Best non Sky box for FTA ITV 2

IrishBazza

I am lead to believe that you can receive ITV 2 from a non Sky box. What is the best box around to receive ITV 2 from a FTA card in other channels?

Would a second hand Nokia box do the trick?

Any help would be appreciated, as I am missing the football on ITV 2

JDxtra

I don't know which is the best - but as this is only a "test" it could disappear without warning at any time. I wouldn't go about getting a system set up just to recieve one test channel.

watty

If you want to enter the wierd world Non-Sky Satellite TV you have two main routes:
1) Dedicated NOT-Sky Digibox, ideally with CI slot.
OR
2) PCI DVBs card for PC.

You wouldn't do it just for ITV2 or a Test Channel
If you have 4 LNBs there are about 750 Free TV and Radio channels, though lots are not in English. Not much problem for most of the Pop video TV and Music Radio though. A few Pay channels on Sky are free on other Satellites (CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox News, Al Jazera, German version of MTV). BBC World TV (free) is very similar to encrypted BBC News 24 on Sky.


1)Advantage of Standard CI Digital Receiver:
SR from 3500 to 40000 (Digibox only 22000 or 27000)
Multiple LNBs or Dish positioner
Can buy CAM and subscribe to NON-Sky services
No PC needed.

Disadvantage:
A Sky card won't work. No FTV BBC etc, only FTA Sky channels from Sky. (Boot a Digibox with no card to see what I mean).
You need 90cm Dish for reliable Hotbird13E and Astra 19E. A 1.2m dish recommended to get Thor, Telstar, Telcom, Hispsat etc.

2) Advantage of PC:
All the stuff (1) Does. (CI slot is option too).
Hard disk recording more like Sky + than Tivo
Gypsy Media Digiguide only 8Euro a year
Can edit Hard Disk recording to SVCD and play on DVD
TV / Audio connector feed for TV /VHS / Hifi
Data mode for Web pages or Newsgroups etc via Satellite at about 2M b/s

Disadvantage of PC:
Can be tricky (like installing anything on PC) to setup.
More expensive for CI slot
Need a PC already or expensive

PC Spec:
Need modern Graphics card (PCI or AGP) that works in Overlay mode and at least 128M RAM and 200MHz Pentium family. At least 1024 x 768 screen. Probabily Win98SE or better Windows XP. Problems with Win95, NT4.0 (old drivers), Win ME and Win2000(All new support is XP= NT5.1, Win2K = NT5.0).

Recommend Hauppauge WinTV DVBs PCI card, Hauppauge Nexus PCI card or Technotrend Premium HighEnd TV PCI. Don't go for USB solution. Cheaper cards need high power PC and don't have a TV out connection or DSP chip. Some only do DATA

watty

You want CI, because although you can't put Sky card today, SKy *might* be forced to release a CAM for their card.
You might want to subscribe to BBC Prime or ABSat or Canaal Digitaal (15 Euro FTV card for year fot Dutch TV). A CAM is £100 to £200 and fits into a CI (like or same as laptop PCMCIA slot). The viewing card, which looks like a Sky card slots into the CAM.
Embedded CAM is like a Digibox card reader, except usually for Viaccess system. (Digibox is Videoguard system - no separate CAM )

watty

I think all seasonsed Sat-watchers would agree the FTA ITV-2 is very wierd and likely to stop any minute. Probabily just as you plug in your "new" receiver.

Also if you have a Digibox, an additional receiver, Digibox, PC based or dedicated non-Sky Diigital receiver needs its own LNB feed. To see same Satellite you either need twin or quad O/p LNB or multiple dishes. A 2nd Lnb on the same dish will by laws of relection "see" a different satellite and give poorer signal as only one position of LNB is the "prime focus".

I have two dishes with 3 lnbs each and 2 other dishes with one LNB each.

byte

Originally posted by watty
You want CI, because although you can't put Sky card today, SKy *might* be forced to release a CAM for their card.
You might want to subscribe to BBC Prime or ABSat or Canaal Digitaal (15 Euro FTV card for year fot Dutch TV). A CAM is £100 to £200 and fits into a CI

Canaal Digitaal for €15 pa? What are the channels? Are they any good? And what bird do they broadcast from?

A CAM is something I'm looking into and dunno whether to get a MagicCam or AllCam. What's the diff?

tia

chernobyl

/me: nudges byte.

Get a motor.

You wont get any channels of prominence for €15pa, and currently the running order for a viewing card [which are 99% full package cards] is €600.

Go feedhunting, its much more fun...man i want meh dish back.

