DVB - PC Cards DVB-C and Vista mce, looking for info

[kitoog]

I'm thinking about going down the vista media centre route for watching dvb-c. I'm looking at the firedtv dvb-c which needs a firewire connection so I'll need a pci card with firewire connectors. My cable company is using nagra 1 at the moment and are bound to go to nagra 2 at some stage. There also messing keys and au a lot at the moment. So I'm looking for info on what cam to get.

So basically looking for the cheapest way of decoding the channels in vista media center nothing that the cable company are messing with the au's and keys.

Anyone have any recommendations?

Which cam?
Which smartcard?
Which programmer?
Anything else needed?

 

[nozzer]

tbh, there are much better solutions available than Vista MCE, which is seriously hampered by a lack of cable support. XP and many of the third party apps will give a much better experience overall.

You could use many Cams but for Nagra1 the JokerCam is pretty good

If you go Nagra2 then it wont really matter what cam you have because you wont get it to work until your cards are cracked (unless you use a genuine NagraCam and can persuade your supplier to register the card to the Cam)

Best cards for Nagra1 are probably OPOS or perhaps a Mosc. OPOS may handle Nagra2 but it depends very much on the variation thats being used. If any of the morphing stuff is being used then Nagra2 is basically either a Mosc or PC emulation.

 

[kitoog]

I know theres lots of other apps but I like vista media center and none of the other apps have eye candy like it.

I see posts about flashing blue zetacams with joker fw

Is this cam correct or is there different blue zeta cams?

xxx.smartcard24.com/product_info.php/cPath/26-ci-module/products_id/113/zeta-cam-blue-neotioncrypt.html

(Planning to get dvb-c card etc off them so handier to get everything together)


And will a funcard 5 work ok (I see funcard 4 mentioned mostly here) but the site above only has funcard 5

 

[neathdrew]

I know theres lots of other apps but I like vista media center and none of the other apps have eye candy like it.

I see posts about flashing blue zetacams with joker fw

Is this cam correct or is there different blue zeta cams?

xxx.smartcard24.com/product_info.php/cPath/26-ci-module/products_id/113/zeta-cam-blue-neotioncrypt.html

(Planning to get dvb-c card etc off them so handier to get everything together)


And will a funcard 5 work ok (I see funcard 4 mentioned mostly here) but the site above only has funcard 5

i'd follow caferacers advice and get the cam to be checked that it connects to a cas interface first as for whatever reason some won't connect.

https://www.digitalworldz.co.uk/showthread.php?p=1225851#post1225851

he got his from Hisat and they may even flash it for u

h**p://www.hisat.com/products.php?cat=39&nav=37

i use a funcard 5 with both my cards, both au no probs, not too sure they'll work if nagra2 does come in.....

also i use vista mce with a floppydtv card and haven't had any issues except a couple of the channels are not listed in the epg, dmax sky sd2 and men & motors but that's not a major problem for me....and like u i like the UI.

cheers

 

[cafe.racer]

I've tried Diablos, Blue Zetacam (flashed to Joker 0.79) and White Icecrypt that I did for someone else. The Diablo seems more robust in terms of connecting etc, but I couldn't get it to AU here in th UK, so I switched to Blue Icecrypt with Fun4s.

Can tell any difference in channel changing speed etc with the Joker compared to the Diablo.

You'll also need a list of your transponders - the Floppy/FireDTVs "trick" MCE into thinking they're DVB-T cards, so they need you to set up an MCE frequency and corresponding DVB-C frequency in the drivers/registry. Which isn't that hard if you have the transponder frequencies.

I have a PCI Firewire card, and I did have some fun with it, I hink because it was a cheapo card - one of the connections just packed up and caused one of my FireDTVs to keep connecting and disconnecting BOTH FireDTVs. Just watch out for cheap cards, I guess.

Channel sorting in MCE is a bit of a pain, some people have got some external tools to work, some haven't.

For the guide, you can either use the Sky EPG guide (doesn't have radio channels in it) or try the Registry hack to get the cable guide (the cable guide is only available if you have an Analogue card, so you need the headend for the cable guide and after setup enter that in the registry, then off you go). The MCE provided guide does have some missing channels as mentioned, main one for me is Sky SD2, but it is easy to setup.

OR you can use other sources for the guide, and another option is to look at using DVBBridge.

Most of the above in on the fourms if you get stuck, or post up your own "build" thread when you get going.

 

[kitoog]

sourcing the correct cam seems to the main problem atm, im in ireland so unfortunately I dont have a lot of options. I'm using dvbsbridge with a c1500 (piece of junk!), but dvbsbridge has to be stopped and started manually in my case and it doesnt let my pc sleep. So I want to those problems solved by going the cam/card route. Lots of places seem to sell the zeta cam but I read theres a new version that cant be programmed with joker cam fw (anyone confirm this?). Hisat upped the price by £5 since yesterday!

Ye i have the analogue guide up and running with dvbsbridge which works fine and all major channels have the proper epg.

 

[Poppa G]

tbh, there are much better solutions available than Vista MCE, which is seriously hampered by a lack of cable support. XP and many of the third party apps will give a much better experience overall.

Hi, I was/am hoping to do a simular set-up and I was going to use vista mce, I havn't even bought the dvb-c card yet as I am in the early stages. what Im not sure about is which is better, xp mce/vista mce ? I know driver support etc is better for xp but I remember the xp mce not having as nice a UI as vista mce.

Im fairly sure im going to run into trouble setting up the dvb-c/cam so I'd rather not bother with the slightly better UI if its going to make life alot easier ... not having to deal with vista incompatibility errors!!

For some reason,when I switch between my dbox (scart) and HD (PC DVI ), the TV says not input from computer even though it is on... I normally have to unplug and re-plug my DVI-HD cable which is driving me crazy as I watch alot of stored media though my media centre ... the ultimate goal having everything in MCE and not having to swith channels ... Its a long shot !!!