DiSEqC - display when dish is moving, move with video - HD works thoug

[karthur]

The DiSEqC implementation is very poor, I'm quite disappointed with it. Of course I could just be completely stupid and I'm missing something, but here are the problems:

 

First of all, I have a Skystar HD2 card and Vista. DVBViewer will only work with the drivers off the Technisat CDROM. It will not work with the drivers available on the Twinhan site, as they are old (as it turns out - what's with these companies?). You need to have the v1.1 series of drivers which astonishingly are not even available on the Technisat website.

 

I managed to get USALS working, but when you switch channels DVBViewer does not alert you with what is happening with the dish (is it moving, is it not, is it going crazy, etc). So unless you have a CCTV that you can refer to watching your dish move, you have absolutely no idea what is happening. When the dish is moving, something should pop up on screen stating as much (which is quite standard right?).

 

The other problem is fine-tuning. My USALS is not perfectly tuned by default because when I set up the dish I tuned it to 1W instead of guessing where South was (of course I could have first set the receiver to USALS 1W - but eh, you live and learn). The positioner utility is buried about 4 levels deep in the channel editing section. First of all, it should have its own section and own menu link. If I try to fine tune the dish with the positioner, it actually shuts off all the video and signal display (which was hard enough to find as well) which makes fine tuning a dish with DVBViewer 100% impossible. I have resorted to reporting different longitudes for the USALS settings (which is also buried in a weird place) and then re-scanning/changing channels to see the effect.

 

Just FYI everyone, I have actually got the HD channels (BBC, Luxe, Astra, etc) working quite well on my AMD 4200+ / NVidia 8600GT Media Centre. I bought CoreAVC for the x264 decoding and it is buggy, so scrap that for now. PowerDVD7 codec crashes DVBViewer. I have found the best codec with the lowest CPU usage to be the ArcSoft x264 codec. I'm not even actually sure how this got on my system (must have been installed with some codec package), but it works the best. About 50-60% CPU usage when using the latest version of DVBViewer Pro (NOT GE, GE makes it very slow). You also have to pick Video Overlay as the renderer, even though it switches off Visa Aero. The other renderers are very slow on my system. I'm using the v163 nvidia drivers, but I'm going to try the new v174 ones tonight. All the other NVidia drivers cause video stuttering in Vista.

 

You know what? all of this is very fun and all (because I'm a techy) but seriously.......my recommendation to everyone out there is to just buy a set top HD box. This whole PC DVB card / software thing is a little bit of a joke and a hack. Nothing is proper.

[karthur]

Just want to add that I couldn't install the Nvidia 174 drivers to test as apparently you need a 9600 in order to install them. But I tried the Vista EVR in pro with the ArcSoft x264 codec, and it is absolutely unbelievable. GE crashes, but Pro works perfectly and now the CPU usage on full screen BBC HD is between 6 and 10%!

[Derrick]

..but when you switch channels DVBViewer does not alert you with what is happening with the dish (is it moving, is it not, is it going crazy, etc).

What do you expect for 15€? Should Hackbart come and watch your dish 24/7 ? There's no feedback from the dish. If you switch channels a command is sent. Maybe you should deactivate diseqc for good

[karthur]

What do you expect for 15€? Should Hackbart come and watch your dish 24/7 ? There's no feedback from the dish. If you switch channels a command is sent. Maybe you should deactivate diseqc for good

 

Thanks for your helpful comments. Yeah I should probably just get rid of the whole motorized dish thing, so instead of being able to view 26 satellites I could do 1 or maybe even 4 if I'm lucky. Better get out there and start aiming LNBs and running cable.

 

Thing is, I'd pay 115 Euro for a program that worked properly. If the program worked properly there wouldn't be too much need for messages saying what is going on popping up on screen, but it doesn't work. When I switch channels onto a different satellite, it seems to move the dish but it won't display the chanel in the end. I have to switch onto and off other channels and back in order to get it to work. BTW please show me a set top box that doesn't display what is going on with the rotor. I'm not asking for something crazy.

 

Today DVBViewer started crashing all the time every time I changed a channel, especially from HD to SD, but it crashed randomly. I tried everything for the past few hours to get it to work (selecting every kind of combination of codecs). In the end, I deleted the directory and reinstalled it, and now it doesn't crash! So somehow DVBViewer corrupted itself.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think DVBViewer is really amazing, especially for the price, however it doesn't do the basics properly and is buggy, so it is just really frustrating that there doesn't seem to be anything better for more money or not.

[Darwin]

show me a set top box that doesn't display what is going on with the rotor

None of them (Humax IRCI 5400, FTV 5600 & HD 1000, TripleDragon, EZY 8000 HD)!

 

Perhaps a very interesting - and stupid - OSD-Label 'atenna is moving' instead!

If service not found: 'moving' and 'moving' and 'moving' (not really )

 

No chance with DiSEqC below 2.xx!

 

 

Workaround:

Create a sorted favourite-section 'Mover' with one FTA-service (use horizontal pol for fast moving) for each Position

Name these services with a sort-prefix like "e23.5 : Ocko TV"

And ... use the retune-option (Options>Hardware). My setting: 1 (every second)

[karthur]

None of them (Humax IRCI 5400, FTV 5600 & HD 1000, TripleDragon, EZY 8000 HD)!

 

Perhaps a very interesting - and stupid - OSD-Label 'atenna is moving' instead!

If service not found: 'moving' and 'moving' and 'moving' (not really )

 

No chance with DiSEqC below 2.xx!

Workaround:

Create a sorted favourite-section 'Mover' with one FTA-service (use horizontal pol for fast moving) for each Position

Name these services with a sort-prefix like "e23.5 : Ocko TV"

And ... use the retune-option (Options>Hardware). My setting: 1 (every second)

 

thanks, thats a good idea.

[Derrick]

..thx for the explanation It is technically not possible to know the exact status of the motor with diseqc 1.x.

 

2.x has bidrectional communication but afaik there's no consumer STB supporting diseqc 2.x. Same is true for diseqc rotors.

 

Setting the retuning counter accordingly could help to switch to the wanted channel after the motor has stopped.

[karthur]

Why was the topic for rebuilding the graph closed? This was not crossposted (it is now) and the question and answer was not asked in this thread (can anyone find it except below (taken from the other thread)? This hint works 1/2 the time, but it still doesn't work all the time. There is still a bug.

 

I will cease to participate in these forums. I thought my input might be usefull for some people, however it is not acceptable to have a forum moderator acting like a troll and a forum fascist. For the trolling look no further than his first reply in this thread. This is my last post here, I do not appreciate this eliteist attitude to new people asking questions and pointing out BUGS in this software.

 

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With the latest version of Pro on my Technisat HD2 (using technisat drivers of cdrom) Whenever I change satellites using Diseqc (goto angle), the dish moves but the channel will not display. It can be fixed by clicking on "rebuild graph" after the dish has finished moving. You can see that the dish has finished moving because the signal meter displays a signal. Could this not be automated on satellite change/whenever a goto angle command has been initiated? It is a bug, because every settop box I have tried using USALS/Diseqc does not have a problem showing the channel after a change of satellite.

 

Thanks

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Have you tried this:

 

Setting\Options\Hardware select your card and set 'retune on missing streams' to a figure of say 3 secs - try different settings to find which suits you best.

 

This tells the viewer to keep trying to tune every 'x' seconds, so when the motor reaches the new sat it will tune the channel.

 

hth

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Edited February 24, 2008 by karthur