Changing the Freeview HTPC setup from DVB-T to DVB-S

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › Changing the Freeview HTPC setup from DVB-T to DVB-S

aaristotle

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#204718 14-Oct-2016 11:02

Like quite a number of Aucklanders we have sold our property on the North Shore and moved out of Auckland, purchasing an orchard in Poroti, inland from Whangarei.

I have been using a HomeRunHD for a number of years along with Mediaportal on a central PC to record Freeview TV, then playing back on a couple of TVs using OSMC on Raspberry Pi's with the MediaPortal add-in. I would like to continue with the same setup however it looks like I will need to replace the UHF Homerun with a dual tuner PCIe card that supports DVB-S.

From all the info I can find I assume that Parahaki is the only Freeview DVB-T transmitter in Northland, and that with it being 20km away with a a 200m high hill in direct line only 2km away from our property, no arrangement of aerials or amplifiers will get me a Freeview UHF signal.

Instead I am looking at ordering on of these:

http://www.buydvb.net/tbs6902-dvbs2-dual-tuner-pcie-card-p-135.html?cPath=2

Can anyone confirm that this card is compatible with the NZ Freeview system and will work with Mediaportal?

The Homerun dual tuners allowed all the channels on one mux to be recorded on Mediaportal using only one tuner, is this the same on DVB-S and are the channels grouped the same as on DVB-T? (I'm trying to work out if I need more than 1 dual tuner card).

The current property owners have Sky, can the dish be reused for Freeview without modification?

I've got a month or so before we move into the property so have time to order whats needed before we arrive.

gbwelly

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#1650931 14-Oct-2016 11:19

what model HDHR do you have?

aaristotle

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#1650937 14-Oct-2016 11:30

Its the HD HomeRun Dual ATSC Tuner, Model No: HDHR-EU, with separate UHF inputs for each tuner.

tanivula

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#1650938 14-Oct-2016 11:34

Yep, you can use the sky dish without any mods. However, not sure how dual tuners will work if there's a single cable run from the LNB (looking at the tuner, it has 2 physical tuner connectors, as opposed to that being done internally).

davidcole

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#1650939 14-Oct-2016 11:35

You might be better to ask on mediaportal about compatibility with that tuner.

If you're sourcing one from overseas that is fairly obscure, you'd probably need a bigger pool of people to ask. Basically you need to be able to confirm it's got BDA drivers.

Recording the mulitple channel recording, yes regardless of DVB-T/S (or C for that matter) the principal is the same. The channel lineups may be a little different between DVB-T and S though- and I thought there were only 2 transponders not 3? Been a long time since I scanned a DVB-S mux.

Do you only have a single slot (pci/pcie) available for a tuner? Is this the reasoning behind a dual tuner?

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mm1352000

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#1651079 14-Oct-2016 13:58

MediaPortal dev replying here...

aaristotle: Can anyone confirm that this card is compatible with the NZ Freeview system and will work with Mediaportal?

Yes and yes.

aaristotle: The Homerun dual tuners allowed all the channels on one mux to be recorded on Mediaportal using only one tuner, is this the same on DVB-S...?

Yes.

aaristotle: ...and are the channels grouped the same as on DVB-T?

No.

aaristotle: (I'm trying to work out if I need more than 1 dual tuner card).

The satellite transponder groupings are shown here:

http://www.lyngsat.com/Optus-D1.html

In essence there are currently three transponders (implying you'd need three tuners if you wanted to view/record all channels simultaneously):

12483 = TVNZ (1, 2, Duke, 1+1, 2+1) and Maori TV
12519 = PRIME, The Edge TV, Bravo + 1
12456 = everything else including 3, Bravo, HGTV, 3 + 1, Choice, all the Freeview radio stations (Radio NZ, George FM etc.) etc.

aaristotle: The current property owners have Sky, can the dish be reused for Freeview without modification?

Yes, though depending on the current installation, you may need to get a splitter to enable you to feed more than one tuner.

mm1352000

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#1651082 14-Oct-2016 14:04

tanivula: However, not sure how dual tuners will work if there's a single cable run from the LNB (looking at the tuner, it has 2 physical tuner connectors, as opposed to that being done internally).