You have an excellent setup for feedhunting now, with 2 DVB's and a STB you could clean a bird out in 1-2 minutes.

byte

Yeah, you're probably right! But H2H costs big monies and it's getting close to Xmas! I'll prob have to wait until new year to fulfil my quest to buy a H2H motor. That could give me additional problems due to where my dish is. it is at very back of house facing the back roof so when i motorise it, depending on what it wants to look at, the roof may obscure signal.

watty

15 Euro is just Dutch FTV channels.. Alright if you from there!

I just have a "polar alainged" mount for the 1M Dish. The dish was 10 Euro. The "mount" is basically two mounts cobbled together, it has scratches for all the main "Birds". I just move it by hand. Because it is polar aligned with correct dish elevation, it can go +/- 45 degrees from true due south (NOT zero degrees), without LNB or up/down tilt adjustment. I will add a wiper moter or if I get rich buy a positioner H-H mount.

ALLCam and Magic CAM are non-approved "patched" CAMs. Normally each encryption system has its own CAM (Which is like a Laptop PCMCIA card). The CAM has a slot for a viewing card like but never a Sky card...

Some services work with just a CAM. Anything "decent" (Hallmark, Animal Planet, Disney) or very "indecent" (stuff that won't get an 18 cert) needs a subscription which gives you the viewing card.
Some subscriptions you get the CAM from service provider too.

Here BBC Prime is Viaccess and about £75 pa. UK residents arn't allowed to subscribe. Its on Hotbirds 13E

Of course some folks think they can do their own card.

The "fine" in Ireland for watching encrypted PAY tv without paying is VERY VERY hefty. Unless you want to be poor for a very long time you don't do it in Ireland and certainly don't sell "home made" cards to do it either. Blank ones and a programmer are not illegal as these could have legitimate use .. A novel way to program your lego robot for instance.

I have 4 LNBs on my PC based Diseq switched system giving over 750 FTA stations.

If my 4th LNB on its own 1m Dish was motorised I'd do more "feed hunting" But I'd probabily want a 1.2 or 1.8 m dish as well as moter / positioner.

I just click on Record button on PC if something interesting and it autogenerates a filename with station date and time...

I'm also considering what size of dish is needed for C Band (3.5GHz) as it has services that cover 1/3rd hemisphere not available on Europe Ku band beams... maybe!

David C

Thinking of ordering a receiver today/tommorow...
Whats the cheapest place to get them? Anyone got a few links for receiver sellers?
Looking for one for FTA stations only so CI slots not essential for use on Hotbird/Astra 2

The one site I found, Brymar has a fair selection, the following are in my price range:
Manhattan Skyline 1000 UK£169.00
Humax F1 Fox UK£180.00
Televes RSD7254 UK£199.00

Anyone have any strong feelings for or against any of these receivers? Do the cheaper ones suffer from slow channel changing/menu loading?

Thanx..

David C

Never thought of looking at Tony's satellite.ie... very reasonable prices.. cheaper than Brymar for Humax anyway

So which is better/faster then? Humax or Digenius

Tony

Digenius is faster at channel changes but if you want only FTA then theres nothing in it. Can you email me as if I go into more detail here it may be construed as advertising and the mods have always been good to me here, dont want to push my luck:D

Tony

watty

If you want to sit in arm chair and mostly watch TV get the box Humax, Digigenious etc (Never heard complaints on Humax, but the other may be fine).

If you want to search for stuff and fiddle around and have Satellite Data too, then the Tecnontrend Premium/Hauppauge WinTV DVBs PCI / Hauppauge Nexus-s is the thing.
Auto FEC, SR 1,800 to 40,000
Radio, Data, TV, PAL, NTSC, TV out for TV sets, Digital Audio out and easily use text editor to edit satellite transponder lists from www.lyngsat.co for fast scans. EPG magasine on most of the German stations, Teletext. Hard disk record at a click or on schedule times.
You can add CI for a CAM later too. It has its own DSP chip so almost any PC with Win98 / Windows XP (64M win 98, 128M win XP minimum). It provides perfect SVCD playback to TV out and screen on a lowly P233 too.

Cloud

Tony, you have my permission to go into more detail on this occasion

In general, advertising is not welcome on boards.ie, but I think in this case it is okay [especially since Christmas is coming and a certain administrator is also thinking of investing in something other than a DigiBox].

Damo, Ronan, hope you don't mind me treading on your toes just this once...

chernobyl

Cloud, get a dream box.
It is the ultimate Satellite STB it has everything and you can even write your own OS for it as its runs unix!

http://www.dream-multimedia.tv

€350...

Sure you can get the Digenius for €207 delivered to your door, but it lacks NTSC support which is a magor downer.

