Sky TV on HTPC (legally!) without a STB

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4032 posts

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#161338 1-Sep-2008 17:38

Heh i wish, even though we chose the one time payment option, we unfortunately still don't own the box

Though i have a dillema, if i decide to get a HVR-4000 and stick it on the HTPC that causes issues with running it to the other TV's.
See, we have a Component cable running to the TV upstairs which is getting HD only for the sports channels since the rest are downscaled. If i decide to run it through the HTPC i dont think i can clone monitor and still have video running since this usually results in a black screen.
Its all very frustrating, i wish everything was simply open standards with no copy protection or anything. Of course the solution would be to buy yet another HTPC for upstairs which would be nice but thats yet more $$$$.

gareth41

742 posts

Ultimate Geek

#161400 1-Sep-2008 21:54

has anyone noticed if you click onto the box office channels at the beginning of a movie you can watch the first 5mins for free then ndscam gives an error after 5mins saying "you dont have a subscription for this channel" and picture dissapears, thats what ive found anyway. but if you leave the skycard out of the skydecoder for more than a week the 5min beginning preview of the box office movies wont work at all. i also tried ordering a box office movie as normal using sky remote and the skycard in the sky decoder, then transfered skycard back to jaycar reader, all worked no probs and i could watch the box office movie using ndscam!

nzwogboy

93 posts

Master Geek

#161528 2-Sep-2008 13:26

Whats the quality of sky like going directly into the PC compared to Freeview DVB-S?

taylorit

73 posts

Master Geek

#161744 3-Sep-2008 08:33

nzwogboy: Whats the quality of sky like going directly into the PC compared to Freeview DVB-S?

It is about the same, the difference is if you have the old way of plugging a decoder into a PVR150 or 500 then you got s-video being digitised but with the DVBS being delivered then it is at the mercy of Sky's feed. Some programs are fantastic and others look like you are watching it through a fish tank... hahahaha Still, even though my machine has started blue screening.. grrr I'm still happy with the improved picture quality

djaggar

78 posts

Master Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#161764 3-Sep-2008 09:46

taylorit:
nzwogboy: Whats the quality of sky like going directly into the PC compared to Freeview DVB-S?

It is about the same, the difference is if you have the old way of plugging a decoder into a PVR150 or 500 then you got s-video being digitised but with the DVBS being delivered then it is at the mercy of Sky's feed. Some programs are fantastic and others look like you are watching it through a fish tank... hahahaha Still, even though my machine has started blue screening.. grrr I'm still happy with the improved picture quality

On a 5 meter HD projector screen I can't tell the difference between the sky box's svideo over about 30 meters into an analogue capture card and the PC decoding the DVB signal directly and staying digital right down to popping the pixels on the screen ... for SD the only trade off between grabbing the analogue output of the sky box into the HTPC and using a DVB-S card to do it directly is messing about with IR blasters to change channels between the sky box (manageable) and messing about with Sky cards etc (barely manageable). Cabling is about the same - you either have to get a sat dish feed to your HTPC or an svideo feed (in my case over Cat5 with the IR blasting going back to other way) from your sky box.

I wouldn't quite say it is a fish tank ... more like looking a 14 inch CRT through binoculars ... there just aren't enough (different)pixels being transmitted to put a large sharp picture together ...

Nil Einne

469 posts

Ultimate Geek

#161778 3-Sep-2008 10:37

djaggar:
taylorit:
nzwogboy: Whats the quality of sky like going directly into the PC compared to Freeview DVB-S?

It is about the same, the difference is if you have the old way of plugging a decoder into a PVR150 or 500 then you got s-video being digitised but with the DVBS being delivered then it is at the mercy of Sky's feed. Some programs are fantastic and others look like you are watching it through a fish tank... hahahaha Still, even though my machine has started blue screening.. grrr I'm still happy with the improved picture quality

On a 5 meter HD projector screen I can't tell the difference between the sky box's svideo over about 30 meters into an analogue capture card and the PC decoding the DVB signal directly and staying digital right down to popping the pixels on the screen ... for SD the only trade off between grabbing the analogue output of the sky box into the HTPC and using a DVB-S card to do it directly is messing about with IR blasters to change channels between the sky box (manageable) and messing about with Sky cards etc (barely manageable). Cabling is about the same - you either have to get a sat dish feed to your HTPC or an svideo feed (in my case over Cat5 with the IR blasting going back to other way) from your sky box.

I wouldn't quite say it is a fish tank ... more like looking a 14 inch CRT through binoculars ... there just aren't enough (different)pixels being transmitted to put a large sharp picture together ...

You do have the advantage of having the original stream which is liable to be smaller then the one fron the analogue card (since you usually need a large size to achieve comparable quality when recompressing from MPEG2-MPEG2. And also you're probably compressing at 720x576 whereas I believe many Sky streams are 480x576 (one of the reasons for the crappy quality)

Asmodeus

1015 posts

Uber Geek

#161857 3-Sep-2008 14:35

Hi guys,

Sorry if this has been asked elsewhere, but would these dvb-s tuners with built in card readers do the trick?

http://www.digitalnow.com.au/dvbscards.html

I guess having one of those rules out having dual streams (ie: being able to record while watching dvb-s) ? (or does it.....)

Kinda nice to have a card slot built into the machine too. Anyone have any ideas about these? Will they work?

Cheers

Equinox IT

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djaggar

78 posts

Master Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#161863 3-Sep-2008 14:52

Asmodeus: Hi guys,

Sorry if this has been asked elsewhere, but would these dvb-s tuners with built in card readers do the trick?