Satellite tuners almost always have independent physical inputs. Unlike terrestrial and cable tuners, sharing of inputs would mean that the tuners mightn't be able to select channels independently. (In order to select channels, satellite tuners sometimes have to supply differing voltages and band selection tones/signals to the LNB.) In NZ this isn't so much of a concern unless you have a more exotic setup (7/Nine Aus feeds, Optus D2, IntelSat etc.). For a Freeview and/or Sky setup you can generally get away with adding a cheap (< $50) splitter.

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aaristotle

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#1651136 14-Oct-2016 15:28

Thanks for the responses. This is exactly the info I needed. I will stick with one dual tuner as it is extremely rare that I have ever wanted to record more the 2 programs simultaneously, and can usually get around the 3rd recording by using a +1 channel.

fe31nz

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#1651364 15-Oct-2016 00:53

Modern Sky dishes have a "dual-throat" LNB - which really means they have two separate LNBs, each with a separate aerial cable. Sky do that so that they can sell you an extra decoder without having to change the dish. So if you have one of them, you can connect one LNB to each input on your TBS6902 card. I have two DVB-S2 cards and have been using a satellite splitter to feed them from one of my LNBs, with the other one connected to my Sky decoder. That works fine also - my Tevii S470 and TBS5922 tuners work with half the signal level. If you need a splitter, make sure it is one rated for satellite use. The UHF splitters have the wrong frequency range. And make sure that you get one that has power passthrough on one port only, so that only one tuner can send voltage signals to the LNB to switch it's polarisation. If there is power passthrough on both tuners, it is possible to get voltages from the two tuners clashing in the LNB and in both tuners, which can cause serious problems.

The TBS6902 does have Windows drivers, see here:

http://www.tbsiptv.com/index.php?route=product/download/drivers&id=11

There are three frequencies you need to tune to for Freeview DVB-S channels. Two are operated by Freeview, and the other one is transmitted by Sky as part of their channel sharing arrangement with Freeview. Here is the output of the Linux scan-s2 command run today on the Freeview transponders:

[[Tuning to 12456000 Hz]]
TV3;Mediaworks:0:HM2:S0.0W:0:512+8185:650=eng:750:0:1920:47:21:0
Bravo;Mediaworks:0:HM2:S0.0W:0:513+8185:651=eng:712:0:1921:47:21:0
TV3 PLUS1;Mediaworks:0:HM2:S0.0W:0:518+8185:656=eng:712:0:1926:47:21:0
Hope Channel;Kordia:0:HM2:S0.0W:0:516:654=eng:0:0:1916:47:21:0
Firstlight;Kordia:0:HM2:S0.0W:0:511:649=eng:0:0:1913:47:21:0
The Shopping Channel;Kordia:0:HM2:S0.0W:0:529:667=eng:0:0:1915:47:21:0
Choice TV;Kordia Ltd:0:HM2:S0.0W:0:514:652=eng:0:0:1941:47:21:0
HGTV;Kordia:0:HM2:S0.0W:0:520:658=eng:0:0:1928:47:21:0
Shine TV;Kordia Ltd:0:HM2:S0.0W:0:530:673=eng:0:0:1927:47:21:0
Parliament TV;Kordia Ltd:0:HM2:S0.0W:0:515:653=eng,690=ang:715:0:1923:47:21:0
Te Reo;Maori Television:0:HM2:S0.0W:0:517:655=eng:0:0:1925:47:21:0
Radio NZ National;Radio New Zealand:0:HM2:S0.0W:0:0:659=eng:0:0:1929:47:21:0
Radio NZ Concert;Radio New Zealand:0:HM2:S0.0W:0:0:660=eng:0:0:1930:47:21:0
[078b];:0:HM2:S0.0W:0:0:661=eng:0:0:1931:47:21:0
[077a];:0:HM2:S0.0W:0:0:663=eng:0:0:1914:47:21:0
GeorgeFM;GeorgeFM:0:HM2:S0.0W:0:0:665=eng:0:0:1935:47:21:0
BaseFM;Kordia Ltd:0:HM2:S0.0W:0:0:666=eng:0:0:1936:47:21:0
[[Tuning to 12483000 Hz]]
Maori Television;Maori Television:1733:HM2:S0.0W:0:514:652=eng:0:0:1025:47:22:0
TVNZ 1;TVNZ:1733:HM2:S0.0W:0:515:653=eng,663=ita:579:0:1035:47:22:0
TVNZ 2;TVNZ:1733:HM2:S0.0W:0:516:654=eng,664=ita:580:0:1036:47:22:0
TVNZ 1 +1;TVNZ:1733:HM2:S0.0W:0:518:656=eng,665=ita:582:0:1037:47:22:0
TVNZ 2 +1;TVNZ:1733:HM2:S0.0W:0:512:650=eng,666=ita:581:0:1038:47:22:0
TVNZ DUKE;TVNZ:1733:HM2:S0.0W:0:520:658=eng,667=ita:583:0:1904:47:22:0
TVNZ 1;TVNZ:1733:HM2:S0.0W:0:519:657=eng:579:0:1908:47:22:0
TVNZ 1;TVNZ:1733:HM2:S0.0W:0:513:651=eng:579:0:1909:47:22:0
TVNZ 1;TVNZ:1733:HM2:S0.0W:0:517:655=eng:579:0:1910:47:22:0
;TVNZ:1733:HM2:S0.0W:0:515:653=eng,663=ita:579:0:12501:47:22:0

