Newbie Questions

TopHouse

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OK, after looking on various forums on satellite I've come to the conclusion that this one is the one that I'm happiest with, that coupled with the fact that the amount of help offered when I had problems was second to non, so big thanks to those who helped with my problems (esp Rolf) So what next?

As a total beginner to this, knowing absolutely nothing about cards, cams, decoders, motorised dishes etc I've come to the conclusion that there is very little available for those that know nothing, practically every page I visited assumes some knowledge, yes, I know it's easilly done, I'm a serious computer fanatic and have worked on the tech side for a while, now I'm the local computer guru (just wish people would'nt come to me with problems on "Time" machines :( )

Anyway, slowly but surely I'm picking it up, but I do have some questions that I cant seem to find proper answers to, perhaps a board should be added to the forum for total noobs!

If it helps, my setup is a 1 metre motorised dish, decoder is a Samsung 9500 VIACI, it has one cam in one of it's slots that has a blue & white sticker on it saying "Irdeto Access" (can't tell you much more) also have a Funcard 2 and a "Card Maestro" programmer. Main interests would be the football matches that aren't on elsewhere, movies and of course a little mature content doesn't hurt. (Apart from making me feel a bit inadequate after watching Palco a few times, didn't think they made them that big! where do they find those blokes? !!

I've figured out the 6 in 1 thing now and am fairly comfortable with programming but a couple more questions which I've categorised.

1 CARDS

What's the difference between funcard 2, 3, 4 etc ? I know they have more memory on them but what for? Can you do more with a funcard 6 than a 2 or is the extra memory just redundant? if so, why make/sell them?

What's the difference (I know the wafers are different) between funcards, gold cards, emerald cards etc, do the different cards give you different channels/features?

2 CAMS

OK, I've figured out that cams are the bit that decrypts the signals, so I take it that different cams allow you to decode different channels (please correct any mistakes I'm making) I also assume that these can be programmed too, so what does reprogramming them do? does it allow you to decrypt more encryption methods? If so, what's a magic cam for?

3 IDEAL SETUP.

If I wanted to make the most of my system, what other bits should I add to it (what I already have is above but I'm told my cam is a flashed one but am unsure, would it help to tell you what channels I can get?) What combination of cams & cards would you add? I also understand that you can flash your Sammy 9500, what do these flashes do for it? more channels/features, what? Could really do with an expert with a similar setup to explain some of this stuff in laymans terms for me, especially could do with a few contacts who have the same decoder.

Apologies to anyone who takes the time to answer my above questions and does'nt appear to get a reply straight away, I'm flying off to Spain for 2 weeks this afternoon. Ohh, forgot to mention, I'm in the UK if it makes any difference.

Many thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to help this total beginner.

TopHouse
 

rolfw

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Technomate 5402 HD M2 Ci, DM7000s, Transparent 80cm Dish, Moteck SG2100 DiseqC motor, lots of legacy gear. Meters: Satlook Digital NIT, Promax HD Ranger+ spectrum analyser.
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Thanks for your kind words about the forum Tophouse, we've always tried to be a helpful forum, which is the main reason I joined also. :)

With regard to some of your questions, much of the memory on the newer cards is under utilised at present, but they can be used for other things as well. The fun 5 and 6 can be used to program certain types of CAM.

The CAMs themselves offer a variety of different decryption choices, your Irdeto CAM, if flashed will probably be a Freecam 2.018 or 2.019 and if you look in the CAM section of your setup menu, it will tell you exactly which one it is. There is a superb site for CAM information mentioned in a sticky at the top of the CAMs and Decoders forum and it gives information on each type of CAM.

The Magic Module is simply another type of "universal" CAM and like many others is programmable.

Ideal setup? No such thing, everyone has different requirements, but if you have a steerable dish, with a receiver that can drive it and a CAM or combination of CAMs which will receive all that you want to watch, then I would guess that is ideal.
 

TopHouse

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Originally posted by rolfw

With regard to some of your questions, much of the memory on the newer cards is under utilised at present, but they can be used for other things as well. The fun 5 and 6 can be used to program certain types of CAM.

So is that the same for fun, gold etc etc, they all really do the same? if so, why are some expensive and others cheap? and what "other things"?

The CAMs themselves offer a variety of different decryption choices, your Irdeto CAM, if flashed will probably be a Freecam 2.018 or 2.019 and if you look in the CAM section of your setup menu, it will tell you exactly which one it is. There is a superb site for CAM information mentioned in a sticky at the top of the CAMs and Decoders forum and it gives information on each type of CAM.

Mine says V106, softcell 209 cls Demux (sw CA) do you know what that means ?


The Magic Module is simply another type of "universal" CAM and like many others is programmable.

So is the magic better than the one I have, does it do the same as mine or is it better to have both, if I have both what more will I get?

Ideal setup? No such thing, everyone has different requirements, but if you have a steerable dish, with a receiver that can drive it and a CAM or combination of CAMs which will receive all that you want to watch, then I would guess that is ideal.

So if I want mostly sport, movies, kids stuff and mature content (NO, not a mixture of the last two :) ) Which is the way to go, I already have sky, with regards sport I want all the football that you can't get on sky & terrestrial such as the Sat United Matches etc but i think i can already get them.

