Is there a Good STB to receive CBS Network (and other 422) feeds?

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darb98

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Apr 27, 2013
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North Central Kansas
I have been involved with the FTA hobby for about a year and a half now,and have done LOTS of reading on this forum to get me started and keep me going in it. When I was growing up, I took particular interest in scanning the skies with the C Band system that my grandparents had in the the early 90s. IT is something I really enjoyed, and have greatly enjoyed getting back into it now. I started with a 76 cm dish that I ordered thru Amazon and now have moved on to a 7.5 ft mesh Echostar dish donated by a neighbor and for Christmas this year received a 4 ft GeoSat Pro dish. Both dishes are motorized. I am currently using a GeoSat Pro 1200DVR receiver.

I am particularly interested in receiving the broadcast network feeds, and so far have had good luck with NBC feeds on KU AMC 1 and C band AMC 18, PBS feeds on KU AMC 21 (thanks to my new 4 ft dish!), and ABC feeds on Galaxy 16 and KU Galaxy 3C.

Now I am trying to decide whether I can successfully receive the CBS feeds. I have been able to lock 2 of the CBS transponders on C Band Galaxy 28, and can tune in the sound without issue. I just receive a black screen, and I know this is due to the 4:2:2 video format.

Is there any good STB solution for receiving the CBS network feeds, and other 422 feeds? I am aware that using a tuner card with a PC can get this done. I am open to that option, but I have concerns that my PC might not be powerful enough to provide a smooth picture with that type of solution. It is about 5 or 6 years old with a dual core AMD processor and 4 GB RAM. And really I would prefer a STB anyway.

Everything I read on the forums usually ends up going back to the AZ boxes, but what I have read about the state of that brand lately has definitely made me hesitant to go that route..... And I have been unable to determine what might be the next best option, if there even is one.

I have been wanting to order a new receiver for a long time now, and I finally did just order a new Amiko A3 receiver. I know that it doesn't currently support 422, but I am hopeful that MAYBE a future software upgrade MIGHT bring that functionality. I haven't yet received that box, but am very excited nonetheless.

Anyway, my main purpose for typing up all of this is to seek advise for what a good 422 capable STB might be.

Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
 
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The AzBox miniMe American Edition is your best option for live 4:2:2 support on a STB either direct on your TV and/or streamed to any PC on your network from your web browser or VLC player. This enables you to start watching a show on your TV and continue watching off your laptop if you must step away from your TV.

P.S. You should not believe all that you read in regards to AzBox, especially if it comes from people who are selling competing STB brands. :rolleyes:
 
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Who is selling a competing receiver that does live 4:2:2 direct to your TV set?
 
iBoston said:
The AZbox mini is JUNK. If you buy it, you will be SORRY. Read the posts on here before you buy an Azbox.
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Were you able to run the script we sent via PM in order to recover your receiver and enable upgrading it to the newly released 2.02 firmware version? Most of the issues you previously reported have now been resolved in that version so calling the receiver junk is unwarranted for.

If you are expecting to have a perfect FTA receiver then you will be surely disappointed as there is no such thing, regardless of brand. What matters is North American based firmware development and support in order to resolve issues over time with regular firmware updates, something that very few brands actually have for this market. Even Dish Network or DirecTV receivers have issues.
 
KE4EST said:
Who is selling a competing receiver that does live 4:2:2 direct to your TV set?
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Nobody. All the others are still more of the same old same old. No 4:2:2. That's why I'm still running an AzBox Elite HD here.

Posted Via The FREE SatelliteGuys Reader App!
 
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I haven't heard anyone tell me 2.02 has solved their problems. Your time ran out, and I returned the Azbox by the hairs of my chin within the return period. I am happy to say i know longer own the Azbox.
 
If you are open to a HTPC, your AMD dual processor will be fine with a PCI(e) DVBS card as long as you have any decent video display card.

MPEG2 4:2:2 does not require much processing power and would be similar to standard MPEG2 services. I have streamed the live MPEG2 DVBS 4:2:2 to older android STBs and tablets running single core 1.2GHz for display or on connected TVS. I would recommend fast chipsets for fat DVBS2 MPEG4 services. You only need VLC or other software with the appropriate codec.

If you simply want to watch a 4:2:2 channel and don't care if you watch live programming, you don't need to spend a single penny! DVR the channel then play the file back with your PC using VLC.

If you want MPEG4 h.264 4:2:2, the PCI(e) DVBS2 card is the only economical solution, but you would need a better PC.

Yes, I do sell other branded products, but please note that I do not sell any of the hardware that I am recommending! :D
 
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First, I really wish people would not mention specific major US networks in subject lines or the body of a post of this type in an open, searchable forum such as this, taking the context into account. It's one thing to do it in "What's Up There" but I always fear that mentioning this in an open forum could cause signals to be scrambled, even though there are now so few of us left.

Now, with regard to your questions, let's say you did set up a satellite backend using your computer, and let's say you run one of the popular backend software programs, and let's say that you are running Kodi with a compatible PVR plugin as your frontend. WRT the signals you specifically asked about, whether you are trying to play a live stream or a "raw" recording, the machine running Kodi has to have a little bit of CPU power behind it. A Raspberry Pi running RaspBMC or OpenElec will not cut it, nor will even a low end desktop such as the Acer Revo that was popular as a low-end home theater PC three or four years ago. A full modern desktop computer should have no problem, and I think even most modern laptops except maybe the $99 Black Friday specials would be able to do it.