And here is the output for the Sky transponder which has Prime unencrypted (plus some encrypted channels):

[[Tuning to DVB-S 12519000 Hz]]
SM Premiere;SkyNZ:1769:HC34:S0.0W:22500:1001+8181:1101=eng:0:0:1002:169:3:0
Preview;SkyNZ:1769:HC34:S0.0W:22500:1006+8186:1106=eng:0:0:1050:169:3:0
Preview;SkyNZ:1769:HC34:S0.0W:22500:1006+8186:1106=eng:0:0:319:169:3:0
RNZ National;Radio New Zealand National:1769:HC34:S0.0W:22500:0:1151=eng:0:0:1101:169:3:0
RNZ Concert;Radio New Zealand Concert:1769:HC34:S0.0W:22500:0:1152=eng:0:0:1102:169:3:0
TS3 IEPG Data Service;SkyNZ:1769:HC34:S0.0W:22500:0:1160:0:0:9003:169:3:0
Prime;SkyNZ:1769:HC34:S0.0W:22500:1013+8183:1113=eng:1913:0:1530:169:3:0
Bravo PLUS1;SkyNZ:1769:HC34:S0.0W:22500:1014+8184:1114=eng:0:0:1510:169:3:0
The Edge TV;SkyNZ:1769:HC34:S0.0W:22500:1015+8185:1115=eng:0:0:1511:169:3:0
Calvary;Calvary Chapel Radio:1769:HC34:S0.0W:22500:0:1154=eng:0:0:1107:169:3:0
Preview;SkyNZ:1769:HC34:S0.0W:22500:1006+8186:1106=eng:0:0:1000:169:3:0
Tahu FM;Tahu FM - Music From The South:1769:HC34:S0.0W:22500:0:1159=eng:0:0:1105:169:3:0
EPG Background Audio;SkyNZ:1769:HC34:S0.0W:22500:0:1160=eng:0:0:330:169:3:0
Movies;Movie Sound tracks.:1769:HC34:S0.0W:22500:0:1157=eng:0:0:1133:169:3:0
Ad Tracks;Ad Track:1769:HC34:S0.0W:22500:0:1158=eng:0:0:1197:169:3:0
Classical;Classical - Elegant Pieces:1769:HC34:S0.0W:22500:0:1155=eng:0:0:1130:169:3:0
Kids;Kids - Music and Tunes:1769:HC34:S0.0W:22500:0:1156=eng:0:0:1131:169:3:0

I have not checked, but the Bravo PLUS 1 channel may be unencrypted also, and possibly The Edge TV.

Due to there being three frequencies you need to tune to, you may get clashes with only two tuners.

bfginger

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#1651919 16-Oct-2016 14:21

no arrangement of aerials or amplifiers will get me a Freeview UHF signal.

For super fringe reception areas there are specialist aerials such as large parabolics which may be able to pick up reflections.