Hi all

I currently have a sky dish and digibox ( not subscription ) with a free view card so i can get channels 1-5 as there is no terrestial signal what so ever where i live, i have bought a quad lnb and want to get satallite tv on my pc, i have seen sat cards, if i get one will this work? and if it does how would i get it to recieve channel 4 & 5 as on my current digi box if the freeview card is pulled out i cant recieve them. I have seen a few sat cards with a cam slot or something along them lines, would a sky freeview card go inside that? really dont know what i need to do to achieve my goel or if it can be achieved at all, i have thought about using a standard tv tuner card and getting another digibox but dont want a great big digi box next to my pc.

thanks for any help you can give.

You would need a sat dvb-s card with an CI slot (extra) or an external version like FireDTV (I have one, is great!) or the internal FloppyDTV.
Then you'd also need an appropriate CAM for the CI to put the chipcard in there...

But as far I can remember, such an CAM is not available beside in the Digibox itself...

so basicly if i dont have a standard digi box and hook it up through a pci tv tuner card there is no way to recieve channels 3, 4 ,5. My dish is already up and has a digi box connected to it, so when i put my quad lnb on, what channels will i be able to recieve through a sat pci card? i have now idea what satellite i am fixed on.

Unfortunately, a standard TV tuner cannot tune in satellite TV broadcasts. What you will need is a Satellite DVB-S Tuner as _chef_ mentions. If you are happy with the free channels you can get without putting the viewing card in your satellite receiver, then a very basic DVB-S tuner will do fine such as the popular Skystar2 card, which typically costs around £60.

As you mention you have a Quad LNB (I assume you mean Quad-output), this should be sufficient for connecting up both your Sky satellite receiver and a DVB-S card to the same dish. Note that unlike TV aerials where you can connect up multiple outlets to the same cable, this cannot be done with satellite unless you intend only operating a single device on the cable at a given time. Even in this case, you would need either a priority or AB switch to prevent the power supplied down the coaxial cable by one receiver from causing problems or possible harm to another tuner device connected to the same cable. What you will need to do is bring a separate line from each output of your LNB to each appliance. The example shown to the right assumes you have a Sky+ Digibox as this requires two dedicated coaxial cables from the dish. For a standard Sky Digibox, only a single dedicated cable is required for the Digibox.

For picking up channel 4 & 5 (note that ITV 1-4 are now free-to-air), you will need a suitable DVB-S card with a CI slot (typcially from around £100 up), a CAM capable of supporting NDS (varies from around £70 to anywhere over £100) as well as your existing Sky Viewing card. There are no official NDS / VideoGuard CAMs as from what I'm aware of, support of this encryption system can only be obtained with the content provider's proprietary receiver. There are CAMs where 'NDS compatible' firmware can be loaded on such that you can use your official Viewing card in these, however as Sky is against the use of non-Sky hardware to tune in their broadcasts, I would not recommend forking out on an expensive DVB-S card with a CI, not to mention the cost of a suitable CAM, especially if you are just looking to watch these two channels.

For a full list of free-to-air channels on the satellite Sky broadcasts over, have a look at the following frequency chart:
http://www.lyngsat.com/28east.html

Channels listed in bold-writing in the faint peach colour are free-to-air TV channels. Channels listed in plain-writing in the same faint peach colour are free-to-air Radio stations.

The following link lists the channels which are free-to-air or free-to-view (requiring FTV card) as well as what category of content the channels show:
http://www.wickonline.com/fta.htm

I'd like to add that the count of freely available channels on this position will grow up in the next few weeks and months.

Hi there

I'm based in London and have 90cm dish with a motor (£75 for the lot inc Stab HH100 motor), I use a Skystar2 card bought from eBay UK (the dealer has a shop in Germany) for £45 inc P&P with a Twin Output LNB. I have one output connected to a satellite reciever to move the dish (easier setup) and the other to the pc sat card. The card uses 3rd party software and an emulator program to view channels.

As the dish is larger and can move it gives me a greater variety of channels ie movie, MTV, Sports etc.............unfortunately with your SLY dish you won't pick up much on Astra 2.

DVB-S cards with CI (common interface) are pricey, as well as the additonal cost of the CAM (adapter). You can buy CAMs that can be programmed with Loader cards but they too will cost you more.

Also Channel 4 + 5 will not be available on sat (Free to Air) for at least another 2 years as they are tied up with SLY.

DVB-S cards with CI once were expensive (mine costs me 500DM / now €250), today they are cheap in comparison.

It's not allowed to talk about "Emus" and similar things in this forum, BTW.