Actually they aren't quite card readers - they are a generic slot that takes a thing called a CAM, Conditional Access Module. Its PCMCIA card that you insert the sky card into. As far as I know there is no CAM module for NZ Sky (but the Dream guys might correct me here). Because there is no CAM, there can be no decryption. NDSCam is a software CAM that talks to a hardware card reader.

Asmodeus

1015 posts

Uber Geek

#161867 3-Sep-2008 14:58

djaggar:
Asmodeus: Hi guys,

Sorry if this has been asked elsewhere, but would these dvb-s tuners with built in card readers do the trick?

Actually they aren't quite card readers - they are a generic slot that takes a thing called a CAM, Conditional Access Module. Its PCMCIA card that you insert the sky card into. As far as I know there is no CAM module for NZ Sky (but the Dream guys might correct me here). Because there is no CAM, there can be no decryption. NDSCam is a software CAM that talks to a hardware card reader.

Gotcha

Bugger :)

taylorit

73 posts

Master Geek

#161870 3-Sep-2008 15:15

Asmodeus:
djaggar:
Asmodeus: Hi guys,

Sorry if this has been asked elsewhere, but would these dvb-s tuners with built in card readers do the trick?

Actually they aren't quite card readers - they are a generic slot that takes a thing called a CAM, Conditional Access Module. Its PCMCIA card that you insert the sky card into. As far as I know there is no CAM module for NZ Sky (but the Dream guys might correct me here). Because there is no CAM, there can be no decryption. NDSCam is a software CAM that talks to a hardware card reader.

Gotcha

Bugger :)

You might be able to use a PCMCIA -> Smart Card reader in the slot as they represent them sevles as a com port which you will still have to use NDSCAM software cam. The advantage here is the card would be easy to get to and you won't end up with the Jaycar reader sit on top etc.. unsure if it woudl work but should. There are PCI PCMCIA adaptors so maybe this simply has it built in.

MrAlan

98 posts

Master Geek

#161999 3-Sep-2008 23:22

Some thoughts on the 17x series of cards.

A friend of mine recently upgraded to MySkyHDi and he had his old 17x card replaced with a 45x series. The reason given was that the 17x cards don't work on the newer boxes.

This would lead me to believe one of two scenario's:
1) The card reader is different (therefore while a phoenix jaycar reader can read a 45x card it can't read the 17x card) - can anyone confirm that the jaycar reader can successfully read a 17x card?

or 2) if the actual reader isn't at fault then probably the encryption method has changed. Judging by the fact that all the newer boxes use 45x cards I have a suspicion that the reason the 17x cards aren't working is because the older cards are decyrpting the older Videocrypt encryption methods rather than the newer Videoguard encryption method. Although a bit far fetched I believe Sky would be able to send both encryption streams down the same channel, it would be a way to slowly move to the new system without having to replace everyones STB at once.

Just a thought anyway. I can't really do any testing myself at present.

eXDee

4032 posts

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#162001 3-Sep-2008 23:27

Whatever your hypothesis, they definitely don't use videocrypt for the satellite service, it definitely said NDS videoguard on my old 17xx card.
Also i think the small silver pace boxes take both 17xx and 45xx cards?

djaggar

78 posts

Master Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#162003 3-Sep-2008 23:37

MrAlan: Some thoughts on the 17x series of cards.

A friend of mine recently upgraded to MySkyHDi and he had his old 17x card replaced with a 45x series. The reason given was that the 17x cards don't work on the newer boxes.

This would lead me to believe one of two scenario's:
1) The card reader is different (therefore while a phoenix jaycar reader can read a 45x card it can't read the 17x card) - can anyone confirm that the jaycar reader can successfully read a 17x card?

or 2) if the actual reader isn't at fault then probably the encryption method has changed. Judging by the fact that all the newer boxes use 45x cards I have a suspicion that the reason the 17x cards aren't working is because the older cards are decyrpting the older Videocrypt encryption methods rather than the newer Videoguard encryption method. Although a bit far fetched I believe Sky would be able to send both encryption streams down the same channel, it would be a way to slowly move to the new system without having to replace everyones STB at once.

Just a thought anyway. I can't really do any testing myself at present.

17x are type 1 cards. 45x are type 3 cards. Both Videoguard. All readers can read all cards. I can confirm a Jaycar reader can read a 17x (both Gold & Blue).

MrAlan

98 posts

Master Geek

#162004 3-Sep-2008 23:55

djaggar:
17x are type 1 cards. 45x are type 3 cards. Both Videoguard. All readers can read all cards. I can confirm a Jaycar reader can read a 17x (both Gold & Blue).

In that case, is there any information out there detailing the differences between the revisions? I'll scour google for a while seeing what I can come up with. If they are as intercompatible as suggested then it shouldn't take much more to get a rev 1 card to work.

djaggar

78 posts

Master Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#162012 4-Sep-2008 07:16

MrAlan:
djaggar:
17x are type 1 cards. 45x are type 3 cards. Both Videoguard. All readers can read all cards. I can confirm a Jaycar reader can read a 17x (both Gold & Blue).

In that case, is there any information out there detailing the differences between the revisions? I'll scour google for a while seeing what I can come up with. If they are as intercompatible as suggested then it shouldn't take much more to get a rev 1 card to work.

Rev 1 cards do work - you just need a special version of NDSCam that supports the NZ version of them (but it glitches every 10 seconds). If you want to know more I suggest you start with the DreamBox source code - there is not much on the net. Also modifying your card reader (it just converts smart card style bidirectional serial to a PC like unidirectional handshaked serial) you can snoop the protocol ... for that reason I'm not really sure why it NDS don't release a CAM - it would be a logical stopping point that IMHO makes it less likely for hackers to start the hacking process.

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