image jerking with Matrix Reloaded and dish sizes

[lean_moha]

Hi

Can anyone help me I've got a PCTV Sat-CI card and a MR cam with a Fun6in1 card. I don't know what I did to the Cam but for some reason whenever I have it pluged in the TV images jerk a lot but when its out the images are normal again. Can anyone advise on what is going on?

Also can a sky mini dish pick up the french stations on Astra 1 or is a biger dish needed and what size? I saw the "Transponder coverage map" and "EIRP to Dish Size conversion table" on www.satmania.com but I'm not sure how to read them.

Finally does anyone have stability problems with ProgDVB b'cos for some reason it crashes a lot when I run it and I'm changing stations, there are even some station that it will crash on no matter what. I run progdvb and if its on any of those stations it crashes as soon as the epg goes of.


I would be graetful if anyone can advise on any and all of these issues

thanks

 

[MickH]

I can't help you with the CAM problem, but your problem with ProgDVB could just be down to the signal as it is VERY prone to crashes when the signal is weak or of a poor quality.

 

[rolfw]

A little more information about your system may produce some clues lean_moha, the manufacturer and model of the PC Card and the speed of the Computer processor for example.

If you are using a card in the CAM, is it a genuine one?

 

[lean_moha]

Thnaks for your replies guys.

MickH I guess it could be the signals since the best I've got is quality 67% and level 75% and I also remember that the reason the sky minidish I'm using is free was because when the digibox was connected to it, some stations had to routed via other so for example to get 507 (bbc news 24) we first had to go to either 105 [Five] or 136 [men and motors]. Now the digibox is conneced to the buildings main dish and its all fine.

I'll try with the main building dish and see if its more stable. Are poor signals to do with the dish size or could it be that the LNB is getting worn out?
I've got a 80-90cm dish but just haven't had the time to try and put it up or get someone to do it.

About my system, its costum built by me,
WinXP + SP1
AMD Athlon XP 2400+
SB Audigy Platinum (internal)
Gigabyte GA-7DXR+
1x 1gb DDR Ram
ATI radeon 9500 (128mb) L-shaped ddr ram arrangement (i.e. actually a 9700 chipset board)
450watt PSU (Though I may have to change that to a 500/550Watt b'cos of heat issues or simply get rid of my 56k modem when I go ADSL since my modem is not really XP compatible)
Maxtor HDs (1x 20gig and 1x 40gig)
1X DVD-rom (Dabs Value)
1x CD-RW/R (Liteon)
8 USB ports

The heat and modem issues are the only problems I know of and though I occationally can hear the PC thinking, system crashes are really rear and only ever in relation to the modem activity



Thanks

 

[kalamar]

You have a much better pc than me (Athlon 1100) so thats not your problem. Its probably weak signal,the 90cm should fix that problem if lined up correctly. I used to run a Coship CDVB 5300 CI + with a Joker cam and fun cards and it was extremely jerky ! I think the fun cards are too slow for one thing. I also have used just about all of the DVB card programs out there, I have ProgDVB and MyTheatre 2.76 installed (and many more) and I have found that MyTheatre 2.76 is the best one, altho I still do many hours every day experimenting, WHEN I WANT TO WATCH TV my choice is MyTheatre 2.76 for problem free TV viewing. it does not jerk and lock up or crash on my system at all.

 

[lean_moha]

Thanks Kalamar

I'll get to downloading MyTheatre 2.76 like you suggested. Though I may leave the dish for a bit; just seems too much like had work for now, just wished they'd made the damn things indoor friendly. Or even like ariels where you can connect more than one tv to the same wall socket.

Anyway like you say if its the signal that may explain why the Pinnacle DVB software that came with my card seems to be very CPU hungry when changing stations.

Also thanks about the cam info learning loads about this dvb-s business daily I always just thought buy the card, buy the cam, buy the smartcards and off you go!! Guess gone are the days of ATI all-in-wonder plug and play TV and I've got satellite frequencies and maps to show for it. :-)

 

[lean_moha]

Thanks Kalamar

I'll get to downloading MyTheatre 2.76 like you suggested. Though I may leave the dish for a bit; just seems too much like had work for now, just wished they'd made the damn things indoor friendly. Or even like ariels where you can connect more than one tv to the same wall socket.

Anyway like you say if its the signal that may explain why the Pinnacle DVB software that came with my card seems to be very CPU hungry when changing stations.

Also thanks about the cam info learning loads about this dvb-s business daily I always just thought buy the card, buy the cam, buy the smartcards and off you go!! Guess gone are the days of ATI all-in-wonder plug and play TV and I've got satellite frequencies and maps to show for it. :-)

 

[MickH]

There is no doubt that your PC greatly exceeds what is required so that probably isn't the problem. Hopefully My Theatre will be more successful. I haven't managed to get that to work on my system though.
The levels you mentioned should be sufficient to get fairly stable viewing with ProgDVB. The most important level is quality and your larger dish should easily get that up to 100% on Astra. When the card doesn't have hardware decoding (like mine) when it comes across bad data and tries to decode it, it inevitably causes problems and very high CPU usage.
If you don't have any success with MyTheatre you could also try a different version of ProgDVB if you haven't already as reliability between versions does tend to vary quite significantly for some unknown reason. I still find that v4.24 is the most stable on my system. Good luck.

 

[Rod Hulls Aerial]

One very important step is to make sure you have the very latest video drivers for your video card.
I have a similar spec PC (AMD 2600) and I had stuttering pictures until
I updated the graphics card drivers, not any more though.

 

[lean_moha]

Hi guys thanks for your help.

I'm not sure if the problem's solved but Mytheatre is loads more stable (MickH you may need to get the mpeg2 decoders if the problem you had was seeing the images).

As for the jerking, I'm begining to think its the signal + maybe software. I cut the cable wrapings to have more of the copper cable going into the PCTV card and ran Mytheatre with the CAM in and despite the occational jerking particularly when I'd just changed channels, it seemed to be a lot better. Even with Pinnacle's Vision 2.75 there was some improvement though the images still jerked a bit on some of the stations.

I'll check wiv ATI to see any new drivers out and see what that does, though probably more of a CAM, DVB software and signal thing b'cos there's no jerking without the CAM.

Anyways I've unpluged the MR CAM [at least till I start using the other dish] since its only useful for the european stations who use normal encryption and not NDS. Then short of E4's "SmallVille" I don't really want BSkyB and anyway I read somewhere that the BBC are going DVB-s on ASTRA 2A to extend their DVB-t thing and the ITC are also kicking themselves for their stupid liciencing policy which means that a lot of non-Sky subscribers can not watch the national and other FREE stations (ITV, ITV2, C4, five even MTV, eurosport and loads more are free if your dish points towards germany appearantly). And from speaking to someone there, ITV also don't seem to be too pleased wiv both the ITC and having to pay BSkyB rent.

All of which begs the question for the competition commission why do we have to pay mr. murdock annually increasing amounts of money to watch Free channels. I mean no matter how you call it Free-to-air and Free-to-view both sets of stations are still FREE at point of broadcast and not subscription based

But we live in hope! no??!!!!


Anyways

Thanks loads for your help


Oh

does anyone get Eurosport on Astra/Eurobird? I picked up images on Mytheatre (without CAM) at one point on Eurobird the other night though haven't been able to get the images back since.

 

[rehbadreddine]

I found that many people have a COSHIP PCI CARD Product and no one tell me which software they use with this product