG to work for these new channels by editing the channel and using the EPG for another channel on the newly tuned in channel.

HLF wrote:

3)When changing channels sometimes the picture gets stuck on the previous channel in a 1second replay jitter but the audio changes to the new channel. Maybe my system is not powerful enough. PentiumM 2.26GHz, 2GB Ram.

I don't have this problem. Changing channels is smooth an instant. BBC HD takes a little longer to load (maybe 1 second) than the other channels. Switching from a DVB-S channels to an analogue channel takes a little longer also as Vista is swapping cards (from the Pinnacle to the Hauupauge). But changing between RTE1/RTE2/TV2/TG4 is instant.
I have a 2.9GHz dual core AMD (5600+) with 4GB RAM.

@HLF - feel free to "bump" the threads I have started on thegreenbutton, avforums and the pinnacle forums with your problems.

HLF

My graphics card is a Radeon HD 4550 512M passive cooling. The hanging when changing channels is still happening but seems to occur less.

I found Channel4 and Film4 and the EPG – Thanks. But only get audio for BBC HD.

I used my old USB TV tuner and the analogue channels are fine now. I only have a PCIe slot for a graphics card and a PCIx slot for a tuner. The case is a Shuttle SD11G5, very quite but not a lot of space. Will just have to wait for DVB-T to get it all inside the case..

8kvscdpglqnyr4

HLF wrote:

My graphics card is a Radeon HD 4550 512M passive cooling. The hanging when changing channels is still happening but seems to occur less.

I'm using onboard graphics card with HDMI output - can't remember the spec of the GPU, but this is the board. It's perfectly able for HD viewing. It's great that you have a passive cooled GPU. I bought a new heatsink and replaced the stock heatsink on the CPU. It's a low profile Zalman and I can run with the heatsink fan off. I've dropped the voltage on the CPU by 0.1V (read on AMD forum that this was possible for the 5600+) and the core temperature never goes above 45 degrees even at 100% load. So with not fan on the CPU, the machine is really quiet.

HLF wrote:

I found Channel4 and Film4 and the EPG – Thanks. But only get audio for BBC HD.

I have BBC HD with no issues. Did you follow the instructions here?
http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/297287.aspx
All I needed was the info from the 1st post on this thread. Worked first time. Ful EPG available for BBC HD so it's easy to set up shows to record. Nice to have HD shows recorded so it's easy to show people the capabilities of the HTPC.

FYI, there's EPG available for the RTE and BBC radio stations on DVB-S too.

HLF

Got BBC HD working- Thanks again

irishgeo

i cant get mediaportal to detect my pinnacle 7010ix.

i tried using the 6 in 1 drivers from blackgold but it still wont detect it any ideas.

or can anyone upload their driver for me

8kvscdpglqnyr4

irishgeo wrote: »

i cant get mediaportal to detect my pinnacle 7010ix.

i tried using the 6 in 1 drivers from blackgold but it still wont detect it any ideas.

or can anyone upload their driver for me

I'm not using mediaportal as I never had any success with it.

The drivers I'm using for my Pinnacle 7010ix I found here:
http://cdn.pinnaclesys.com/SupportFiles/PCTV%20Drivers/PCTV%20716x/32_bit.zip
All Pinnacle drivers are here:
http://cdn.pinnaclesys.com/SupportFiles/PCTV%20Drivers/ReadmePCTV.htm

eddiem74

Ok, you guys have tempted me to see what TV viewing should be like via Media Center.

I just ordered my 7010 today from ebay, so hopefully should have it in the coming days.

In the meantime to get ready I installed TV Pack, etc. over my existing Vista Premium SP1 install (recent fresh install done, so am giving that a go first before doing it again).

I did have some problems with the DLL update, so in the end just copied it over the existing DLL and registered it which seemed successful? Hope I didn't screw anything up?

Now just waiting for delivery............... :rolleyes:

eddiem74

Ok, so ordered Sunday, card shipped Monday morning, and received the card yesterday in the post........not bad !

I couldn't wait, so stuck the card on my ASUS P5K mobo in the PCI Express x1 slot (fits the card perfect), took a sat cable from my Sky box and stuck it in the Sat1 connection on the card.

Powered up, and vista detected it, and installed the lastest drivers. I then went in and set-up TV and downloaded the guide data. BBCHD worked straight off the bat, however some channels needed a rescan, and in fact I done some scans per transponder which did pick additional channels e.g. channel 4.