DMC

Originally posted by Cloud
Tony, you have my permission to go into more detail on this occasion

In general, advertising is not welcome on boards.ie, but I think in this case it is okay [especially since Christmas is coming and a certain administrator is also thinking of investing in something other than a DigiBox].

Damo, Ronan, hope you don't mind me treading on your toes just this once...

Anytime sir, I'll allow it!

Tony, go whore yourself to the boards! Sell your wares!

Tony

Thanks Damo, in fairness though I'll need some guidance on this as it caused some friction before after everybody kindly helped to debug my website. I think the fairest way is to just keep the URL in the signature so anyone can contact me directly. Cloud we must meet for a pint its been too long

Regards Tony:D

watty

Having watched MSNBC feed on Telstar12, the first NTSC sat channel (analog or digital) I've seen I wouldn't hold my breath for NTSC support. If you have an NTSC TV it will work on any analog or digital receiver as the receiver doesn't care about NTSC, SECAM, PAL only D2MAC needs special HW.
If your TV isnt NTSC or SECAM you get B&W picture.

I was going to buy a Humax F1 Fox last Feb, nearly bought a cheap buget box in Wot Sat, but it vanished and got the Hauppauge DVBs PCI card in Blanchardstown instead.

Like anyone, I'm of course baised in favor of what I have got. Outputs to Digital audio, HiFi, internal lead for sound card or flying lead, real TV out, perfect Onscreen video too and gives you HW performance play back of Satellite recordings, SVCD and MPEG2 files to TV out and on screen, even on a P200 cpu.

I have the PC in a corner of Kitchen and a hole in wall alows the IR remote sensor which has a flying lead to be in living room which allows Favorites or all channels on Radio or TV and channel and volume. At PC the remote does FS/ Window and Teletext. (Teletext is only on PC, as is EPG now/next and EPG magasine)

It also allows the free Casablanca Satellite web page downloads and newsgroups downloads (currently 2Mbits).

It does click on button recordings of the satellite data as is so play back is 100% same quality as original, or scheduled recordings.

It has Diseq support so I have 3 LNBs on one Dish and a 4th LNB on a 1m steerable dish using a £20 "Global" 4 way Disq (Thought I saw one of those on Tony's site).

You can get a CI adaptor for CAM or else a scary russian program that does CAm and card in SW (think about how scary that is!).

If you going a standalone box pay a bit extra for a CI. Otherwise you will have to buy an entire new box if you want to plug a CAM in. I thought I would NEVER want a CAM. But now I'm ordering the CI board for my card.

The Card really only uses the PC to record or do Teletext, epg or display on PC. Display on TV seems to take no CPU effort on my P233 at all. It gives a better picture and sound than Digibox on the FTA Sky channels.

It can do the new MPEG4 Open Sky channels on 7E and 11W which can't be received by any set-top box. You use the cards DATA mode and a 600MHz PC or better then decodes the MPEG4 via SW and Media Player. Your (low cost) subscription to Open Sky services or TV is linked to the MAC address of your PC satellite card so no CI/CAM/Viewing card required. (so my PC is not fast enough for Open Sky MPEG4 TV).

Don't go for cheap Satellite card, as they have no TV out OR no DSP chip and require the PC to do all the work.

But absolutely go for a CI standalone box if PC based stuff is not your scene.

chernobyl

Originally posted by watty
It can do the new MPEG4 Open Sky channels on 7E and 11W which can't be received by any set-top box.

I think a Nokia D-box with DrHanz software and your SCSI can do it along with MPEG 4:2,2...the WWF apparently tried 422 about 2 weeks ago for a PPV [i never seen so many emails in a news group before...Sat nerds into WWE..hehe] but i think they have reverted back to mpeg2.

The Digenius *could* handle NTSC like any other STB but its the OS which does not like it and only produces a black screen on the offical Digenius boxes and a "flicker" on the Palcom clones.

SRB

Humax boxes aren't that NTSC friendly either - any I've come across will either give a blocky picture with sound, a still frame with sound or a moving picture that breaks up every 4 seconds or so.

mfield

Can you use the likes of the Dream Box for a Sky subscription card and FTV card as it has two smart card slots ? Can they be run at the same time? Sorry if this sounds a bit stupid Any help appreciated.


mfield.

telecinesk

Does somebody actually have a dreambox?
I wasnt sure they had been released yet>

The Nokia(9600) D box wont do 422> I have one with a SCSI card and the only thing I can do is stream the data from the inet feeds and grab v sharp pictures from the box.Its dosent stream pictures realtime into the scsi. I had hoped it did so dumping my videocard. Good fun, you can flash cams too if you have dvb2000 or wanissa software. Fast box, menus are written in vis basic so no graphic hungry logos.
9600 can handle ntsc really well.Not to mention other things..
Worth finding one s/h..
regards.

