DVB card

[Vanos_b]

A friend of mine wants to buy a DVB card (he already has a digital receiver and antenna) and he asked me about it, but I couldn't tell him much. The only thing that I found in my town is Miro PCTV Sat. Anybody has experience with it (or with other similar cards)? When capturing you can dumb the MPEG-2 stream directly or it needs reencoding (I think not but just to be sure, I'm not very familiar with digital receivers)? And what about scrambled programs: do I steel need that aditional CAM PCMCIA (and probably a CI-module too, I don't know how exactly these work either)? Or they can be descrambled like DVDs? And the quality is really DVD (I don't think so, but again it's just a guess) Thanx for any feedback.
Regards.

[Zhnujm]

you can record the mpeg-2 stream directly. if you need to reencode depends on what you want to to with the captures. the resolution is different from channelto channel , i seen 480x576, 544x576, 720x576, 704x576, so you have to reencode to correct the aspect ratio.

for decrypting scrambled programs you need a ci interface and a cam module (other ways may exists), but it seems that the pctv sat doesnt support that.

in general there a 2 different types of dvb cards:
-with hardware mpeg-2 decoder (around 250€, with support for ci/cam modul)
-without hardware mpeg-2 decoder (around 130€, without support for ci/cam modul)

the quality depends on the channel/resolution/movie, but its somewhat near dvd quality. ( much better than all of my analog captures, i must say)

[Pojken Purken]

Zhnujm is correct - Miro's card doesn't support CI-modules where you can put a CAM for encrypted programs so stay away from it. All the DVB cards from Hauppauge, Galaxis, Siemens and SkyStar are actually the same as Technotrend's http://www.technotrend.de/ and for these cards there is a CI-module available where you can put two CAMs (a slot version and a bay version). With the right software you won't need it though. MultiDec f.e. emulates Irdeto, Mediaguard and Viaccess (you still need the right codes though). MultiDec is freeware and there are a few issues with it, recording and hangings f.e. Be aware of what hardware revision your card is. There are 1.3, 1.5, 1.6 and 2.1 - 1.6 seems to be problematic together with MultiDec and the 2.1 doesn't have RGB output. The original software though works almost flawlessly with all revision levels.
For the video quality the bitrate is variable and normally varies between 4-6mbit/s, a bit less than a DVD and blockiness is unfortunately very appearant on some channels and certain video material. Apart from the resolutions Zhnujm mentions I'v also come across 528x576.
The audio appears to be 192kbps MPEG1 layer II on all the channels I've checked.

I have a Hauppauge DVB-S rev. 2.1 and although the limitations I'm very satisfied with the results. If you're into DivX or VCD-encoding all the tools on this site works marvelously with the MPEG2 files created by the card.

Regards
PP

[Zhnujm]

some channels even use an additional ac3 soundtrack.

@Pojken Purken:
is the hauppauge dvb-s rev 2.1 the hauppauge "nexus" card or is it the card before the nexus ? want to switch to sat and dont want to get a rev 1.6 card. ;)

[Vanos_b]

Thanx for your replies. That's what I needed to know.
BTW: Anyone who has internet acces via satellite can tell me what sppeds does he reach (I finally found a Sky Star card at 225$ with one year internet-via-th-sky acces included)?

[Pojken Purken]

@Pojken Purken:
is the hauppauge dvb-s rev 2.1 the hauppauge "nexus" card or is it the card before the nexus ? want to switch to sat and dont want to get a rev 1.6 card. ;)

The Hauppauge Win-TV DVB-S is now called Win-TV Nexus and yes it's revision 2.1, that's the one I've got.

Regards
PP

[Zhnujm]

thanks, i go and buy one :)

[Vanos_b]

And one more questions: So if I have Pinnacle card I can't see encrypted channels at all?

[Zhnujm]

yes , you cant see any encrypted channel with the pctv sat because:
- you cannot upgrade a ci interface and a cam module
- the software that can decrypt without help of ci and cam doesnt support dvbs without hardware mpeg-2 decoder (not yet) :(