[mythtv-users] HW CAMs, CI support, legal subscription viewing (DVB-S2)

Joel Michael joel at gimps-r-us.com
Tue Jan 26 00:06:44 UTC 2010


On 17/01/2010 11:00 PM, David Kubicek wrote:
> Hello to you all.
> 
> I'm bringing up "the big" question - there is some general knowledge
> about some cards' CI's (mostly KNC1) working with Linux - at least
> Kaffeine, if not MythTV. Most of these reports are rather old so I
> looked into MythTV sources and current dvbcam.cpp seems to support CAM
> menus, selections, etc. I guess the developers came a long way since
> those dark days. There must have been people actually testing this code,
> I'm kindly asking these people and anybody else with some experience to
> step up and share their tips. :) Like you, I don't want to settle for
> less - MythTV is the best in this area.
> 
> However, there aren't many DVB-S cards with CI slots supported by Linux
> and my impression is that those which work are incompatible with MythTV.
> I've searched and read the whole -dev and -users lists and it seems to
> me that most MythTV enthusiasts are eventually forced to turn to the
> "dark side" and end up using borderline-legal sortcam setups. After
> that, nobody will respond to their questions, because such discussions
> are forbidden here. I conclude that there are basically two options -
> watch FTA (useless) or go rogue and loose all sympathy and support,
> which is impractical to say the least. :)
> 
> I'd like to prevent this happening to me. I'm going to build a new
> MythTV box and I would prefer if everything was stable, clean, legal and
> without non-documented hacks like DVB loop devices. MythTV code shows
> there have been some development in this area and there were people with
> some HW CAM's writing and testing the new code. This means there really
> is a working HW CAM for MythTV. Also, with the majority of people here
> against softcams, there must be many users with HW CAM cards. I don't
> think people would have gone all the way to polish (rather complicated)
> MythTV setups just for FTA viewing.
> 
> My question, my plea is to hear from you what you've been through, how
> you ended up realizing your setup and any tips along the way. Everything
> to do with DVB-S2 (or even DVB-C) and MythTV. I really hope to collect
> some hard-to-get information and put it up on the MythTV wiki for other
> people like me. Please, do let me know.
> 
Another late reply.

I had all this working about 18 months ago (have moved a couple of times
since then, and don't currently have a satellite dish, but still have
the tuner and CAM).  I think I was using MythTV 0.20 at the time.  From
memory once I set up the LNB properly, everything Just Worked.

I have this capture card:

# lspci -v
...
04:02.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video
Capture (rev 11)
        Subsystem: Twinhan Technology Co. Ltd VisionPlus DVB card
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 18
        Memory at fddff000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Capabilities: [44] Vital Product Data
        Capabilities: [4c] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: bttv
        Kernel modules: bttv

04:02.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture
(rev 11)
        Subsystem: Twinhan Technology Co. Ltd VisionPlus DVB Card
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 18
        Memory at fddfe000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Capabilities: [44] Vital Product Data
        Capabilities: [4c] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: bt878
        Kernel modules: bt878

I've also got an Irdeto 2 CAM.  Sattelite TV (smart card) provider is
SelecTV (Australia).  Even the subscription update works with no issues,
it just sat there working continuously for about 6 months.  This card is
pretty old and only does DVB-S (not -S2), but that's fine for me as
SelecTV doesn't do HD yet.


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