Card Sharing/Splitting What Works What Doesnt

[pinballpat]

Good to see the forum up agn. I opened this thread to try and find out from members their experiences on card sharing /splitting from what i see there is a lot of confusion abt what to use.A lot of discussion on linux dreambox and pc's running etc. I was looking for info regarding the Smart wi system,if it works ok with ir***2 and any probs with updates etc also the hard wired method and any probs there.Im looking at going down the stand alone receivers path rather than the dreambox client server path and its no prob wiring cat5 or wireless.Thanks in advance for any comments especially intelligent ones.

[fudda]

I've been waiting for ages for the forum to come back up to refer to some previous threads on this very subject. Unfortunately, for the moment at least, they are all gone. From what I remember from these earlier posts, many card splitters suffer from momentary pixelation and/or loss of sound. My splitter is a Micro-Link with two client cards. It does suffer from occasional pixelation, sometimes hardly at all, and other times it is a little annoying. Some say that pixelation is worse if both decoders are tuned to a channel on the same transponder. The splitter I have is happy to accept an IR2 card or whitey. It updates without a hitch. I haven't got an N D S card to try out, but I don't think that it would work.

Then there are the genuine Cardsplitters. Cardsplitter is a registered trademark of a firm in the UK. They make both wired and unwired splitters, although they are fairly expensive. They run a forum relating to their hardware at and it's possible to pick up some useful tips from this site. One of the issues at the moment is using an Epsilon card with a Cardsplitter. The admin at the forum says this is not possible, although he is working on it. I don't know whether Mad Cow's Epsilon splitter will actually work with an Epsilon card or not, and whether it pixelates or not.

Wireless card splitters sound ideal as the slave doesn't need a separate power supply and no cabling. However I have read several times that the cheaper wireless splitters aren't effective over more than 15m, which is not very far in a large or double story home. More expensive versions are available on the net from the US. They claim to have a coverage of at least half a kilometre, but cost around US$400.

A mate of mine is using GreyWolf with a whitey and getting very good results. Sid's program will not update a whitey, so you would have to do it manually. I prefer a card splitter because I don't have to run a computer all the time or have a Dream Box at either end. The splitters are tiny, don't need rebooting and can be stuck away behind the decoder.

If anyone can fill in the gaps in my knowledge relating to pixelation or the coverage of a wireless splitter then this would be very helpful.

[fandtm666]

if you are looking for a wireless splitter then i suggest the EPSILON from satronics.(madcow)

[MrElectricity]

I agree the smart Wi is a little sort on range. But works well, easy to update required firmware etc from there, site would be great for say a single story house with lounge at front and rumpus at rear.

[Frank Drebin]

Does a whitey and cardsplitter (like the new era cs) work ok?

[Jason_dinAlt]

Pat, I have the Smartwi (from Satronics) and its a pretty good unit but does have some limitations

As stated above yes you do get pixelation and glitches if 2 or more boxes are on the same TP with spongebob or chuckie, but I havent seen any pixelation yet when running whitey

And the major limitation if you dont have access to a whitey is that it wont work very well if you have a V5.1 or above, due to the false emms the card sends if it gets multiple requests in a certain time frame

It also doesnt work in a couple of boxes, depending on the cam or firmware

B4 the crash I posted a list of boxes that I have tested and the results, I can only remember a few so here goes:

topfield 3000 freecam no problems

topfield 3200 softcam invalid card

dreamax glitches, audio stutters, discovery doesnt work unless u upload "sky" firmware

UECs loses groups of channels in the middle of watching them, usually every 20 minutes, but some channels work with no problems at all, the problem TP seems to be the history.discovery.natgeo TP

Humax 5400z no problems internal card slot

Zinwell 7000 softcam no problems

It really does depend on the box/cam/card

Whitey/smartwi?: no problems, if it worked with spongebob/chuckie it works with whitey, in fact in most cases it works better, except for the zinwell, invalid card with whitey but works with spongey

[Jason_dinAlt]

Oh and to add to the above, I can got pics inside with no pixelation 30m from the splitter master unit, thru three walls, two drywall one "besser" brick type, and I live in a steel framed dwelling, I even got pics outside 25 m away, the range quoted at 15m seems a minimum rather than a maximum, the furtherest I have got pics is 40m (but the master unit was outside as well and in clear line of sight)

[MrElectricity]

I have never managed to get anywhere near that range, up stairs to down stairs forget it.

[Jason_dinAlt]

it must be the good country air here

[MrElectricity]

There has to be something in the air, I have tried putting the sender unit in various places the get it reasonably central and it is only good on the one level around 15m from sender to slave card.