manojcmenon wrote: > Do you have some sort of OpenSource version of "Windows XP Media > Centre Edition" ? > > If you do, we would love to hear how you put it together. Along with > some photos perhaps. > >
I did a small writeup for somebody who did want to do something similar to what you asked, since it will help many people asking the same question i am sending some parts from that mail as well as some snaps. Hope you guys find it useful. > Hi Manu, > > I hope all is well with you. > It's been a long time since we corresponded. It was cool to send in a mail. I was caught up in some arguments with some fellow devel's regarding some devel issues and hence the delay in the response. Sorry for the delay. > I am currently trying staying at a villa in Umm Suqeim and have a few > satellite dishes on the roof which provides us with TV service. I have a > set-top box in my room supplied by a company called TechnoSat. > Unfortunately it has no card in their and I am unable to find out where > I may get myself one. So to that end I am stuck watching > non-subscription channels which are predominantly not in English. I > remember in some of our conversations in the past that you mentioned > that you have mentioned that it was possible using a DVB card, kernel > modules and some OSS to receive the scrambled channels. So my question > to you is in regards to DVB cards. I have wandered around Computer > Street here in Dubai and found a few different stores that specialize in > these cards but I was not willing to commit to a purchase until I spoke > with you. The store I found most helpful was Irma Trading. Their website > is http://www.irmanet.com They have some of their products on their > website. I was wondering whether you could check it out for me and place > any recommendations or whether you could give me details of a better > supplier in the country to purchase this sort of equipment from. > > Sounds good, There are 2 ways with you can achieve this. (1) The legal way, by getting a subscription and using it with PCMCIA CA adapter or with just your Set Top Box (STB) (2) use a SoftCAM and a keys extracted from a subscription, or underground keys In case (1) you need a valid DVB card which supports CA (Conditional Access) the interface is called the CI (Common Inteface). One needs to plug in a relevant CA module [1] into this PCMCIA slot either on the STB or on the PCI card. Currently under Linux there are 2 types of CA support, traditional CA, and HLCI (High Level Common Interface) And there are just 2 family types which have this CI support on them. One is from Hauppauge [2] and the other one is from Twinhan [3], [4] To be very frank, Linux support for CA devices is still immature. I mean in the sense that you have very few apps which can do this. Currently the applications that do have CA support is like this. (a) VDR [6] (b) MythTV [7] (c) VLC [8] but rather than all this the rudimentary tools for HLCI are available on linuxtv.org called ca_zap. Other than this, i do lead an application devel team, which now works upon to build a complete CI stack under Linux which will be cross compatible with all CA/CI types. This is now in working stage, but in a beta stage. This is not just the simple descrambling stuff that i mentioned a while back, but an even more complex stuff, which does an attempt make a solution for the existing gap under Linux. This preview stuff is there on my repository [5]. This is not heavily tested, but it has been tested by one of the co developers in Germany. I could not test it for the time being due to the lack of time and heading 4 areas under DVB development at this point of time. (a) VDR does not support budget cards well, ie cards which do not have a Hardware MPEG decoder, and cards based on a MPEG decoder is something like old stuff these days and there are fewer cards which have this on the market today. It does not support HLCI based cards too. * Supports FF (Full Fledged) Cards better * has only Low Level CI support (b) MythTV , this one does support all card types, but it did not support HLCI a while back, but as i remeber one guy who worked with me posted a patch to the MythTV devel team to add in support for the HLCI based cards. I am not sure whether this patch is now merged into the official MythTV source though. But as far as i can say, if not it can be made to work as these paeople can be easily contacted, as they keep in touch with me driver issues/features. * supports FF and budget cards * has Low Level Ci support * HLCI support is partial (c) VLC, this one added HLCI support quite recently , and is in experimental stage at present * CI support is quite new as it is for both Low Level CI and HLCI * An app that can be easily used and installed (Installation of MythTV and or VDR will test your patience) If none of these applications do suit your needs , you can use your own CLI programs from linuxt.org dvb-apps [9] in conjunction with Mplayer or Xine. You need CLI tools like dvbscan, szap, and ca_zap for this from dvb-apps [9]. This is the most rudimentary form in which we say how DVB should be first tested out, as it can find bugs and problems easily. So we recommend users to give results based on these tools only, since we cannot comment on issues from other projects. Now to buy the cards, as i know in Dubai, for the HLCI cards , IRMA and Golden Systems (they are the importers from Taipei, Taiwan) are both distributors for the same. Regarding the Hauppauge cards, you will need to search a bit. And since i could cot initially find a Hauppauge card only, initially i got in developing drivers for the Twinhan cards. There are other applications like (a) Klear (b) Kaffeine (c) Mplayer (d) Xine (a) Klear does support only FTA (Free to Air ) channels only, no descrambling (b) Kaffeine, it doesn't