The SA MCE Community

Anyone know of any DVB-S cards supported by MCE?  The IR method of changing channels, etc is just too unreliable - there's no sure way to know your DSTV box has received the correct IR commands and is on the right channel.  I want to stick a DVB-S card with an Irdeto II CAM in it and have all the hardware in one box.

Either that, or we need to convince Multichoice that they need to start putting RS232 interfaces on their devices.

Sounds like a great idea.  As far as I know, DVB-S cards are supported by MCE, but, are they supported by DSTV?  I know you can get ones that use Ku-band etc, so maybe it will work, but I'd make sure I could get one on evaluation before shelling out good cash for it.

As far as using the RS-232 goes, good luck.  DSTV are being complete idiots about even giving us the guide.  Highly unlikely to let us plug into their decoders....

dvb-s cards are categorically not supported by mce.

dvb-t yes, dvb-s no.

so, what we need is something to make mce think a dvb-s is a dvb-t...:-)

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=319927

in the uk they have sky tv via satellite, as well as terrestrial dvb-t broadcasts.
I think you should be able to use this method to get your dstv working, if cam's etc are available (and using a valid subscriber card)...you would need to set your mce region to uk (or another country that uses dvb-t and the pal television system) ...germany and australia are likely candidates using pal but the uk would be good because they also use pal-i

so, yes, it is possible to use dvb-s cards in mce via this workaround...i dont know if dstv will also work...time to experiment. I know of certain users watching dstv through a pc with a dvb-s card, so I would have to conclude it is possible via mce...just not officially

happy hacking

Whoops.  I new I had heard it supports DVB-something.  Good thing you're here then. 

I have been told, that the twinhan cards will work on dstv but have not tested on XP or MCE. Space TV have limted stock of Twinhan cards (www.twinhan.com) I'll try to find out more today and post.

Hi,

I've been using a DVB-S card for a while now to receive DSTV services (Twinhan Broadlogic 2030 with Irdeto Cam and SmartCard). Unforunately, I haven't been able to get it working with MCE yet - there are drivers available, but the settings to actually get the card to tune with MCE still eludes me. I'll post my progress here...

I saw this on twinhan.com

"TwinHan Release MCE DVB-S Support Package for TwinHan DVB-S PCI card series and StarBox II USB Box"

http://www.twinhan.com/news_releases_2.asp?newsid=99