Sorry if I seem so hungry for information, it's because I am! :)

P.S, Off to Sunny Costa Blanca in an hour so back in two weeks :D
 

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The cards with more memory are able to hold keys for more providers. the cards with faster chipsets are able to decrypt keys quicker, leading to fewer problems while zapping. Some cards have pre-loaded operating systems that are optimised for particular decryptions (eg DES). Some cards are better quality than others (whole rafts of cheap white goldcards were once produced that melted in the CAM when used for a few days!)

The cards with such higher spec are (a) more expensive to manufacture and (:cool: more in demand. Therefore (market economics) they are more expensive. The original goldcard has by now been produced in such vast numbers that the thing is pretty much a give-away item. More specialised cards like the M2 and Basic-card have never been produced in those numbers and are typically twenty to forty times as expensive.

Some examples of 'other things'you can do with cards include:
- program your own application using specialised developers' toolkits (eg for the Basic card). Remember these cards are NOT satellite hacking cards. They are general purpose smart cards that do whatever you tell them to do.
- act as a key-logger (insert in receiver and it gathers keys as they are transmitted ove the air - much as a season interface and PC-programme would normally be used to do)
- higher-spec cards allow more providers, as mentioined, but aslo functionality such as update of keys via the remote controkl (usually hijacking the receivers' parental-lock feature). And auto-update of keys.

However, what is "high-spec"? The original single-PIC cards (which were mainly used for D2MAC) don't allow any such fancy features, but a standard low-end funcard these days does do quite happily.

If you have a look at the old "what's what" thread in the CAMs forum, you'll find your CAM type listed. That tells you whether you'll be able to reprogram it easily or not.

http://www.satellites.co.uk/php-bin/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1674

In fact, you can see that yours is a "Euro" CAM and not flashable without removing the eeprom (and programming it using a special TSOP adapter).

In general, your particular CAM will NOT give access to multiple encryption systems, only Irdeto. If you had had the older series-1 Irdeto CAM, you could have reflashed it to become a so-called FreeCAM2, which DOES.
However, there are some receivers which either in their original state or else by replacing the firmware by a tweaked version WILL allow a multi-encryption card to work in your unmodified Irdeto Euro CAM. One such example is the Echostar "Echonav" receivers (dvr7000, ad3600 etc.). Another example is the Samsung dsr9500. You see, this is all rather complicated. Whether you can decrypt zero, one or more systems is dependent on the interplay between receiver, receiver's firmware, CAM, CAM's firmware, card and the card's loaded software & keys.

A Magic CAM (or one of the many variants) will work in all CI receivers, so it's perhaps worth investing in one of them anyway if you want to explore this hobby.

I would recommend a steerable system, since there's still a lot of good stuff (films, sport etc) up for grabs on the Scandanavian and Hispanic satelites. And if you do get into the hobby, you can guarantee that within no time you'll be frustrated by only having fixed-dish access to a couple of satellites.

2old
 

TopHouse

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2old4this said:
If you have a look at the old "what's what" thread in the CAMs forum, you'll find your CAM type listed. That tells you whether you'll be able to reprogram it easily or not.

http://www.satellites.co.uk/php-bin/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1674

In fact, you can see that yours is a "Euro" CAM and not flashable without removing the eeprom (and programming it using a special TSOP adapter).

In general, your particular CAM will NOT give access to multiple encryption systems, only Irdeto. If you had had the older series-1 Irdeto CAM, you could have reflashed it to become a so-called FreeCAM2, which DOES.
However, there are some receivers which either in their original state or else by replacing the firmware by a tweaked version WILL allow a multi-encryption card to work in your unmodified Irdeto Euro CAM. One such example is the Echostar "Echonav" receivers (dvr7000, ad3600 etc.). Another example is the Samsung dsr9500. You see, this is all rather complicated. Whether you can decrypt zero, one or more systems is dependent on the interplay between receiver, receiver's firmware, CAM, CAM's firmware, card and the card's loaded software & keys.

A Magic CAM (or one of the many variants) will work in all CI receivers, so it's perhaps worth investing in one of them anyway if you want to explore this hobby.

I would recommend a steerable system, since there's still a lot of good stuff (films, sport etc) up for grabs on the Scandanavian and Hispanic satelites. And if you do get into the hobby, you can guarantee that within no time you'll be frustrated by only having fixed-dish access to a couple of satellites.

2old

My cam is'nt actually listed on the thread detailed above, the only place I've found reference to it is here :-

http://www.lefdata.com/ci_ca/ci.html

Mine is the second one down, I have a Sammy 9500 Via Ci and my dish IS steerable 1 metre dish. I get all the palco channels, film and blue, sexyhot etc, fotball total, canal+ blauw etc etc. From what I can gather from reading elsewhere, there's not really a lot I can gain by going further, apparently I can get xtv mature content if I downgrade to 118 software and patch it, but is it worth it? would i gain much else?
 

Channel Hopper

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and have worked on the tech side for a while, now I'm the local computer guru (just wish people would'nt come to me with problems on "Time" machines )

Well now you know where to come to if they do

Welcome aboard
 
K

kalamar

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TopHouse since you are into computers and didnt mention any financial concerns about the hobby, You would be pleasantly supprised if you bought a Hauppauge Nexus-S card for your computer.No smart cards or programmers required! keys are retrieved automaticly and autorolled. My system has been up and running for over a year and I get over 1000 channels and (the mature content) it never misses a lick!
 
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