Digital Now - DVB-S FAQ

DIGITAL VIDEO BROADCASTING TERRESTRIAL (DVB-S)

What Do I need in Addition to a PCI Card?
You need a satellite dish and an LNB, pointed in the direction of the satellite from which you want to receive the service. A good site for satellite information is at www.lyngsat.com For Australia and New Zealand services you may want to have a look at www.apsattv.com which provides a list of all Free To Air services available.

What do I need to Get Pay TV Services?
You need to purchase the VP-DTV Sat-Ci PCI card, a Conditional Access Module (CAM) and obtain a subscription card from the relevant Pay TV operator (eg Optus Aurora, Canal Satellite, etc).
Please note that some PayTV operators will not sell you a subscription smart card, by itself. They may provide you with a whole package that includes a STB, smart card and satellite dish installation.

How Can I watch TV on my Television Set?
The best way to do that is if you have a TV that has a VGA input, in which case you will connect your PC to the TV set. If your TV does not have a VGA input, you can still do that if your video card has video out (S-Video, Composite, Component, etc); simply connect your video card video out, using the appropriate cable, to the TV video in. The associated sound will be coming out of your PC's sound card, so you need to connect that to your audio system or the TV audio inputs.

Can I Receive Analog TV Broadcast with the PCI Cards?
No, all DVB-s PCI cards are digital only receivers. Analog broadcasts, whether via satellite or terrestrial can not be received.

Can I Playback the Recorded Video with a DVD Player?
Yes, video is recorded in MPEG2 format and virtually all DVD players can be used for playback.

Tips and Tricks

For best performance it is advised that a PC with a minimum CPU of 800Mhz should be used with these cards.
Avoid having another BT8x8 chipset based PCI card on the same PC, as this may cause hardware conflicts.
Use the middle PCI slot on your motherboard, this tends to have better bus mastering performance.
If you are having problems with hardware installation, try a different PCI slot, there could be an IRQ conflict with other devices installed.