The information contained in this post requires a valid Sky subscription with working Sky card. This post does not nor does it intend to show you how to illegally receive Sky TV content without a valid subscription.
What do you need?
Hardware/Software required:
- Windows XP/Vista
- DVB-S Tuner and appropriate drivers
- Smart Card reader capable of Serial Port emulation with Phoenix 3.680MHz operation
- Media Center software with MDAPI support (e.g. DVBViewer, MyTheatre, AltDVB, WatchTVPro)
- NDSCam version 0.0.0.5 (freeware - note version 0.0.0.6 does not work with my setup)
- SkyTV NZ Card with current subscription
Hardware/Software this procedure was tested on:
- Windows Vista Premium 32-bit
- FireDTV DVB-S Firewire External Tuner (See http://www.digital-everywhere.com)
- FireDTV BDA 32-bit driver version 4.8
- Infinity USB Smart Card Programmer (See http://www.infinityusb.com/default.asp?show=productsdetail&ProductID=11)
- Infinity USB Unlimited Software version 2.70 (driver version 3.1.0.0)
- MDWrapper.dll version 1.27 (Download here)
- MyTheatre version 3.38 (See http://www.dvbcore.com - trial version here)
- NDSCam version 0.0.0.5 (Download here)
Instructions
1. Connect/Install your DVB-S Tuner and Media Center software.
2. Ensure you can obtain a full channel list of both Sky and Freeview programs via your DVB-S Tuner and Media Center software.
3. Verify you can successfully receive video and audio for Freeview channels
4. Connect/Install your USB Smart Card reader
5. Configure your Smart Card reader for serial emulation using the following settings:
- COM Port - make a note of this, it is required for your NDSCam configuration later on
- Reset-Polarity - Phoenix
- Frequency - 3.680MHz
- Transparent Boost - 1x
The following picture shows the settings for an Infinity USB Smart Card Reader:

6. Configure your Media Center software to support NDSCam as follows:
DVBViewer:
1. SoftCSA is required. Place SoftCSA.dll and SoftCSA.ini files into the Plugins folder and NDSCam files into the MDPlugins folder.
2. Place FFDecsa.dll, CSA.dll, MakroCSA.dll into the DVBViewer folder.
3. I suggest you to set packet size to 184 for petter performance.
AltDVB:
1. Place NDSCam.dll and NDSCam.ini file into the Plugins folder.
2. Edit NDSCam.ini file.
3. I suggest you to set packet size to 184 for petter performance.
MyTheatre:
1. MDWrapper is required. Place MDWrapper.dll into the \Plugin folder and NDSCam files into the \MDPlugins folder (this folder needs to be manually created).
2. Edit NDSCam.ini file.
3. I suggest you to set packet size to 184 for petter performance (from MDWrapper menu).
WatchTVPro:
1. Place NDSCam.dll, NDSCam.ini and NDSCam.cache file into the Plugins folder.
2. Unpack the Firmware_for_WTVP.zip file and relplace your old Boot folder with this new one.
3. Edit NDSCam.ini file.
4. Set DO_TT_TRICK value from NDSCam.ini file to 1.
7. Configure the NDSCam.ini file - the only settings you need to change are:
- [SETUP] -> ACTIVE = 1 (this will enable NDSCam on startup by default)
- [COM] -> COM=
- [CARD] -> Type = 3
8. Insert your Sky card into the Smart card reader
9. Fire up your Media Center software - select a Sky TV Channel from your channel list - previously, you would not be able to decode the Sky TV Channels, now if everything is working OK, you should be decoding SkyTV as shown below!

On MyTheatre, if everything is configured correctly, you should see an MD API Wrapper option in Main Menu -> Plug-ins.

Selecting this option opens the MD Wrapper dialog box, in which you should see an NDSCam menu. From the NDSCam menu you can start/stop NDSCam, monitor NDSCam and configure settings.