So will have a deeper look into everything over the next few days.

I did notice a split second lag when changing channels sometimes, and sometimes also a picture freeze of the current channel when scrolling to the next channel which had no signal.

Apart from that so far so good.

bazwaldo

Nice one. I have the card and satellite dish arrived during the week. Can't wait to install everything. Not sure whether to keep Vista and install TV pack etc, install a fresh Win7 beta on another partition or upgrade to Win7 on top of Vista.

Fresh install might be best until RTM.

Got the dish off ebay and arrived with no instructions. Worked out most of it but as usual have a couple of pieces left over

Zilog

bazwaldo wrote: »

Got the dish off ebay ....

Hi Bazwaldo, looking for a cheap sat dish myself to use with the Pinnacle 7010, where did you get yours on fleabay? Did you get a multi LNB with it?

Thanks, Zilog

bazwaldo

Zilog wrote: »

Hi Bazwaldo, looking for a cheap sat dish myself to use with the Pinnacle 7010, where did you get yours on fleabay? Did you get a multi LNB with it?

Thanks, Zilog

I have a mate up the north who travels to Dublin weekly so I can get stuff shipped to him. This is what I ordered. I did a search for satellite dish quad lnb on ebay and narrowed it down from there. Basically picking the cheapest delivered of a mesh dish 60cm or more.

This dish is actually an oval 57cmx78cm. Looks grand and wasn't too hard to install despite there being no instructions with it.

Maplins have good deals and have a look at http://www.satworld.ie and http://www.satellite.ie too.

Zilog

Thanks Bazwaldo, adding "quad LNB" to the search really narrowed things down all right!

You got a good deal with that dish. Amazing difference in price posting to Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland all right.

Cheers, Zilog.

bazwaldo

Ran the cables from the dish to HTPC yesterday along with installing new Gigabyte Radeon HD4550 gfx card, pinnacle 7010ix tv card and 1TB samsung drive.

I kept getting "Media Center Receiver Service has stopped working" and could not setup TV in MC. Installed all windows updates, still no joy. Disabling pinnacle card sorted it out so there was some clash with it and something else. Uninstalled Vista codec pack and all other codecs and reenabled card, hey presto I could use the pinnacle card. So now I have a hauppauge pvr150 for NTL channels and the pinnacle for twin sets of satellite channels. Reinstalled Ffwdshow as the only codec.

In MCE they have channels muddled up in guide. 103 is TV3 on NTL and UTV on Satellite. Did anyone get anything like that with having 2 different card types? Can the numbers be changed? Theres no edit numbers option in the edit channels. And there are hundreds of satellite stations and loads are blank. How can I quickly remove the garbage from the guide?

BBCHD worked and the picture is great along with all the sat pictures. However I have experienced a lot of hangs where I've had to kill the power to reboot.

All very messy so far and seems very fragile. WAF is well down. I could try Windows 7 but that could be even more risky.

bazwaldo

I've some questions about the dvb-s experience.
1) Can I get channel5 to work? Its marked as locked. Is that cos we're in Ireland?

2) I have itvHD found. I had to add it manually and do registry edit. But it displays as an audio channel. Will it display video when there is something on (i.e. a champions league match)

3) There are loads of additonal streams for BBC and ITV etc. I assume these are related to the red button on freeview/sky. Can they be integrated into the MC and linked to the main channel and be available via some button?

4) There are hundreds of channels. Do people remove all they don't watch to keep the epg managable?

5) I get bluescreens when changing channels frequently. I reckon its either Vista can't handle 2 tuner cards properly or the pinnacle drivers. I took the drivers that windows found and tried to update them to the pinnacle or blackgold drivers. But Vista said the drivers were already up to date. Anyone get any bluescreens with the 7010ix and what drivers are you using?

BaconZombie

Anybody know the best place I can get a 7010ix card?

bazwaldo

BOFH_139 wrote: »

Anybody know the best place I can get a 7010ix card?

They're back on ebay. "PINNACLE DIGITAL SATELLITE & FREEVIEW TV RECIEVER CARD" for £47 delivered to Ireland.

BaconZombie

Thanks, just ordered one.

bazwaldo wrote: »

They're back on ebay. "PINNACLE DIGITAL SATELLITE & FREEVIEW TV RECIEVER CARD" for £47 delivered to Ireland.

requiem1

Decided to join the club and bought one having read this thread, not sure what exactly i'll end up using it for but its always nice to have the option:D