Pinnacle PCTV SAT CI card

[pkiraas]

Hi;

I'm looking to buy a sat card for my PC, to view subscription channels. I actually already pay the subscription & have a smartcard (from CanalDigital Denmark), so I would need a CI slot & CAM (CONAX Compatable) as well.

Does anyone have any experience/opinion re. the Pinnacle? I haven't heard it discussed. Especially, does it work with Magic Cam or Matrix or Dragon? These all have Conax emulation.

Any other suggested cards/approaches?

Thanks,

Paul

 

[Roger74]

Hi,
Try the Technisat Skystar1 which will display on your computer or Skyatar2 with TV out so you can watch on a TV. You don't need CAMs or cards for anything. Your PC does it all.
Roger74

 

[kalamar]

Nothing finer in DVB cards than the Hauppauge Nexus-s (almost)
I use one and would buy it over and over again if I needed another card,you get exactly what you pay for.

also the SS1 has tv out and SS2 dont. And unless someone cracks more stream/code,the screens will be very black for a while soon. But FTA is better than zero (nothing)

ps: You can buy a CI for Nexus-s if thats what you want to do and it WILL work.

 

[lean_moha]

Hi pkiraas

I own a PCTV Sat CI, which is based on the same architecture or chipset as the TwinHan VisionPlus CI card. It has its advantages in that you get the CI-module built in and a loop through like on hte Nexus-s, but short of that its not worth going the Pinnacle route. I'd say if you did want this fully intergrated option its best to get a TwinHan DVB-s CI card simply because I presume its a new product for Pinnacle and so there is not much in the way of drivers or support for it.

This is not to say the card is crap or useless or anything, just that support wise I'd, in hindsight, have gone for the TwinHan make and not Pinnacle. Though other factors did determine my choice of card [PCTV Sat- CI Vs WinTV Nexus-s]. Namely that it was much cheaper than the WinTV Nexus-s given a CI module would have cost me another £60-£80 untop of the £200 odd for the card alone and the PCTV Sat-CI was available under a b-grade [i.e. fully functional ex-display or returned goods] listing at the store I usually get my PC components from so only paid £80-90 as opposed to £120.

Though I can't say much about the Skystars, like Kalamar said, and if money is no object for you, then the Nexus-s is the mother of all DVB-s cards and has an onboard hardware MPEG-2 decoder to free up your CPU. Personally I'd rather manage my PCTV-Sat CI for a couple of yrs till I can get the Nexus-s for a lot less, maybe even on eBay.


As for the CAMs I have a Matrix Reloaded CAM which is recorgnised fine but it seems to be slow or combine with the poor signals I get causes the pictures to jerk. However I've not tested it using a smartcard yet as I'm still using a very pointless 45cm oval dish with a spent LNB pointing at Astra as I'm still trying to make sure that now the council have put up a communial dish and threatening to take down all other dishes I can mount a dish and claim I don't watch Astra.