Difference between revisions of "DVB Cards"

Latest revision as of 17:25, 29 September 2010

Description of DVB Cards:

LMCE uses mythtv as media player and some people use DVB cards as input in Mythtv. (I will write a tuto for vdr if i manage to put my hands on vdr wrappers.)

There are different types of DVB cards they differ in the kind of signal / band / compression algorythms and some have mpeg decoders that allow the card to process all the video so the processor is free to do the rest on your host.

- The DVB-S cards are used to receive satellite signals K Band / PSK QPSK 8PSK etc... 
- The DVB-T cards are used to receive terestrial signals VHF/UHF
- The DVB-C cards are used to receive coaxial cable tv

Those cards should work with lmce as long as they are supported by the Linux kernel.

First check dmesg | grep dvb should tell you if the card is seen properly and also tell you wich device the card uses (/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0 and so forth.)
 

In order to use the card you will need to scan for channels.

To do so you will need to install dvb-utils packages:

sudo apt-get install dvb-utils

sudo scan /usr/share/doc/dvb-utils/examples/scan/dvb-s/Astra-19.2 >channels.conf

If you dont want any radio or encrypted channels:

sudo scan /usr/share/doc/dvb-utils/examples/scan/dvb-s/Astra-19.2 -x0 -t1 >channels.conf

If you are getting to few channels:

sudo scan /usr/share/doc/dvb-utils/examples/scan/dvb-s/Astra-19.2 -x0 -t1 -n >channels.conf

Hint: if you can't get any signal lock try to get the frequencies looking on your tv or satellite receiver then input them in the /usr/share/doc/dvb-utils/../..........

You can even make your own file copying the model in the dvb-x category.

Once you have populated the channels.conf file you can setup mythtv tu use your card
(mythtv will tell you if it sees the DVB card)

Then in the channel scan section use the channels.conf method and put the path to your file.

If mythtv finishes the scan then you can fire up your MD to watch tv.