I'm looking for a DVB-C card to put in my MythTV backend, running KnoppMyth R5F1.
As I live in Belgium, and I started looking around for such a card a couple of months ago, I still have no idea what card suits best...

Anyone that has a similar setup and wants to share his/her ideas (and issues) with brands/card types/chipsets???
What card should I choose and what certainly not?

Thanks for the advice!

You may run into problems as its more than likely that the service will be encrypted. As it's unlikely there is a CAM (legally) available for your service and usually the smartcards are matched up to known STBs, it's unlikely you will be able to access them.
In addition I don't know the availability or reliability of these systems on Linux, but I would surmise they are not very mature.

Bruce S.

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I'm running a Technotrend C-1500HD+CAM with knoppmyth R5F1 in Sweden. It has been quite a hazzle getting it working, Ive been trying several alternative setups. But now it seems to work fine. With a bit of luck it might work right out of the box.

http://www.dvbshop.net/

Well,

I followed your advice and bought a card from the dvbshop.net webshop.

The card is recognised in the latest R5F27 knoppmyth setup, but when setting p an Input Source, it gives me a DVB-S setup...

Can you tell me how I can manage to get DVB-C running?

Extra info:
Indi here in the Antwerp Region distributes the 19 'standard' flemish channels for free over the cable... in digital format... They explicitly tell this on their website, in their FAQ region. www.integan.be

When you add a "capture card" (nr 2) in the mythtv-setup menu. Did you add CardType "DVB DTV capture card (v3.x)" in the drop menu? What does the subtype say? Mine says DVB-C.
This is the only place where I can see any reference to the subtype of my capturecard.

Looking under menu "Input connections" (nr 4), there's only a reference to "DVB:0". Nothing about DVB-C or DVB-S. I'm running ver R5F1,

Have you had any other capture cards working in this machine?

I said that I had a hazzle getting it working, that was only regarding the CAM module. Do you have a CAM/CI-interface?

kind regards
håkan

Well, indeed I saw the "DVB DTV capture card (v3.x)" in the drop menu, and selected it...

It took me about 4hours to get through the config. It wasn't the card setup that was giving me the hard time, it was the scanning of the channels that didn't work out of the box.
Buuuut... I managed!

I took a channels config file I found through googling, and compiled a channels.conf file out of it, which I entered into the EIT scan, if I can recall correct... It was an intense time struggling through these configs etc... where I didn't have any trouble when I first installed a MythTv setup with a Pinacclesys PCTVPro... analogue... The DVB principle was kind of hard to understand, without any knowledge about modulation, transponders etc...

But, bottom line: it works!!!
and it does veeeery good!

Now, for Belgium, we have 3 Digital TV providers: Belgacom TV (using a dsl line, where a decoder box gets the tv signal stuff through the internet connection), Telenet providing tv through their cable network along with their superfast internet connections (20Mbit/s is very fast in belgium), and Integan, the 'old' tv distributor. Integan has their In.Di network, providing digital and HD TV... Their less known compared to Belgacom and Telenet, they don't put a lot of marketing efforts into their sale, but they have 1 very nice feature: they allow smart-card-less connection for the basic channels! so, they're about the only digital tv provider in belgium, that allow MythTv to get native dvb-signal through the cable... They even put it on their website in the FAQ... (quick translation: "you can have digital tv in your computer. you need blabla, no decoder, don't need a smartcard or card-reader, and you'll get the basic package of 19 digital TV and 23 digital radio stations"...)

If I buy and install a CAM and CI, and get an irdeto card-slot-thing, and order In.Di's smartcard, I can probably have pay-channels and extra channel packages too... But I don't need it right now, so I'm not going to put my money in it right now...

I'll be buyng some more Satelco cards later this month/next month, to add some more input channels and record while watching shows

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BE: MSI K8Neo4 - Athlon X2 3800+ - 1GB (2x512) - KnoppMyth R5.5 - Satelco Basic DVB-S PCI card with CI and subsc., DVB-T and DVB-C FTA
FE1: ECS AM2 - AMD Sempron - 512MB - Mythbuntu 8.04 + Mythtv FE
FE2: AppleTV - MythBuntu 8.04

Good to hear that you got it all working...

