It is possible to use the CAS 3 serial interface to 'debug' a CAM. I've only used it to bring up the CAM menu so far, but it should support all it's functionality.
With regards to USB-Serial converters, these do not always work as they should. It depends on the usage of the serial connection. When you're streaming data, there shouldn't be an issue. But sometimes there's extensive usage of the control pins and then the latency of the converter can be an issue and bring performance to it's knees completely rendering it unusable in some usage scenarios.
An alternative way to use subscription cards is to use a CAM emulation (i.e. Poor Man's CAM 2 _http://joshyfun.peque.org/PMCAM2/index.html) together with an USB card reader like the Infinity USB unlimited ( _http://www.infinityusb.com/ ). |