Which decoders will be able to decode toptv, dstv, free to air from 1 decoder

[bevan1]

Hi there all

I have been searching the net for some time now to find a all in one decoder that will be able to decode the above mentioned.

Any suggestions?

and please dont tell me dreambox, i would like some other brands that would do the job.

Thanks.

[Quantum Theory]

Hi there all

I have been searching the net for some time now to find a all in one decoder that will be able to decode the above mentioned.

Any suggestions?

and please dont tell me dreambox, i would like some other brands that would do the job.

Thanks.


You can stop searching now. There is no STB that can do that.

[bevan1]

Come on there has to be a decoder that would be able to decode both toptv and dstv. According to www.wowtv.co.za they will get a decoder that will be compatable for wowtv, dstv and toptv. So their has to be a decoder(s) out their that does do it.

[Nerfherder]

Come on there has to be a decoder that would be able to decode both toptv and dstv. According to www.wowtv.co.za they will get a decoder that will be compatable for wowtv, dstv and toptv. So their has to be a decoder(s) out their that does do it.

Dude.... if such a thing existed we would all have one.

[Kaine]

ah, but there are. just not in sa, and more than likely illegal (or they will attempt to play that card on you). otherwise, it takes a degree in some or the other engineering to sort it out yourself. hell, scour the web, you might even find a program that will do it for you, provided you have the right equipment in your pc. somewhat along the lines of being able to hack your m-net decoder several years back. they change the signal very often nowadays to prevent that though

[blaaislaai]

You can stop searching now. There is no STB that can do that.

And never will be.

[Nerfherder]

ah, but there are. just not in sa, and more than likely illegal (or they will attempt to play that card on you). otherwise, it takes a degree in some or the other engineering to sort it out yourself. hell, scour the web, you might even find a program that will do it for you, provided you have the right equipment in your pc. somewhat along the lines of being able to hack your m-net decoder several years back. they change the signal very often nowadays to prevent that though

Well it would be possible except all the providers in SA encrypt their signals so unless you have the exact hardware you are not going to get it right.

Well lets just say that there will never be a commercial device that does it.... unless DSTV and TOP TV both decide to change the way they do things.

[Lounger]

Well it would be possible except all the providers in SA encrypt their signals so unless you have the exact hardware you are not going to get it right.

Well lets just say that there will never be a commercial device that does it.... unless DSTV and TOP TV both decide to change the way they do things.

TopTV uses the same encoding as BSKYB in the UK and Multichoice uses IrdetoII. You need to emulate both types of CAM in one box. You can do it with a software emulator (EMU) or with maybe an external card reader which matches the voltage for a specific card. We're not talking about cloning the card, just reading a valid subscription card. There are STB's that can do it, but most need a lot of tweaking to get it right. The advanced Dreambox decoders can do it, or so I've heard.

[bevan1]

Let me just state this before people get the wrong impression. I do not want to hack the decoders. All i want is a decoder that will be able to read Multichoice, Toptv smartcards without chopping and changing the two decoders.

[Nerfherder]

Yes... that will never happen.

Also you do know that the dishes wont even face the same way ?

[ToxicBunny]

Beyond the encrpytion issues the box would have to overcome, there is also the location of the satelites.. you will need a dish that has almost no obstructions over a LARGE portion of the sky, as well as to be able to alter its own position.

[Smurfatefrog]

Beyond the encrpytion issues the box would have to overcome, there is also the location of the satelites.. you will need a dish that has almost no obstructions over a LARGE portion of the sky, as well as to be able to alter its own position.

I would assume if the encryption was possible you would have 2 dishes & have an LNB feed from each dish as a separate inputs on the decoder

[Quantum Theory]

Beyond the encrpytion issues the box would have to overcome, there is also the location of the satelites.. you will need a dish that has almost no obstructions over a LARGE portion of the sky, as well as to be able to alter its own position.

Two dishes with a 2-way DiSEqC switch into one decoder would be the solution, but the different encryption standards and the whole smart card marriage thing makes this impossible.

[bevan1]

You talking about smartcard marriage. Who is the ower of the decoder that you bought? Does it belong to Dstv or Toptv? Did you not spend your money on it? If the decoder does belong to you then who gives them the right to marry your smartcard and decoder? And who gives them the right to update your decoder and at the end of the day the update was not successful and you sitting with a door stopper.

They come up with all the excuses that it's to prevent fraud. But if i have a decoder at at my holiday house and home, i just want to pack my smartcard , now i cannot. Funny

Come on People. If you buy something its yours and no one else.

[Lounger]

Two dishes with a 2-way DiSEqC switch into one decoder would be the solution, but the different encryption standards and the whole smart card marriage thing makes this impossible.

