[mythtvnz] Satellite tuner recommendations please

[Stephen Worthington]

On Tue, 24 May 2016 15:03:16 +1200, you wrote:

>Hi Stephen,
>
>Thanks for all the helpful info.
>
>On Mon, 23 May 2016 23:02:29 +1200
>Stephen Worthington <stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 23 May 2016 17:03:34 +1200, you wrote:
>> >I currently have two TeVii S421 DVB-S tuner cards, which suffer
>> >from a couple of problems:
>> >(1) They seem to be not very sensitive, in that my Freeview box
>> >can tune all stations with no trouble, but the cards are a bit
>> >iffy on some channels.
>> >(2) They are supposed to work with the 3.13 kernel under Trisquel,
>> >an Ubuntu-derived Linux distro, but they don't.  They work on the
>> >same hardware under Debian Wheezy, using the Liplianin drivers and
>> >an older kernel (3.2, I think).
>> >
>> >I would like to know if anyone can recommend anything better.
>> >Need something that:
>> >* Works with stock 3.13 kernel
>> >* Is reasonably sensitive
>> >* Available in NZ
>> >* Not too outrageously expensive
>> 
>> What sort of card are you looking for?  The S421s are PCI, and PCI
>> tuner cards are not very easy to find now.
>
>I have PCIe slots too.
>
>> Nor are DVB-S2 tuners as
>> generally available in NZ as they used to be, let alone Linux
>> compatible ones, so you may have to buy directly from overseas.
>
>Fine; can get 2 units of TBS 6902 from the site you mentioned,
>around $250 including shipping. That will allow recording from
>all three Freeview transponders simultaneously.
>
>> I have a TeVii S470 PCIe DVB-S2 tuner, and a TBS 5922 USB DVB-S2
>> tuner.  Both work OK, but for the TBS one you need to compile the TBS
>> drivers as it is not supported in kernel.
>
>I'll give compiling a try before I buy any hardware; the Liplianin
>drivers won't compile for my current kernel, so if the TBS ones will,
>that'll do me.

Yes, the TBS drivers will compile fine for modern kernels, and they
have ongoing support to make sure it stays that way.  They are not
always ready for bleeding edge kernels though, but the current driver
download is dated 5/4/2016 so it will be fine:


http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/document/common/tbs-linux-drivers_v160405.zip

The same driver download works for all the TBS cards, but you have to
compile it again every time a new kernel is installed (unless you can
turn it into a DKMS automatic install).  That has considerable
nuisance value.

>> They have a large selection, including USB as well:
>>   http://www.tbsdvb.com
>
>Link didn't work ... 'server not found'

Sorry, typo:

  http://www.tbsdtv.com

>> While looking at my options, I ran across the Vbox Ethernet tuners.
>> They are now supported in MythTV (certainly in 0.28, but possibly also
>> in 0.27).  Their web site sells to NZ, and they have dual tuner DVB-S2
>> and combined DVB-S2/DVB-T models:
>
>Interesting, but we sometimes like to record many channels at once,
>and the VBox ones appear to be limited to two.

I have not investigated the VBox software enough to know if they can
do multirec - if they can not, then that is a pretty stupid thing for
them to have done.  But there would still be the problem of only being
able to record from two transponders at once, and with some of the
Freeview channels being spread over Sky transponders now (and more
going that way very soon), my guess is that four tuners is probably
what is needed now - two for the Freeview dedicated transponders and
two for Sky transponders.