chernobyl

Originally posted by telecinesk
The Nokia(9600) D box wont do 422>

It does 422 ib the manner you described and thats is the best you can do without paying €6000 for a reciever.
**Apparently** an American dude has developed software for a DVB card to do it in real time....**

Originally posted by mfield
Can you use the likes of the Dream Box for a Sky subscription card and FTV card as it has two smart card slots [/i]

I will say it now and you will be able to quote me for n on this, NDS will never release a CAM and Sky will never release their Digibox software so that it can be developed for other STB's.....you wanna watch Sky, then get a Sky box.

watty

Originally posted by SRB
Humax boxes aren't that NTSC friendly either - any I've come across will either give a blocky picture with sound, a still frame with sound or a moving picture that breaks up every 4 seconds or so.

I wouldn't be put off Humax/Digigenius for lack of NTSC. You might hardly use it. The aforemention PC Card does it perfect, but doesn't convert it. On screen though you have to tick the NTSC properties box and restart the application. This is only so the Direct Draw window is corect, it doesn't affect the TV out connector at all.

watty

Originally posted by chernobyl
It does 422 ib the manner you described and thats is the best you can do without paying €6000 for a reciever.
**Apparently** an American dude has developed software for a DVB card to do it in real time....**



I will say it now and you will be able to quote me for n on this, NDS will never release a CAM and Sky will never release their Digibox software so that it can be developed for other STB's.....you wanna watch Sky, then get a Sky box.

I heard that the "older" SCSI interfaced Nokias are better than "new" ones for "logging" and recording streams (In theory you can record *all* the FTA channels on one transponder if your PC is fast enough and then "channel flick" on playback).

Re: CAM and Sky...
Unless the EU threaten BskyB/ SSSL/ NDS with a VERY big stick you will not get a Sky CAM (for NON-Digibox) and you wil NOT be able to put a CAM for NOT-SKY into a Digibox.
This is why I have two Digiboxes as well as the PC Card DVBs and am *VERY* upset about RTE etc.

byte

Originally posted by chernobyl
Cloud, get a dream box.
It is the ultimate Satellite STB it has everything and you can even write your own OS for it as its runs unix!

http://www.dream-multimedia.tv

LOL You're still on about the Dreambox! It's incredibly well priced if it's only €350?!

Have you got one yet?

chernobyl

At the moment the only model available is the €600+ 120GB version...and no i dont have that.

I am still waiting for permission to mount a single Triax 1.1M (i feel so nakkid) and hope to mount it via 36v H2H motor but it will truely test meh skillz to get the full 45/45 arc on it.

Im not too sure, but @ €350, i dont think the HDD is included..i could be wrong.

The box itself does not incorporate the MagicCAM [some legal issues] but both CI slots are connected to processors which are designed with encryption emulation in mind.

byte

Originally posted by chernobyl
The box itself does not incorporate the MagicCAM [some legal issues] but both CI slots are connected to processors which are designed with encryption emulation in mind.

Sorry but what does this mean? Are certain boxes not able to use MagicCAM?

Tony

eehhh How shall I put this, magic cam are in court in Germany thats probably why

Tony

watty

The theory of the box makers and providers is that one encryption system = one cam.
Since the ultimate smart of an ecryption system is often the CPU and memory in the viewing card, there are now several flavours of multicrypt CAM (magic, allcam etc).
Since this is not what the box designers expected, yes, not all multicrypt cams work in all boxes. Some boxes need SW "patched" or "upgraded" to recognise a multicrypt CAM.

Probabily -- maybe -- there is nothing inherently illegal about such a CAM if you still have to pay the same price to real provider for the real viewing card and it does just the channels it is supposed to do.

Almost certainly CAMs that don't need a viewing card that is normally needed, or give extra un-paid viewing of Pay TV are illegal.

Obviously if CAMs are expensive and you subscribe to providers that use different CAMs an AllCam or Magic CAM used with a real card might save money without defrauding the provider.

Some providers supply both CAM and card (SECA2?). A Viacesses Provider such as BBC prime expects you to get your own (beside Viaccess is often a built in "cam") and just sends a Card.

If a Magic CAM makes it easier to use "pirate" cards such as Picard, funcard and etc, then it is doomed. Because that would easily be construed as illeagl by good laywers

telecinesk

Chernobyl>

Have you seen a 9600 do 4.2.2? Based on the fact I have the scsi working well is ther something I need to setup? Mail me, I will try 7East feeds from EBU?> Sounds well interesting to have another go//

chernobyl

telecinesk: nope i have never seen it do 4:2,2 but i can put you in touch with a guy who lives for 422 feeds and he only uses Dbox/SCSI.