What has a DVB-S card ever to do with Internet Access???

CIs come as extras.

Divx recording is only possible by using software that "transcodes" on the fly.

"Dolby Sound". What should that be?
The sound format is dictated by the channels you can receive!

And Qs like this are not allowed here:
Please read the forum rules!

Before the widespread availability of of Broadband, DVB-S cards were quite commonly used with one-way satellite broadband connections. The ISP's software had to be installed and would act as a VPN server, which meant that when a connection to the Internet is made, the software would establish a connection to the Internet via the analogue modem first and then connect to the satellite hub. Once it connects, all incoming traffic comes over satellite and all outgoing traffic goes over the modem.

Before I got broadband in my area, I used satellite broadband for about two years using the Skystar2 PCI card, mainly with the ISP NetSystem. While it was a significant improvement over plain dial-up (30-40KB/s vs. 4-5KB/sec), the drawback obviously was still having to tie up the phone line and the associated dial-up costs each time I went online.

I know one person in my area still using one-way satellite broadband with using the Skystar2 DVB-S card due to an issue with his exchange.

If you are using NetSystem, these are the DVB-S cards the provider mentions are compatible with their service. Going by the manual of the Satellite Express PCI+ 2030 and from what I have read around, this card is capable of handling IP traffic for one-way satellite based Internet. I would recommend e-mailing your satellite ISP just to make sure they have not had any reports of the card (or any other you're thinking of getting) giving an issue.

While the card you gave an example of features a smartcard slot, you can get PCI cards with Common Interface (CI) slots which don't have a smart card reader. In this case, you will need to get a Conditional Access Module (CAM) to match the TV package you intend watching. The CAM itself looks like a PCMCIA card and has a card slot where you can place your card in.

If you are looking to watch Pay TV using a budget DVB-S card, you may get away with using a Phoenix card reader and a Poor Man's CAM software plug-in for the satellite software you plan on using, depending on the provider you are watching. This page gives more info on using this. Unfortunatley if you're looking to receive Pay TV without a subscritpion, we cannot discuss about this for legal reasons.

Just out of curiosity, which Pay TV provider do you use?

OK sorry, I forgot about that possiblility.
There is 1way and 2way communication. With 1way communication you need an provider for uploads/send too. For 2way communication you need a dish with broadcast device installed by an professional (and its really expensive!).
http://www.satsig.net/

DSL and Broadband/cable is so much faster and cheaper these days...

You sure as hell dont want DivX/XviD on the fly and I doubt a consumer card supports MPEG-4 compression on the fly (in hardware).
//Danne

Correct, it doesnt make sense, even if Pinnacle offers that via software....