This is a common misconception. Smartcard marriage generally only prevent you using another MC or TT box. Using a 3rd party box removes (most) of these problems. For example you can quite happily use an MC card with a Dreambox despite the card marriage system. It just doesn't look for it.

[Lounger]

You talking about smartcard marriage. Who is the ower of the decoder that you bought? Does it belong to Dstv or Toptv? Did you not spend your money on it? If the decoder does belong to you then who gives them the right to marry your smartcard and decoder? And who gives them the right to update your decoder and at the end of the day the update was not successful and you sitting with a door stopper.

They come up with all the excuses that it's to prevent fraud. But if i have a decoder at at my holiday house and home, i just want to pack my smartcard , now i cannot. Funny

Come on People. If you buy something its yours and no one else.

With the new decoders, the marriage is more strict and you have to take your decoder with you. They say it's for piracy prevention, but I believe it helps sell more accounts. I will try and see if an old card works with two old decoders or not. Maybe you can downgrade .. lol

[Quantum Theory]

This is a common misconception. Smartcard marriage generally only prevent you using another MC or TT box. Using a 3rd party box removes (most) of these problems. For example you can quite happily use an MC card with a Dreambox despite the card marriage system. It just doesn't look for it.

Depends on what smart card version you have... We have used third party decoder/modulator units with Irdeto cams for big RF distribution systems. Not all smart cards can be activated to work with them.

[Lounger]

Depends on what smart card version you have... We have used third party decoder/modulator units with Irdeto cams for big RF distribution systems. Not all smart cards can be activated to work with them.

There is that problem, but even that can be overcome. Just try not to have a recent card and use an updated EMU.

On your industrial system, if you have a genuine Irdeto Cam, then you are already using an MC system and ALL MC cards should work.

[TivoZA]

Possible: Yes (with limitations)
Cheap: No
User-friendly: No

Basically you need a decoder with two satellite tuners, two CAM slots and MPEG-4/H.264 support. At least one of the tuners need to be DVB-S2 for use with TopTV. In addition you'll need two CAMs, an Iredeto CAM for use with the DSTV smart card and a NDS VideoGuard CAM for use with the TopTV smart card. There are a multitude of different versions of both and not all Iredeto CAM's will work with DSTV as many don't support the latest versions of Irdeto.

There are a couple decoders that meet the requirements but not all will work for whatever reason. I use a "CubeRevo HD Twin Tuner PVR (http://www.pulsat.com/products/CubeRevo-HD-Twin-Tuner-PVR-%28Black%29.html)" which features the above requirements and has a separate connections to both a DSTV positioned satellite as well as a TopTV positioned satellite. Unfortunately this isn't cheap at £390 for the decoder, an additional £40+ for each of the two CAM's and not forgetting shipping and customs costs.

On top of this, there are still limitations. The first limitation being that only an old DSTV smart card will work. That's great except for the fact that DSTV won't authorise the HD channels for use on an old smart card, so although the decoder supports the HD channels you won't be authorised to access them. The second limitation is that DSTV's EPG is in a proprietary format so you'll need to upload a XML version of DSTV's EPG if you wish to make use of the decoders EPG and/or recording facilities.

Another big issue is that of the interface. As useless as the DSTV interface is, it's still slightly better then that of the CubeRevo. There are a number of open source projects building custom interfaces for the CubeRevo but there is still much room for improvement. If you do go down this road, take a look at the Enigma ports.

Since the original posts was asking about decoders, the above should answer that question. Given the current decoder interface issues, a better option for an all-in-one box may be a HTPC with two DVB-S cards + CAMS. The HTPC option will have the same limitations as mentioned above (i.e. old smart card resulting in no HD channels, no native DSTV EPG support [not really an issue though]).

Although I have the CubeRevo, I decided the best option for now is to have a separate DSTV and TopTV decoder with both connected to a TiVo. The TiVo then provides a single interface (http://tivoza.nanfo.com/wiki/index.php/Quick_Tour) to all channels including search and recording functionality across both decoders. The biggest limitation with this approach is that although the HD channels can be recorded they are only recorded at SD quality but given the HD quality that DSTV broadcast at it's not actually that much of a loss as the TiVo can record at DVD SD quality which is better than DSTV's SD broadcast quality.

So after all of that I've probably left you with more questions than answers but hopefully I've provided some insight into the options available and their limitations there-of. The current limitations are very much broadcaster imposed and that's not likely to change in the near term. However, with Google TV (http://www.google.com/tv/) on the horizon and the recent relaunch of the Apple iTV (http://www.apple.com/appletv/), the mainstream TV market may finally start moving towards that converged content driven on demand market that's been so long in the making leaving the old TV broadcast model as the relic it's already become ;)

[harrybo]

which CAM module work for Top TV ?

try dragon/trex with predator 380 + STB serial number > not working
diabolo wireless with underworld 208 > not working
diabolo 2 with ipnosys 024 > not working