My first trial was a no-name one. I see that it appears under different names. Click here for an example (the one on the lower part of the screen). To cut things short – it’s crap, rotten, bad, junk… Did I forget to mention that it was really bad? Hard to control, no battery saving so it had always ran out of juice, keys repeated when they shouldn’t (and didn’t when they should). Let me know if you are interested in purchasing mine The drivers I just tried downloading are from August 2006, so not updated since I tried it.

I hence do run a normal corded keyboard and a normal corded mouse. It’s NOT convenient, but I have managed so far. The Microsoft Remote (LINK) is however GREAT!

One very promising item is now this; (LINK). Sandberg produce a lot of high quality accessories, and I would then hope that this keyboard with tochpad meets the standards I normally expect from Sandberg. Please share your views! 

Anyway; I had colleague Daniel controlling my PC over VNC for a few hours and we didn’t manage to fix the deadlock of not being able to connect properly to the server. CRAP!

So, after having read the f*cking manual, googling for days, reading all fora available I though I had fulfilled the obligations before bothering people on DVBN with my petty problems. A few hours later JBravo posted this:

From the listed provider id’s I’m guessing that it’s Swedish boxer we are talking about. The problem is that boxer using both old and new cards with different provider id’s and WinCSC picks the wrong provider id and ECM and consequently the channel can’t be decoded.

Find the file MDAPIProvID.xml in the MDPlugins folder and add providerid 143880 (0×23208). This will hopefully make WinCSC find the correct ECM.

So I followed his advice, adjusting the XML file and hey presto – It worked! I provide you with the content of my file. The change marked in bold.

<?xml version=”1.0″?>
<!–
Sample file for MDAPIProvID.xml file.
–>
<mdapi fillout=”False”>
<providers>
<provider ID=”143880″ />
</providers>

<channels>
<!–<channel tp_id=”1110″ sid=”5360″ pmt_pid=”369″ ecm_pid=”104″ />–>
</channels>
<CA_Types>
<!–<CA_Type>0500</CA_Type>–>
</CA_Types>
</mdapi>

- My MythTV set-up fails in a very early stage. The Twinhan 3030 card isn’t properly detected and never becomes operational. The Linux driver on the Twinhan web are for Fedora and I had Ubuntu. There are alternative ones but I failed to get them operational. Even after quite extensive digging I still fail to find anyone who managed and lived to tell, so I still believe this is a dead case for now.

- My MediaPortal does ALL it should, but fetching the keys from a card server. I want to eliminate the risk of anything related to the internet access so I will try test using a 3G modem and also a card server inside the firewall.

- I tried using DVBViewer and installed the package you need there for card sharing but again failed.

The Real Pikachu provides a wrapper to MD plugins called SoftCSA. You can then add WinCSC and the others that work also for MediaPortal. I do get “Cannot load source filter” and there I run our of luck ….

Edit: Found a solution to the later part of the problem. On the DVBView web, in the forum I found this link Thisis what is says (and which worked for me)

Close DVBViewer
Go to the DVBViewer folder Filters

eg. C:\Program Files\DVBViewer\Filters

and open Unregister_DVBSource.exe
then open Register_DVBSource.exe

Then open DVBViewer once again and it should work properly

Check the reference here

I also purchased a Microsoft remote. It was TRULYT plug and play. Inserted the USB cable to the receiver, booted up the machine and it worked from the first second… Sigh. Why isn’t more stuff like that

Anyway; some added knowledge on my behalf:

It shows that you need MDAPI Filter to get started, and the the WinCSC is a plugin to the MDAPI Filter. Many of the tutorials found are for older version of the Mediaportal software. From version 1.0 you can’t follow the older ones, and you can’t use the version of the MDAPI that you might have come across to do the trick. (DVBView has the MDAPI support built in o that might actually be a <€20 investment worth consideration).

Dive into this forum for details and tutorials from the guys who did the programs.

The project’s homepage:Here

Plugins: Here

Here you can also fine a recent version of WinCSC.

There are many options but let’s start with my choices; basing it on Linux or Windows.

Mythbuntu is a Linux distribution that is supposed to facilitate a HTPC via a plug and play installation. For me, the actual installation went fine. Linux has developed a lot since the first Red hat I tried where you had to partition and set up swap disks manually. However I ran into the Linux wall anyway; my TV card (Twinhan 3030 DVB-T) was not properly supported. It might be that someone out there actually got it to work, but I am not amongst them!

Mythbuntu has got so many cool features; accessing the installation remotely via web, setting your recordings. So you can for example from the other part of the planet access the machine via f.ex. your mobile and tell the machine to record the film that will start in a few minutes on Channel X. Pretty kewl…

Resource: Mythbuntu

So, Mediaportal under Windows XP was my choice. It’s also a very nice free option (assuming you call Windows “free”). It’s a packaged HTPC environment that works really well. At the time of writing Release Candidate 2 is available. There are quite a few stability issues, why it’s quite obvious that this is not a professional level piece of software but it will get there, I’m sure!

Resource: Media Portal

So installing a HTPC to watch DVB-T (terrestrial Digital Video Broadcast) is naturally nice. I can record the programs but in order to take full advantage of it, you need the card for your TV provider. In my set-up, I have a standard “Boxer” (Swedish DVB-T provider) box for the family usage. The Twinhan card has a slot for a CA module in which I can insert the card. This works as well, however given the position of my HTPC, it’s not very practical to use one card for two installations. There is always the option of a “twin card” (my provider sends me two cards) which gives me the option to pay twice for watching the same channels just because I have more than one place to watch.

Resource: Media Portal – plugin

The solution to this is “card sharing”. A legally shady area, where you have a server reading the subscription card and clients accessing it. You can do it in your house, but as the protocol between the client and the server is IP, then there is no limit in the proximity requirements. You can hence access a card from the other side of the globe if you have someone giving you that access.

The server can be installed in a HTPC, but a commonly available option is the Dreambox, which has the server software in place. It takes a bit of tweaking to get it operational but I’m sure you can find guides if you want to.

Resource: Dreambox

The client software that seem in fashion is WinCSC. I can’t find any official site for it, likely because of it’s shady purpose.

WinCSC

Additional resources:

Forum (you can also get WinCSC from here)

I haven’t managed to installed the WinCSC yet, but will let you know as soon as I have an operational system.