[mythtvnz] DVB-S card

[Michael West]

Liviu Dunaev wrote, On 23/01/15 10:20:
> Can you please recommend a good DVB-S card to use in NZ ? 
> I would normally do the reading and all that and decide, but this time this is a recommendation for a friend of mine, so I don’t want to tell him to buy a card that doesn’t work with MythTV in the end. 
> So a DVB-S card that would do multiplexing (multiple recording and viewing in the same time) would be good, but please let me know the ones you actually use and work and they are not a great pain to use/configure in MythTV. 

Note in myth recording and watching live TV are the same as watching live tv it is actually just recording it as a temp recording.  Most of the time you don't watch live tv and instead watch a past or currently recording show and watching on one or more frount ends does not effect the recording cards.  So when dealing with multiplexing in myth you have to think about how many channels you want to be able to record (or watch liveTV which is the same) at any one time.  Most DVB-S devices will do multiplexing on a single MUX but not across MUXes.  This means that if you have just one DVB-S tuner you can record 2 or more channels at the same time if they are both broadcast on the same MUX.  Freeview in NZ is spread across two MUX's mostly with Prime channel on a third sky MUX.  So one tuner you can record multiple channels but there will be many conflicts when switching between two channels.  I normally get it to record a minute early and a few minutes at the end which stops you missing the end/start of programs but also makes it harder to record across multiple channels with a single tuner.  So a single DVB-S turner that support multiplexing on a single MUX but if you can't record at the same time between say TV2 on TVNZ MUX and TV3 on Mediaworks MUX so can get frustrating.  Myth can record programs an hour later on the +1 channels some times which is handy to avoid conflicts.  So it is usable with one tuner but much less annoying with a dual tuner or two single tuners.  

I personally use a dual DVB-T internal card and DVB-T is cheaper and better in most ways unless you live in a low coverage area or don't want the extra storage demands of HD content.  You can mix DVB-S and DVB-T tuners in myth as well but it may add a few steps in the channel setup I think.

The only DVB-S tuner I have used is off tradme and it comes as an external black USB box which is slightly bigger than a pack of cigs.  The cardboard box it comes in is red and black with the words "Digital Satellite TV Tuner" in white writing on blue.  But this box comes in more than one version and it's hard to know what chipset you will be getting.  Most of them have good working linux drivers but normally require extra firmware to make them work.  They normally just plug in and are detected in current Linux machines but will post a dmesg error saying can't find the file with the firmware which you can then google to find how to generate or acquire somehow.  These external usb tuners can run hot and if not properly ventilated may have issues on a hot day.  I haven't really used my DVB-S tuner much in real world use though sorry so best to wait for others opinions. 

Michael