Which PCI card?

[sharpxl521]

I'm new to this so please forgive me if i'm asking something that's been asked 1000 times before.
I currently have Sky Digital and was planning on installing a TV card to my pc, so i'd have a second tv/recording/ editing rig in my office. Pretty simple and straight forward to do, as i already have a second aerial running in here. For best results, which card should i buy?. I see a few cards come with analogue and digital recievers, so one of these would be a good idea and futureproof, IF i was ever to get rid of the Sky. For the moment, i'm stuck with satellite because analogue and terrestrial digital aren't available, due to my rural location.
BUT....while looking into TV cards, i noticed satellite PCI cards are also available. Now if i hooked one of these up to the existing sky digital dish, would I be able to recieve any viewable channels or would i just get a heap of encoded signals?. Again, which Sat card is the best to go for?.
Thanks

 

[kalamar]

Hauppauge Nexus-S and SkyStar 1 are proven winners.If you got the $200. to buy one ,then thats the way to go. Use like.....ProgDVB and the right plugs and you will get all you can with this setup. If you cant get something special...well thats the way it is and nothing can be done about it at this time. But.......better days are a commin

 

[sharpxl521]

Ok, i've done a bit of reading around on the forum and to be honest, my head hurts. A lot of information to work through and take in.
Anyway, from what i understand, i'm not going to recieve anything without moving my dish?. Right or wrong?. Or are the bbc channels, ITV, channel 4 and 5, available, without the need of a viewing card?. Thanks

 

[Lancelot]

Doesn't really matter in this case as even if you bought a card with a cam slot there are no cams available for the system in use on 28E. However, you can get all of the BBC chnls and ITV3 but not ITV1, 2 or chnl 4 or 5 as these are 'free to view' and not 'free to air' .As K says any of the above cards are a good bet but better used on other satellites.

Hope this helps

L

 

[BGonaSTICK]

The SkyStar 2 is by far the best value for money, the most popular and best supported card of the lot. About £45. Will open just about any 'openable' channel.

STICK

 

[Slay3r]

What is the difference between the SkyStar 1 and SkyStar 2 ?

 

[sharpxl521]

What is the difference between the SkyStar 1 and SkyStar 2 ?

I second that. What's the difference?.

If i had one of these cards, would i be able to plug my existing digibox into it (RF2 Out) and watch on my PC?.
Also, how futureproof would one of these PCI cards be?.
Thanks for all the help so far ;)

 

[rolfw]

I second that. What's the difference?.

If i had one of these cards, would i be able to plug my existing digibox into it (RF2 Out) and watch on my PC?.
Also, how futureproof would one of these PCI cards be?.
Thanks for all the help so far ;)

If you are speaking of the Sky digibox, then RF2 is for UHF, not IF signals. A loopthrough from a standard digital satellite receiver would possibly work.

 

[kuti]

It depends were is your location.You can add another lmb and get hotbird and even astra,from where I am due south I can get Astr,Hotbrd,28 east and even Arabsat if I want on the same dish and just for experiment included W2 between Astra and Hotbird.
kuti

 

[BGonaSTICK]

The difference between the SS1 and SS2 is hardware video decoding against the software video decoding of the SS2 (so your PC needs to be fast PIII or PIV type spec with reasonable graphics card), provision for a CI slot card, and about £100.

The support for the SS2 is twice as good if not more IMHO.

Both though are excellent cards. You pays your money...

 

[jimbo]

The only minus I've read concerning the SS2 (if it is one) is that it doesn't have MPEG II for sound so uses Windows media player for sound.

I don't have one but I saw that in a report.

 

[BGonaSTICK]

Yes, that's true, but there's no noticable negative effect (well, for my very average hearing anyway). I record, and then play my movies back on the Dreambox often anyway.

 

[sharpxl521]

I read somewhere that some of the SkyStars come locked and unable to recieve certain channels. Is this true?. If so, how do you know before buying one?.
I've pretty much decided to buy one of these cards and add a second dish to get me started (maybe motorise later). Where are the best deals on the SS1/2 at the moment?. A cheap but affective dish would also be good. Any suggestions?. Thanks

 

[farr]

I read somewhere that some of the SkyStars come locked and unable to recieve certain channels. Is this true?. If so, how do you know before buying one?
I've pretty much decided to buy one of these cards and add a second dish to get me started (maybe motorise later). Where are the best deals on the SS1/2 at the moment?. A cheap but affective dish would also be good. Any suggestions?. Thanks

Locked cards should be a thing of the past now. They were supplied by some ISPs to prevent people using them when their ISP subscription wasn't paid or similar reasons which I have forgotten. Always make sure you buy a new card and there should be no reason why you should get a locked card these days. My own Skystar 2 is over 2-3 years old (a revision 2.3) and was an unlocked card when given to me last year, so hopefully this shouldn't be a problem.

The best deals I've found for a SS2 at the moment are on eBay. Some people are selling brand new cards for around £40 plus postage. If you're willing to wait and buy from abroad, it may also be worth trying www.dvbshop.tv where the it is often cheaper than buying from the UK.

Just to go back to the earlier suggestions that the Skystar 2 uses Windows Media Player for sound - this is strictly not true. Any half decent satellite viewer application such as ProgDVB, Skyview, Alt-DVB, MyTheatre and so on allows you to build a graph and route the sound to the audio and video codecs of your choice. My personal favourites in this department are both the Cyberlink Video and Audio codecs, provided as part of WinDVD, or the nVidia foreceware audio and video codecs, provided as part of the new Forceware package or also floating around on the Net. Both provide excellent sound and video quality whilst utilising your video card's hardware acceleration capabilities.

 

[BGonaSTICK]

farr m8, you are bang on.

Technisat state that WMP9 is required, as they know that will do the job, and everybody has it, but you can work around it as you say.

There are a few old locked cards about, so avoid second hand ones (especially ex-EOL).

Not much point getting a S/H one when they are so cheap new.

Can also vouch for dvbshop.tv. Cheapest around, and no probs experienced by several purchasors on this board.