FTA Satellite PC card

pbirney

I'm considering buying a PC satellite receiver card and came accross a supplier in Dublin (Marx Computers). They're quoting €179 incl VAT. for a Pinnacle model. See link below:

http://www.marx-computers.com/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi?product=Graphic&cart_id=

Does anyone have any info. on this card? Is this a good price for a PC sat card?

/Paul.

irishgeo

would i be able to use a vidoe sender so send the singal to this recorder or would i have to use the correct coax cable.

byte

You would need the co-ax cable connected to it.

That card is €171 on Komplett.ie so not much difference. I've ordered from Marx before and they're pretty good.

I use a SkyStar 2 card which I got free from Europe Online. Very basic though it works grand with 3rd party software called DVBviewer. Currently trying to get Sat@Once to work to no avail.:(

watty

Seems a poor offering compared with www.technotrend.de premium sold in Ireland as the Hauppauge Nexus. I have the older Hauppauge DVBs PCI card.

Pinnacle have no history as TV card and esp Sat card maker.
They bought some German companies (The DC 10 Video Edit card is actually a Miro). It uses Serial port for IR control.

Pinnacle is a Video Edit SW company.

You can get a basic Card for 60stg. (Check adverts in What Sat). PC World Sells the Hauppauge Range.

Avoid the cheap cards and avoid the Hauppage Nova / Technotrend Basic unless all you want is Data application really. The more expensive cards Nexus/Premium have a Multimedia Bridge Chip, SVideo / Composite out , 5.1 Digital out, and Hifi Audio Stereo out and DSP to convert the MPEG into analog onboard.

Also the Nexus/Premium models can have a CI board for viewing card added (no Sky CAM available).

I would buy a DC 10 Edit card or maybe even risk the Pinnacle Analog Win TV card (but Hauppauge is better supported), but not the PC TV SAt card.
Go here http://www.pinnaclesys.com to see how badly the card is described.
Also unlike analog TV cards, All Sat card record the Sateelite data "as is" so as to have perfect playback. Either the Pinnacle card is wierd or they writer of the brochure knows nothing about the product.

They sell it direct ( http://shop.pinnaclesys.com/openshop/pg.exe?00000000000000090019649500000004000022e8 ) for €179 too

pbirney

Many thanks for the info. watty. Yes, the Nexus certainly looks a better option.

watty

I'm running my sat card on XP pro on a Dell 933MHz PIII
BUt I have tested it on a P166 original Pentium, Win98 and NT4.0 fine.

It does NOT need a 3D accelerator, but DOES need a graphic card supporting at least 16M RAM / Direct Draw.
If not there is no PC screen display, but the card still works and o/p to TV!

To get WinTV analog card and Sat card on screen at same time switch off "Overlay" mode on the Sat card!

I'm using the Technotrend 2.15 SW on my old DVBs Hauppage card. Nexus is supplied with 2.10 version.
The 2.15 version is much nicer with OSD and "learning remote"!

The Nexus /Premium etc has a on board jack for supplied IR remote Eye

johnnyq

I have a fairly old WIN 95 would it work on that ?

watty

The older Hauppauge drivers might work on original Win95.


Sat@Once working fine on my card, should work fine of Skystar2, (bbetter as it is a Data card). You need to set an IP address in the virtual Network adabptor. By default it is DHCP (automatic) which won't ever work..

Lennoxschips

I'd stay well clear of Pinnacle, I bought one of their TV Cards and their own software wouldn't work on it. Their support is non-existant, so I was on my own.

Currently running it fine using a handy little freeware programme called DScaler, which I would recommend to anybody with a TV card.

byte

Originally posted by watty

Sat@Once working fine on my card, should work fine of Skystar2, (bbetter as it is a Data card). You need to set an IP address in the virtual Network adabptor. By default it is DHCP (automatic) which won't ever work..

How would I go about that? I have to currently use the old EON software as DVBviewer refuses to work with Netsystem software for some reason.

I assume I could replace one of the default EON transponder settings with whatever I need for Sat@once. But how do i get it then to accept whatever data is being sent. BTW, what is "pushed" via Sat@once?

watty

Pushed means they fill your local Hard Disk "casablanca" cache with compressed data.

"Lucy" lets you browse the newsgroups (it is an NTTP server) that are pushed with Netscape/ Outlook/Agent whatever.

You use whatever browser you like to browse the Cache if Casablanca is running, optionally links out of cache can be enabled (Internet dialup activates) or disabled ("The page is not available").

Voting controls what is in your cache from Satellite.
If LOTS of votes are for a Site/newsgroup than it is added to transmission carosel.

http://once.csp.it/english/index.php
Look for Help setup..

Casablanca DVB Data settings for Sat card:
Freq = 12604000
SR = 22000
Pol = H
Unicast PID = 512

* Use MAC address of the board
[ ] No T-Dsl

PID to add = 768
Broadcast PID = 512
the multicast announcement address is "228.67.3.0"
the port is "1767"

The IP address of the sat card needs set in Networking..
192.168.xx.2 is fine
Subnet mask 255.255.255.0
where xx is NOT equal to IP used on any other Network adaptor in the PC, (typical home / office LAN is 192.168.0.nnn).
i.e. 192.168.3.2

A cache on a separate partition is best (install the Casablanca to whichever drive you want the cache on, not nessarily C:)

Unlike EON it is free and works (mostly).

The Satatonce team also push film trailers, usefull utility programs etc.

byte

Hmm, i think it's working atm. it's downloading websites afaik! All German and Italian! How do I get film trailers etc? Can I not just download what others voted for like EON?

watty

Vote for the stuff in Casablanca "favorites" you want
Send the votes
Clear the Casablanca cache
Then you get less non-Eglish stuff

Yes the Matrix 24M trailer etc downloads in seconds...

Enjoy, It may not be roadband, but its free!

byte

I was hoping for film trailers etc though, not websites. Ah well, as you say it's free!:)

watty

Yes there are about 200M of trailers. Cgheck the different sections on your "Tuner Portal"