If you do happen to have one of those low-end devices, it's still possible to take the recording and convert it a format that requires a bit less CPU usage. ffmpeg can do it but it may take you a few tries to figure out the correct options to use.

But for the backend system itself, it really does not have to be all that powerful. That is because unless you attempt to do something very CPU intensive, most of the time you are just moving data around, with very minimal actual processing taking place. If you have a system new enough to accept one of the new PCIe tuner cards then unless it is a REALLY low end system it will probably work just fine. Your biggest problem with your older system is that it may not have the right card slots to accept a modern tuner card.

As for receivers, I might be totally wrong but it sure seems to me that about a year ago one of the dealers (and I won't say which but maybe some readers will remember this, unless I dreamed it in my sleep) was getting everyone salivating in anticipation over a hot new receiver that he was going to sell that, if I recall correctly, had no problem doing 4:2:2, or so he said at the time. He even posted a YouTube video or two about this receiver. Then for some reason he decided not to offer that receiver and to sell a competing brand instead. At the time I really would have liked to have seen what that original receiver could do, but he never did mention the brand name and as far as I know, no one other than that dealer ever had his hands on one in this part of the world. I've always had the feeling that the receiver he decided not to might have actually been better, at least in some respects, that the receiver he would up selling, but nobody will ever know because he never disclosed the brand of that one.

It was after that happened that I figured out that there was probably no receiver that would make me happy and that's when I started searching for information on backend systems, and finally built one. And I know that personally I am much happier with this setup because I can view the signals from my dish at anyplace in my home where I can connect to my local network. I am not tied down to watching on the one TV connected to the receiver. And that is a huge advantage as far as I am concerned, but I realize that not everyone has the same priorities. One thing I cannot currently do is blindscan, not because the hardware isn't capable but because I don't know enough to get it to work, and I realize that some people would prefer a STB for that reason alone.
 
ancient said:
First, I really wish people would not mention specific major US networks in subject lines or the body of a post of this type in an open, searchable forum such as this, taking the context into account. It's one thing to do it in "What's Up There" but I always fear that mentioning this in an open forum could cause signals to be scrambled, even though there are now so few of us left.
Click to expand...

I fully agree with you as the open areas of this forum are heavily indexed by all major Internet search engines. At the very least, this thread's title should be edited in order to remove the offending keywords.
 
First, thanks to everyone for there input. This is my first post, and I really appreciate it.

Also, I apologize for putting the network names out there like that. It did not occur to me the types of issues that might lead to, and I will try avoid that in the future.

My PC is a 2007 Dell E521 and it does have 2 pci express slots, one taken by the video card and one is available. It is running Windows 8, but i can set it up as a dual boot to Linux to facilitate my experiments here if need be. I am thinking about picking up a TBS 6922SE card and seeing what I can do with it. I am assuming that model of card will be sufficient.
 
I'd also suggest a STB to facilitate dish installation and alignment. That and a small television (with appropriate inputs) out at the dish will, IMHO, reduce the time required for success (and greatly reduce, the inevitable frustration).
If both are capable of 12 volt operation, no cords!
Another idea, dual output LNBF's, one run to the PC card. The other to connect the STB for tune-ups/ testing.(??)
 
Cham said:
ditto here. If the STBs that I currently have fail, the only option would be an HTPC to replace them.
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Not the only option as you could get miniMe American Edition STB's to replace them which supports 4:2:2 as well.
 
darb98 said:
First, thanks to everyone for there input. This is my first post, and I really appreciate it.

Also, I apologize for putting the network names out there like that. It did not occur to me the types of issues that might lead to, and I will try avoid that in the future.

My PC is a 2007 Dell E521 and it does have 2 pci express slots, one taken by the video card and one is available. It is running Windows 8, but i can set it up as a dual boot to Linux to facilitate my experiments here if need be. I am thinking about picking up a TBS 6922SE card and seeing what I can do with it. I am assuming that model of card will be sufficient.
Click to expand...

I dont know much about that card, I like the stv0900/stv0903 based cards personally. A TBS5980 USB or Skystar 2 Express HD PCIe can be bought for around the $80 mark. Both are excellent cards and well supported in Linux with my kernel and software. Both those cards support spectrum scan, iq plot, blindscan, etc using v4l-updatelee and updateDVB. Both open source.

Windows could be a whole different animal but from what Ive read the stv090x devices are loved in Windows as much as they are in Linux.

UDL
 
pwrsurge said:
Not the only option as you could get miniMe American Edition STB's to replace them which supports 4:2:2 as well.
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You should clarify this post

"Not the only option as you could get miniMe American Edition STB's to replace them which supports mpeg2 4:2:2 as well. The miniME does not support decoding H264 4:2:2"

UDL
 
darb98 said:
I apologize for putting the network names out there like that. It did not occur to me the types of issues that might lead to, and I will try avoid that in the future.
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No harm... These feeds have been listed in most public channel lists for several years... No foul! :)
Always good to be safe with the loose lips, but these are common knowledge and often discussed.

I just upgraded and purchased the new TBS6893 DVBS2 PCIe card. Expecting it to arrive next week. What does the TBS6893 do that no STB can?
VCM, ACM, Multi-Input and Generic Stream Services
Up to 190 Mbit/s channel bit rate capture
Symbol Rate range 200ksps to 45Msps

http://www.ebay.com/itm/331345148778
 
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