Satellite TV Card Questions.

Slay3r

I currenty use the Nova-T for digital TV through a ariel but im thinking about changing to satellite but i want to check a few things 1st.

I know i need a card and a dish, the card im planning to look at is the Nexus-s and will check what dish when i know im going to change but can i just hook the card and dish up and get channels for free ? or do i need a subscription ?
Also on the basis that all above is ok and i get it i will need to point the dish at a selected satellite so does anyone know what one i need to direct it to for the dudley area ?

Lancelot

Hi Slay3r - merry Christmas and welcome to the forum.

Yes is the answer, you need a card (Nexus S is good and well supported) a dish
and some software for it which is very readily available on the net and away you go.

As for dish size It depends on what you want to watch, 80cm - 120cm is pretty much the norm in this country for the European satellites. Checkout Lyngsat.com and have a look at what is available to give you a better idea.

Welcome.

L

Slay3r

Thanks for the welcome, and a merry christmas to you.


I have just been looking at the Skystar-2 pci card (half the price of the nexus-s) is this card anygood?

Allso what LNB would I need (as the dish I have been looking at does not include the LNB)?

BGonaSTICK

SS2 is a good budget card with excellent support. Software decoding, so you need a fairly fast PC.

You need a Universal LNB. I can recommend the 0.3 db Invacom and the 0.6 db MTI Blue line for about £25 and £15 resprectively.

STICK

Slay3r

Thanks for the info BGonaSTICK, the SS2 does seem to be ok and a good price but i still might faver the Nexus-s as im guessing its better "correct me if im wrong lol"

Anyway if someone could point out the pros and cons on the 2 cards i would be greatfull.

WyrTwister

The cards fall into 2 general groups .

Software cards - a majority of the provessing & decoding is done by the CPU of your computer . They are cheaper , require a faster computer , may or may not support High Definitioon TV & I do not know of any that have video & audio out ( to connect to a TV or VCR ) .

Hardware card - a majority of the processing & decofing is performed by the " chips " on the card . They are more expensive , can tollerate a slower computer , Do not support Hi Def TV in hardware mode , the Nexus-S has audio & video out & they are not as dependent on graphics drivers .

The Nexus-S can be run in software mode & it is essencially the same as a software card .

Get as big a dish ( up to 120 cm ) as you can afford & is practical for your situation . Freight can get expensive for a dish . :-(

I do not know for sure ( all my LNBF's are around .6 noise rating (\ seem to work fine ) , but I suspect a slightly bigger dish compensates foe a slightly lower quality LNBF ?

Said another way , if you go for a slightly smaller dish , might cknaider a slightly better LNBF .

I bought a Twinhan 1020A DVB-S PCI software card & Universal LNBF from a place in Germany & I am using it in North America .

If you are on broad band , you can download the software pretty easily .

Send me a Privite Message If I can be of help .


Best of luck ,
Wyr

BGonaSTICK

Good explanation.

Slay3r

Thanks for the explanation, im going to get the biggest dish i can "i know someone who owns a TV shop " and my PC should run the SS2 fine as my system specs are below.

Windows XP w/SP2
AMD Athlon XP 2600+ Barton
1GB 400Mhz DDR
NVIDIA Build Geforce FX5900 Ultra

And i do have a BB connection (1Mb)

Back to the cards, ive been reading that the SS2 can support up to 4 LNB's and also the hardware contains support for a moveable dish, is this the same for the Nexus-s ?

"i will prolly find the above out from google but added it incase i cant lol"

Slay3r

I have been looking at the LyngSat web page?

If I want to recieve signals from the "Astra 2D and Eurobird 1" will I have to motorize the dish or can I use 2 LNB's. as the one is at 28.2 and the other 28.5.

Llew

Hi
Astra 28.2 and Eurobird are effectively co-located, so you only need one LNB.

Llew

BGonaSTICK

Motor control (diseqc 1.2 plugin) is well supported for the SS2, but not so good for the Nexus/SS1.

I think one exists, but I'm not sure how good it is.

All recent sat cards will do diseqc 1.0/1.1 i.e. 4 x LNB's.