Best way to slave a PC DVB to two DVB receivers?

[delta_charlie]

Hi all, I'm finally getting some real success with my Sky Star 2 PC DVB and want to slave it to both of my DVB receivers. The goal is to use the DVB receivers to blind scan and find 4:2:2 and HD mpeg2 feeds then enter the info into ProgDVB on the HTPC and watch them. What I have been doing is connecting a short section of coax from the PC DVB card to the loop out connector on one receiver at a time. This works ok but I'm tried of moving the cable from one DVB receiver to the other. This morning I tried a splitter that has DC power pass on one side and found one of the receivers (the one hooked up to the DC pass) had to be completly turned off by using the power switch on the back in order to use the other receiver.

It would be nice to simply use the remote to turn off one of the DVB receivers.

What do I need here? A splitter with no DC power pass on either side?

Any other hook up I should try?

Thanks, DC

 

[SatelliteAV]

You need a Dual output LNBF with Multi-switch
or
a Bandstacked LNBF with a high frequency splitter (single port power passing suggested) such as Sadoun's new LNBF.

 

[delta_charlie]

Hi, looks like I need to add some more info on my setup. Receiver 1 is a Mercury II hooked up to a signal 80 CM Ku dish with a motor. The dual LNB would work on it if I ran a second coax but I would prefer to use just one coax if I can.

Receiver 2 is much more complicated, it is hooked up to my BUD and two Ku dishes with a DiSEqC switch between the three dishes and the dishes are not close together. It would take a lot of work to run all the extra cables.

The PC DVB card will only be used to view 4:2:2 and HD that I can not receive on the DVB receivers. It will not be used to view something else at the same time. Another words the DVB receivers are used to control the motor and DiSEqC switch and power the LNB.

The PC DVB card only has to receive the RF. I think all I need is a signal splitter but I have not done a hookup like this before so I'm not sure.

How do some of you guys that have mutiple receivers hook them up?

Thanks, DC

 

[Anole]

brainstorming:

Just for the purposes of brainstorming, let me suggest a hookup.
I'm sure with member feedback, we can eventually come up with a working solution.

What about a diseqc switch... or, maybe a 22khz switch?
You use it to hook your PCI card to the two sources you want to monitor.
I'd try DC Blocks (not much more than low value capacitor in a coax feedthrough) between the switch and the DVB receivers.
I think that is the optimum configuration.
The low value capacitors shouldn't pass the 22khz tone or diseqc commands up stream to the LNBs or other switches, so there's a reasonable probabliity this could work.

Anyone find a flaw in that? Got a better idea? Different switch?
Maybe something with a remote control? -

 

[SatelliteAV]

The closest that I would suggest for your application is a Multi-Switch that accepts 10 inputs and outputs to 3 receivers. Since that does not appear to exist, check out the Spaun
SMK13089F - 12 SAT Inputs / 1 Terrestrial / 8 outputs / IF Loop Through. This would take two outputs from each source and make them available for each receiver. Each receiver would need to support DiSEqC 1.1 protocol. Total overkill in my opinion, but it is what it is!

Second suggested way of doing this is to replace the LNBFs on the 4 KU band dishes with Bandstacking LNBFs then you would only need a Multi-Switch facilitating 6 inputs and 3 outputs. Since that does not appear to exist, check out the EMP-Centauri 9x4 DiSEqc 8 SAT Inputs / 1 Terrestrial Input / 4 Receiver outputs.

Probably most simple to connect the PC tuner to a DiSEcQ switch and select the IF looped output of one of the receivers. The selected STB will select the satellite and polarity. Use the PC card to only select the DiSEqC port and tune the signal.

 

[madmadworld]

how about a simple a/b switch ? with remote

ARCHER REMOTE-CONTROL VIDEO A-B SWITCH - eBay (item 290361902003 end time Oct-27-09 14:01:25 PDT)

 

[delta_charlie]

Hi all, thanks for the replies. I had both an extra 22 khz switch and a DiSEqC switch to try and found that the PC DVB software I'm using (ProgDVB) only has support for the DiSEqC switch.

I hooked the DiSEqC switch up and it looks to be working fine. With this setup I find I can have both DVB receivers on at the same time and not have interference like I would with the splitter I first tried.

Glad I asked, DC