half decent pci satellite card ?

[turbo1600]

what would be a half decent pci satellite card for me desktop. ?
just starting out with satellite..

[Mr 672A]

what would be a half decent pci satellite card for me desktop. ?
just starting out with satellite..

Cheap and good one but not DseQc Friendly. I have this one.
TBS 6982.



Good but expensive
TBS 6904

[jayhari]

TBS is a good option for hobbyist/casual use. For heavy usage people tend to recommend Digital Devices cards.

[cmoore]

We have a couple of TBS 6903x on test here. Thanks to a friend who brought one and had issues getting it working. Give it a miss unless you like to create headaches and want to waste $500. The Driver support is weak. Most popular programs such as Dvbdream and EbsPro are not natively supported and need a lot of bodging to work reliably. Also only works with specific streamreaders.

Mr 672a Interesting to read your comments on the TBS 6983 and Diseqc switching. I thought it was only me and the switching device I was using, but looks like not so.

I managed to get it to switch 5 satellites on a 8 way switch but it took a while. Try duplicating the ports and adding the uncommitted switch number to the 5 etc position.

I haven't tried the TBS 6909x v2 but this is supposedly is better supposedly fixing some of the issues.

There is minimal difference between the older tbs6983 and newer 6903 and x in regards to what it can receive. In some cases it is worse in the later models.

[apsattv]

Yep agree the 6903x has been total frustration if you are looking for reliable performance with well known software such as ebs and Dream DVB and Crazyscan as the scan modes just dont work in the same ways as the 6983 does

Crazy scan has weird dropouts and EBS blindscan is a real PIG as RF spectrum scan mode isnt supported So no quick spectrum scans of the optus sats and clicking t.p for quickly locating feeds. You need to do a manual scan some 10+ mins in mode2 in the ku slow as hell

Channels received so far with the DVB-S2X mode =zero other than a few odd data signals

[apsattv]

Also it should be pointed out there appear to be 3 different version of 6903x the original with fan, which gave the wrong low signal level readings in most of the softwares tested. TBS suggested soldering a component on a certain area of the pcb as a fix, if we were comfortable to fix it. They then without asking said they will send a brand new "version 2" of the card as replacement. This card turned out to have a slight different pcb layout, also the fan was replaced by a heatsink. Great, but same issues with it.

I then see on TBS own forum a new V2 driver. Great that might fix things, However this is for a new V2 hardware version of the card which isn't the same as the replacement they sent..

no wonder they were keen to clear out stock of the old "broken" version..

[Mr 672A]

Mr 672a Interesting to read your comments on the TBS 6983 and Diseqc switching.

No I have the TBS 6982 not the TBS 6983. Don't know anything about the TBS 6983

[Mr 672A]

Mr 672a Interesting to read your comments on the TBS 6983 and Diseqc switching. I thought it was only me and the switching device I was using, but looks like not so.

Yes it was a pain and no good for DISEqC Switching so what I did and it was a big big big pain, in my TV room all my fixed dished like nine (9) all have a Multi switch and one of the legs of the multi switch goes to a made be me patch panel now that patch panel has 9 F Connectors and the 10 one goes to the computer room that is 10 mtrs away. Yes the 10 one swings to get to the other nine. Now the TBS 6982 has 2 ports and the second one goes the a Multi switch on my 2.3M Dish that has a motor on it that I use from 100 Deg E to 177 Deg W. Yes I was a pain and the panel took me one full day to make it and took 3 days to wire it up with all the multi switches.

[Smacca]

I can attest to the pain as well. Currently using a TBS 6928 single tuner with CAM and a TBS 6991SE dual tuner with 2 CAMs. Both cards are an absolute headache to install correctly, but once setup they're not too bad, prob 90% reliable. The CAM side of things and the way the TbsCIapi.dll drivers handle the multiple decryption requests is the source of most frustrations. Luckily I haven't needed to use Diseqc switching.

I recommend the paid version of DVB Viewer for desktop use. Also acts as a server for smart TV devices on the LAN or even the WAN which means I can watch VAST and various sat feeds on my Android TV boxes around the house.

[turbo1600]

thanks !!