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Good DVB-C card for DVBViewer, with CI-interface


Klaus_1250

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I'm interested in switching from analogue cable on my computer using DScaler, to digital using DVBViewer. But, I cannot seem to find a good review or side-by-side comparison for DVB-C cards. I narrowed my list down to the KNC One TV-Station DVB-C, TechnoTrend Budget C-1500 and TwinhanDTV Cab-ci 2033 Mantis, but am not sure which one is the best choice. The most important things are that the card needs to work properly with an optional CI-module and Alphacrypt, has (very) good driver support and the card itself is of solid electronic design (it needs to sit right under a WiFi card).

 

Anyone got some good advice or cards to definitely avoid (with DVBViewer)?

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Hi Klaus_1250,

 

I was able to test two of those three cards with the DVBViewer, the KNC1 and the Twinhan.

 

The KNC1 did not work at all, because the BDA drivers supplied by KNC1 where buggy. Then I tried the KNC1 with the tuner driver from Terratec ( the Cinergy 1200C is nearly identical to the KNC1 ) and it worked, but not all frequencies could be received. There was also a problem with QAM256 modulated transponders.

 

Then I changed from the KNC1 to the Twinhan CabCI. With the Twinhan all frequencies can be received without any problems, inluding S2 ( 113MHz ) and S3 ( 121MHz ) which often is a problem. In other words, the tuner of the Twinhan is very good.

 

Nevertheless the Twinhan also has a problem with QAM256 modulated channels. ATM this problem could be solved only with the DVBViewer GE, but not with the DVBViewer Pro:

 

It is neccessary to uncheck the point "use standard interface" in the hardware settings. But this possibility only exists in DVBViewer GE and TransEdit, it does not exists in DVBViewer Pro ( yet ? )

 

I first thought that this behavior was caused by a bug in the bda drivers of the Twinhan card. But now a was able to test the Twinhan card with the newest version of "AltDVB", which is version 2.2 When using AltDVB 2.2, I can receive all transponders without any problems, regardless if they use QAM64 or QAM256. So I think there is a small incompatibility in the way DVBViewer Pro tries to switch the modulation type through the bda driver.

 

I never had the opportunity to test the Technotrend card, but I read about rumors that the Technotrend had driver problems which are said to be solved with the latest driver version.

 

When looking at the price, the technotrend card + the CI extension module have the same price then the Twinhan, which has the CI already build in.

 

So my recommendation normally would be the Twinhan CabCI, because it has the best tuner from 3 cards I was able to test ( KNC1, Cablestar2 and Twinhan )

 

But atm the card only works with DVBViewer GE, which does not support CI modules. It does atm not work with DVBViewer Pro, which would support CI modules. So you should wait until either a CI module enabled version of DVBViewer GE is available, or the DVBViewer Pro works with the Twinhan CabCI and then get the Twinhan CabCI.

 

C.U. NanoBot

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Hi Derrick, hi Engelbert,

 

Do you get the entire mux of a 256-QAM carrier with transedit including null_packets?

 

@Derrick

yes, on QAM256 channels the analyze function of Transedit shows all PIDs including the null_packets using PID 0x1FFF.

 

@Engelbert

My problem with the cablestar2 is S2 ( 113MHz ). If I connect the cable directly to the card, 113MHz can't be received at all. If I put an attenuator with 20dB between the cable and the card, 113MHz can be received, but then most of the other channels will not work at all. So this could be a local problem with the cable amplifier here in the house, might be that the signal on 113MHz is way to strong compared with the higher frequencies. Nevertheless the Twinhan card does not have a problem with this, so at least for me the Twinhan is the better card. And the cablestar2 at all is not a possible solution for the DVBViewer, since it does have no CI.

 

A question about the QAM256 problem: Do you use DVBViewer under Windows XP or Windows 2000 ? I use it under WIndows 2000.

 

C.U. NanoBot

Edited by NanoBot
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I'm interested in switching from analogue cable on my computer using DScaler, to digital using DVBViewer. But, I cannot seem to find a good review or side-by-side comparison for DVB-C cards. I narrowed my list down to the KNC One TV-Station DVB-C, TechnoTrend Budget C-1500 and TwinhanDTV Cab-ci 2033 Mantis, but am not sure which one is the best choice. The most important things are that the card needs to work properly with an optional CI-module and Alphacrypt, has (very) good driver support and the card itself is of solid electronic design (it needs to sit right under a WiFi card).

 

Anyone got some good advice or cards to definitely avoid (with DVBViewer)?

 

The german magazine c't had a Review of all the cards you mentioned in 06-2006. You got a PM :)

 

Cheereo

NeDrY

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Hi NanoBot, I don't have a dvb-c card and can't receive german cable. So I can't comment on the tuner quality. Though I've read that the cable providers feed 256QAM carriers with a much higher power to achieve a higher S/N. That could lead to problems with filters and the input stage of the tuner..