Scanning channels is quite tricky. At least to get it the way you want and I agree with you that it's confusing with all the "DVB" technical terms. I haven't found any good reading about how DVB-C works. It feels very much that MythTV is still an "enthusiast product", designed by engineers, for engineers. But still I love it!

I normally do a separate scan



That gives me a file with all the available channels. Then I parse this into a channels.conf that I import.

What made you choose the Satelco instead of Technotrend?

håkan

Well,

The scan thing I have tried before, as you mention it, but I failed every time... dunno why...
Now, I tried another set of parameters of the scan program, like this:
scan /usr/share/doc/dvb-utils/examples/scan/dvb-c/be-IN.DI-Integan > /root/.czap/channels.conf
using the be-IN.DI-Integan file I found somewhere on the internet...
That gave me a good working channels config file...

I'd probably be better off using the full scan on the cable itself... but for now, the majority of the channels seem to work for me, and that's what I need most now...


Choosing Satelco over TechnoTrend? Well, first thing: I wanted to keep it as cheap as possible, because I wasn't sure it 'd work out anyway, so I didn't want to spend 100s of € on a card that might not ever get a signal it could use... Now that I chose the Satelco, and got to know and love it (it's cheap but it works, out of the box, and the quality is great), I think I'm going to stick with it...
Any advantages over the TechnoTrend (comparable models and prices off course ) that I should know of?

_________________
BE: MSI K8Neo4 - Athlon X2 3800+ - 1GB (2x512) - KnoppMyth R5.5 - Satelco Basic DVB-S PCI card with CI and subsc., DVB-T and DVB-C FTA
FE1: ECS AM2 - AMD Sempron - 512MB - Mythbuntu 8.04 + Mythtv FE
FE2: AppleTV - MythBuntu 8.04

Hello,


Would you want to report on LinuxTV your Satelco DVB-C budget pci card as being compatible with linux DVB driver ? Doing this, others might be assured they made the right choice in buying the card, even if it does not work just out of the box with them. You may do it even more useful when providing the names of the frontend (tuner) and chipset (pci bridge) the card is made of.

Here is the relevant DVB wiki entry, in case you are interested to do so.

Best regards.

Hi,

I noticed a quite recent post on this potential issue, on ubuntu-fr forums. Unfortunately for some of us, the post is written in French; that should not be a dead end for you, bkortleven, as you are living in Belgium. The issue was addressed by pluging an USB smart card reader in the box, feeding it with a legitimate subscriber smart card, and emulating the Common Access Module by software.


At present, your setup works well, thanks to the cleverness of your cable provider (so uncommon ). But in case you would be interested in upgrading MythTV to deal with the premium channels you subscribed to, there might be a way. Only requires further investigation.


I was not aware of this added complexity.

I posted (hope I did it right ) the info I have in the wiki...

Hope this helps everyone else looking for a very afforable DVB-C card that 'just works'

Can't wait to order a second one, to be able to record and watch at the same time

_________________
BE: MSI K8Neo4 - Athlon X2 3800+ - 1GB (2x512) - KnoppMyth R5.5 - Satelco Basic DVB-S PCI card with CI and subsc., DVB-T and DVB-C FTA
FE1: ECS AM2 - AMD Sempron - 512MB - Mythbuntu 8.04 + Mythtv FE
FE2: AppleTV - MythBuntu 8.04

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread...

I have just been calling around Belgacom, Telenet, and Integan about getting digital TV here in Antwerp when I saw your post here kortleven.

I run ubuntu Linux, Gutsy Gibbon (waiting eagerly for Hardy Heron). I get the feeling there's a strong chance I'll be able to get something working here, right?

Feel free to PM me if it'll be easier.