support scrambled channels ATM but it won't be a long wait, but till we finished our work on the CA stack [5]. So it should be only a short time for Kaffeine to implement proper support (c) Mplayer, This is a huge project, having too many developers and it's kind of very difficult tom comment on when they will implement som CA/CI stack (d) Xine, This player has some features and has got the best video, but it has some design flaws. Expect some issues ! But you can likewise get the cards from any of the shops in Bur Dubai. One that i got my first card was from Shirazi Computers Note: if you buy a Twinhan card, always try to get a new card rather than an old card, and that it is a Twinhan card (not OEM cards). there are some cards having old firmwares which are buggy. If you buy from a shop which does have a good sales on this, you are likely to get a card with the latest firmware. Try to get it directly from Golden Systems or Irmanet If you need a Hauppauge card, another option is to order from the internet. To get a subscription, currently you have either ADD or Showtime to choose from. probably you know Dubai better than me in this aspect. but if you are finding hard to find a subscription dealer, let me know so that i can let you know somebody around there. (2) SoftCAM's SoftCAM's are illegal, since the algorithm on the CA modules CSA, (Common Scrambling Algorithm) is licensed in a specific way and not allowed to be implemented in Software. Most implementations of SoftCAM's are kind of hard to get working, and will require quite a lot of time going through underground sites etc. I haven't got a SoftCAM to work and can't explain the ways/pitfalls in there. The principle is the same in the case that the keys from your subscription card is extracted using a card reader and stored in a file. This file is used for the CSA software run on the computer, rather than on the processor on the PCMCIA card as in the case of CI hardware. I don't know whether i have missed anything out, because of this lengthy mail. Regards, Manu Syed Mukram Ali (Sales Engg) Mobile: +971-50-7673856 Golden Systems, Tel: +971-4-3972345 #PB 730, Dubai www.goldensystems.ae email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [1] http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Image:CI-Irdeto.jpg [2] http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Hauppauge_WinTV_NOVA-CI_PCI [3] http://www.thadathil.net/gallery/album05 [4] http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Twinhan_VP-1030A [5] http://www.thadathil.net/cgi-bin/hgwebdir.cgi/en50221_ci_stack [6] http://www.cadsoft.de/vdr/ [7] http://www.mythtv.org/ [8] www.videolan.org [9] http://www.linuxtv.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/dvb-apps/ Mantis alpha hardware getting ready for debug http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3130016.jpg closeup of Mantis alpha http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3130017.jpg Mantis beta hardware getting ready for debug http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3130010.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3130012.jpg Mantis beta under a running test An active debugging session for the Mantis http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/gkrellShoot_03-16-06_212503.png IBM PPC405 Vulcan based STB http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3150019.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3150020.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3150021.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3150022.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160033.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160035.jpg x86 OSS based STB http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3090007.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3090008.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160024.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160025.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160026.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160027.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160031.jpg DVB cards a plenty http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160028.jpg The new Mantis http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160029.jpg cards a plenty http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160030.jpg Clock running on the STB http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p1180008.jpg Clock Alpha blended with a MPEG 2 video http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p1180006.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p1180007.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p1180009.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p1180010.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p1180011.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p1180012.jpg Conditional Access Modules (CAM) http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160007.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160008.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160009.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160013.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160014.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160015.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160017.jpg Subscription partially extracted from the CAM http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160010.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160011.jpg Subscription (Smart card) extracted out http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160012.jpg http://abraham.manu.googlepages.com/p3160016.jpg more snaps, you can find at www.thadathil.net/gallery/ HTH MA Yahoo! 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