 

BDA streams the mux without hardware pid_filters. The flexcop based cards can't handle muxrates > 42mbps. 256qam won't work without hardware filters (altdvb uses filters if necessary). Same is true for the firedtv family. The latest fixes for 256qam was not related to the modulation but to reducing the rate. That is a reason that I asked about the null_packets :) In transedit you don't see if packets are dropped. The measured muxrate should equal the calculated rate (or record all and playback with tsreader).

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@ NanoBot

 

The digital cable becomes gradually a annoyance if one SAT know.

 

My OS is WinXP PRO (signature).

 

One (!) of the problems is respectively the house amplifier; the signal strength of the frequencies of 47 - 862 MHz must cleanly being linearisiert.

 

The CableStar goes with weak signals, the TwinHan better with strong signals.

 

I am using an Distribution Amplifier (Axing TVS 8-01, 2x12dB, 1x TV - 1x PC) for the minimization of the Discontinuities now.

 

CableStar of 113-346 MHz (without CI), the Twinhan for the higher ones Frequency domains (with smart card), transmitter groups. Hardly Differences between QAM 64/256 with my TH 2031.

 

At Win2000 it seems to give less Discontinuities as WinXP.

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One (!) of the problems is respectively the house amplifier; the signal strength of the frequencies of 47 - 862 MHz must cleanly being linearisiert.

 

First, thanx everyone for the replies!!! Going to buy the Twinhan tomorrow!

 

As for the above. I'm a bit confused? One of the issues I have is exactly I don't get a clearly linearized signal from my provider (@home). Worst of all, they've cut the signal strength about 6dB this week, so I'm having issues with all higher frequencies (everything above 400mhz, and at 700Mhz it becomes problematic). I do have a low grade signal amplifier with solves the issues for the mid range frequencies, but I cant get decent reception for anything above 700Mhz. One of the reasons I'm switching digital. AFAIK, they broadcast the DVB-C signal between 300-400Mhz.

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Hi Klaus_1250,

 

atm here in Berlin the lowest frequency used ist 113MHz and the highest is 610MHz. I think the frequencies will be the same at least if you are connected to Kabel Deutschland.

 

And if possible you should not buy the card in an normal shop rather then via internet. As you might know, here in germany you have the right to return the card without any reason for a refund in cash within 14 days, if you don't like it and you bought it via internet ( Fernabsatzgesetz ;-)

 

C.U. NanoBot

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Reach here (Berlin-Spandau, not development area) the transponders of 113 - 466 MHz, QAM64 + QAM256, KabelD -- not linear!

 

Enclosed as a sample means a current transponder list for TransEdit (Membersarea):

 

 

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I'm in the Netherlands, provider is @home. Checked the frequencies; between 247MHz and 818 MHz, all using QAM64.

 

@nanobot: In the Netherlands, we have a similiar law as well, BUT the package may no be openend and not the product may not have been used...

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  • 2 weeks later...

For those interested. I purchased a TwinhanDTV Cab-CI Mantis 2033 and an AlphaCrypt 3.09. Getting it to work with the standard software was a tough cookie. I needed to change some of the CAM's setting to extract the PMT itself, instead of the software. I also fetched a more recent driver (1.2.9) from the Digital Rise website, which is not available on the Twinhan website. I got most of the channels working, but not the H264 HDTV ones and some of the standard SDTV-channels refuse to work. The TwinhanDTV software is very very poor IMHO.

 

I grabbed myTheatre which worked much better, though it refuses to play the HDTV h264 channels too and it seems to have no Teletext support (?). The UI is only so-so, and it has a peculiar way of changing some settings (such as choosing different decoders), which often cause trouble.

 

So I'm transferring funds to Paypal to get DVBViewer Pro. But, I am curious as too what I can expect from DVBViewer Pro.

 

* Can I watch HDTV h264 channels with CoreAVC as the codec? I'm limited on processing power (3.2ghz p4) and haven't got a mpeg4/hdtv hardware-accelerator on my videocard.

 

* Does it recognize/use some of the more advanced features/packets of DVB? (such as the ones which allow me to enter the network ID and a frequency which is enough the set up all channels, bouquet it is called I think).

 

* Do I need to switch to a specific channel to get EPG information? The TwinhanDTV didn't seem to extract any EPG-information other than the channel your were watching. An update of the entire EPG-guide meant that it automatically zapped past all the channels (which took about 250 x 10 seconds and resulted in only a few programs added per channel). myTheatre seemed to extract multiple channels, regardless of a specific channel you were watching. My STB always has a complete and up-to-date EPG, so I think it should be doable on the PC too).

