Does anyone know whether the UBC satellite signal is standard DVB-S? I am wondering whether a standard DVB-S receiver card for a computer with a CAM slot will accept the UBC smart card and allow reception of all the content available to a subscription... I am not sure I want to buy a card just to find out. Some googling suggests so, or at least that this is what Shinsat does, but you never know if these companies have made some proprietary changes.

The reason I ask is that someone told me about this MythTV software which will allow scheduled recording of programs as well as sharing of the receiver and pre-recorded programs among multiple screens in one house. I've been reading about it on the web, and it sounds ideal for being able to record some movies at odd hours and allow the in-laws or other visitors to also watch their programs at different times!

One computer apparently acts as the receiver and recorder while sending streams via LAN to more basic computers at each T.V. location for viewing. By having a DVB-S card, the receiver can select channels and directly capture and store the MPEG stream from the satellite instead of having to try to control the UBC set-top box by infrared, capture the analog signal, and reencode to MPEG on the fly. It sounds like you get a better recording and need less computer horsepower to get it done, too.

I would be very interested also to know the answer to that, particularly having a wireless lan at home.

same here

already have a wireless VIDEO streaming box to watch UBC upstairs and downstairs

But would love to have a better system

You'll only have to find out if the CAM (= Conditional Access Module) of the receiver card accepts Irdeto2 smart cards.

Irdeto2 is the decoding system used by UBC, as opposed to Nagravision (DreamTV) or Seca2 (Astro)

Check out following stuff, available in Thailand from the Satthai people

http://www.satthai.net/th/vp_dtv-ci.htm

For this card you'll need an additional irdeto cam to accept the UBC card...

http://www.satthai.net/th/cam.htm

All together 8500 Baht, so not exactly cheap...

With a little searching you can find some wonderfull freeware on the net, often better then the software included with these cards!

(search for DVBDREAM)

Thanks! That's exactly what I wanted to know. Now I just need to find a combination of card and Irdeto CAM that is well supported by Linux and MythTV...