[mythtvnz] naive questions about Satellite and Australia channels

[Brendan Dacre]

On 19 November 2011 20:56, Jason Haar <jhaar-ourshack-com at whanau.org> wrote:

> Hi there
>
...

> I've heard that NZ (I'm in Chch if that matters) can pick up some
> Australian channels over Satellite, so my questions are:
>
> 1. does the Satellite dish need to be pointed in a particular
> "different" direction than it would for "Freeview NZ" satellite?
>

No, it's the same satellite (Optus D1:  Sky, Freeview, SBS, Nine, Gem, Go)

2. I "google-saw" some old posts about issues with polarity (polarity!!
> why do we even need to know about such things!!!) screwing up recording
> NZ and Australian shows. It was implied that was a red-herring and a
> single tuner should automagically know what to do with each channel - so
> I just wanted to check if that was the case
>

Both SBS (Tasmania) and Nine are on vertical polarity beams and Freeview
and Sky are horizontal.  It is not possible to tune a horizontal and
vertical beam on the same lnb simultaneously.  This is not a problem if you
have only a single tuner since they are on separate multiplexes anyway.
 But if you want to record more stuff simultaneously, it would be wise to
have a dual lnb as well as well as multiple tuners.  If you want Nine, Gem,
Go, you will also need a DVB S2 tuner.

4. The Big One: What's the best satellite USB tuners? I'm wanting a new
> smaller backend server and being able to throw out the PCI card and go
> USB tuner would help a lot. But I don't know how reliable USB tuners
> are? Once they're plugged in, are they rock solid or do they flake out
> on occasion? Also, can you record more than one show simultaneously on
> them (like PCI), or are they a one-show-at-a-time kind of thang
>

Some people say USB is fine.  My personal experience with a Volar HD (DVB
T) is that it has recording artefacts that my HVR 1200 does not have from
the same aerial.  I suspect it varies from tuner to tuner.

Brendan
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