 

Last, is there any way / are there any filters which improve upon the picture quality? After some close viewing, I noticed that MPEG-artifacts are pretty noticable when viewed upon a big TFT-monitor. I know ffdshow should be able to do some fancy post-processing, but setting it up seems very challenging.

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Hi Klaus_1250,

 

* Can I watch HDTV h264 channels with CoreAVC as the codec? I'm limited on processing power (3.2ghz p4) and haven't got a mpeg4/hdtv hardware-accelerator on my videocard.

 

* Does it recognize/use some of the more advanced features/packets of DVB? (such as the ones which allow me to enter the network ID and a frequency which is enough the set up all channels, bouquet it is called I think).

 

* Do I need to switch to a specific channel to get EPG information? The TwinhanDTV didn't seem to extract any EPG-information other than the channel your were watching. An update of the entire EPG-guide meant that it automatically zapped past all the channels (which took about 250 x 10 seconds and resulted in only a few programs added per channel). myTheatre seemed to extract multiple channels, regardless of a specific channel you were watching. My STB always has a complete and up-to-date EPG, so I think it should be doable on the PC too).

 

Last, is there any way / are there any filters which improve upon the picture quality? After some close viewing, I noticed that MPEG-artifacts are pretty noticable when viewed upon a big TFT-monitor. I know ffdshow should be able to do some fancy post-processing, but setting it up seems very challenging.

 

 

1.)

 

First of all I would like to make clear that QAM256 modulated channels in my case atm can only be received with the DVBViewer GE. Therefore I was not able to test HDTV with DVBViewer Pro, only with the GE version. Because the only two HDTV channels available in my case are encrypted and modulated in QAM256, and because DVBViewer GE does not support CIs yet, I was forced to use an additional software we will not talk about in this forum ;-)

 

HTDV worked with DVBViewer GE and the latest CoreAVC on my PC, which is equipped with an A64 x2 3800+, overclocked to 2 * 2,5GHz ( instead of 2 * 2,0GHz ), 1GByte of ram and a 7900GT videocard.

 

I was able to make my tests on two HDTV channels, using bitrates between 10 MBit/s and 20 MBit /s. The playback quality achieved was highly depending on the actual bitrate of the received channel. If the bitrate is below ~ 12 Mbit/s, everything works fine and smooth, with a cpu load between 60% and 80% on each core. When higher bitrates appear, the playback was not so smooth anymore, and the cpu load goes up to > 95% on both cores. Recording HDTV with the video playback switched off during the recording works fine at any bitrates.

 

In addition, I was able to track down one of the reasons for the high cpu usage at higher bitrates: The additional software I used eats up up to 60% of one cpu core on its own. When using a CI, this additional software is not necessary. So I think that nearly any dual core cpu will do the trick for both, live viewing and recording, while a single core cpu will only be sufficient for recording with video playback switched off.

 

 

2.)

 

If your cable provider is using the nit correctly, the only thing you would need to know is the frequency, the modulation type and the symbol rate for one transponder. The parameters of all other transponders in use then can be found using the program "TransEdit", which is available to all registered users of DVBViewer. The transponder list created by Transedit can be saved to disk for further use with both DVBViewer GE und DVBViewer Pro.

When scanning the channels within DVBViewer, all channels will be sorted into their bouqets.

 

3.)

 

DVBViewer reads all EPG information which is present on the transponder tuned in. It simply depends on how many information the provider of the transponder in use stores in the EIT:

 

It may hold only the information for the channels on the current transponder, but it also may hold information for all channels of the provider. And it may also only hold the title of the event or may hold the whole information about the event.

 

E.G.:

 

If I tune in one of the the two frequencies used by the ARD, the EPG can fetch all information ( event title and event information ) for all channels on both frequencies.

 

If I tune in a Premiere channel, the EPG can fetch the complete information for all channels on the actual transponder. It will also fetch information for all other premiere channels, but only for the current and the next event the complete information can be fetched. For later events only the event title can be grabbed. This is simply because premiere does not store the complete information for all channels in the EIT. I think that is because it would eat up more bandwidth if the complete EPG for all channels would be present in all EITs.

 

4.)

 

For MPEG2 decoding I used both the NVidia PureVideo codec and the Cyberlink Power DVD7 codec. Both are looking fine for me with both progeressive and interlaced footage. For HDTV I used CoreAVC, which looks perfect on progressive sources, but I was not satisfied with the deinterlacing quality.

 

Audio decoding is done with the latest AC3 Filter and it is ok.

 

 

 

C.U. NanoBot

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Hi Klaus_1250,

1.)

 

First of all I would like to make clear that QAM256 modulated channels in my case atm can only be received with the DVBViewer GE. Therefore I was not able to test HDTV with DVBViewer Pro, only with the GE version. Because the only two HDTV channels available in my case are encrypted and modulated in QAM256, and because DVBViewer GE does not support CIs yet, I was forced to use an additional software we will not talk about in this forum ;-)

 

The provider here only uses QAM64, for both tv and internet. I don't think the quality of the network and subscribers connections allows for QAM256. So that shouldn't be an issue.

You can also PM me about the software-sollution :-D (though, I take it the software does not work for Irdeto2)

 

HTDV worked with DVBViewer GE and the latest CoreAVC on my PC, which is equipped with an A64 x2 3800+, overclocked to 2 * 2,5GHz ( instead of 2 * 2,0GHz ), 1GByte of ram and a 7900GT videocard.

I have to get by with a PIV 3.2Ghz, which is pretty minimal for H264. I still have a FX5200 AGP card, but I'm waiting for a mainstream DX10 AGP card from ATI.

 

I was able to make my tests on two HDTV channels, using bitrates between 10 MBit/s and 20 MBit /s. The playback quality achieved was highly depending on the actual bitrate of the received channel. If the bitrate is below ~ 12 Mbit/s, everything works fine and smooth, with a cpu load between 60% and 80% on each core. When higher bitrates appear, the playback was not so smooth anymore, and the cpu load goes up to > 95% on both cores. Recording HDTV with the video playback switched off during the recording works fine at any bitrates.

Because my Cable-company only uses QAM and had multiple HDTV-channels per stream, I doubt I'll get such high bitrates.

 

2.)

 

If your cable provider is using the nit correctly, the only thing you would need to know is the frequency, the modulation type and the symbol rate for one transponder. The parameters of all other transponders in use then can be found using the program "TransEdit", which is available to all registered users of DVBViewer. The transponder list created by Transedit can be saved to disk for further use with both DVBViewer GE und DVBViewer Pro.

When scanning the channels within DVBViewer, all channels will be sorted into their bouqets.

 

I think NIT is being uses correctly, e.g. STB's have no problems with it. I tried to use the free version of TransEdit, but it doesn't seem to do anything with the NIT's. Was able to manually add all channels, and found all of them.

 

3.)

 

DVBViewer reads all EPG information which is present on the transponder tuned in. It simply depends on how many information the provider of the transponder in use stores in the EIT:

 

It may hold only the information for the channels on the current transponder, but it also may hold information for all channels of the provider. And it may also only hold the title of the event or may hold the whole information about the event.

 

E.G.:

 

If I tune in one of the the two frequencies used by the ARD, the EPG can fetch all information ( event title and event information ) for all channels on both frequencies.

 

If I tune in a Premiere channel, the EPG can fetch the complete information for all channels on the actual transponder. It will also fetch information for all other premiere channels, but only for the current and the next event the complete information can be fetched. For later events only the event title can be grabbed. This is simply because premiere does not store the complete information for all channels in the EIT. I think that is because it would eat up more bandwidth if the complete EPG for all channels would be present in all EITs.

 

OK, thanx for the thourough explanation! As long as my software uses as much information on a current transponder as it can I'm happy :-)

 

4.)

 

For MPEG2 decoding I used both the NVidia PureVideo codec and the Cyberlink Power DVD7 codec. Both are looking fine for me with both progeressive and interlaced footage. For HDTV I used CoreAVC, which looks perfect on progressive sources, but I was not satisfied with the deinterlacing quality.

 

AFAIK CoreAVC still has some issues, and even though it is very fast, it doesn't use DxVA yet (which should make it blindingly fast). HDTV broadcasts here are all in 1080i, so I'm curious about the quality. Cyberlink also seems to have an advanced h264 sse2 decoder, which I should be entitled to with my purchase, but I can't use it yet (comes with TwinhanDTV 3 which doesn't work with my DVB card yet :-( ). Unless someone knows how to manually hack in the drivers.

 

C.U. NanoBot

Thanx for the very thorough and explanatory reply!!! Is there any good, but easy to follow, guide/handbook to DVB-C laying around somewhere?

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2.)

I think NIT is being uses correctly, e.g. STB's have no problems with it. I tried to use the free version of TransEdit, but it doesn't seem to do anything with the NIT's. Was able to manually add all channels, and found all of them.

 

I'm not sure why, but the NIT doesn't seem to be used. Couldn't find a place to enter it, and I don't think TransEdit can find it on its own since my provider send out NIT's for all of it's cable networks across the country. My NetworkID is 1111, but, all channels seem to have gotten 1000 as NetworkID and I needed to manually input all frequencies.

Edited by Klaus_1250
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