Sky Star 2 USB Receiver Review

[Cascade]

SkyStar 2 USB Mini-review

The Skystar 2 USB is the external incarnation of the popular SkyStar 2 PCI cards and can be used with any PC with a USB 1.1/2 port including laptops (Portable FTA system anyone?)
It's sold by 2 different companies under 2 different names including Sky2 PC-USB and SkyStar 2 USB however they're the same product, share the same drivers and use the B2C2 chipset for DVB-S Video and data reception.

The main point with any DVB card is that usage is definitely dependant on which software program you're using.

I tested the Sky2PC/SkyStar2 with MyTheater and ProgDVB and it worked well considering I have a conflicting DVB PCI card in the same machine.

Here's the front of the unit, it's built of steel with a plastic front and seems to be built very well:

The rear of the unit has the usual fare, RF-in, USB, 12VDC-in and a power switch, if you were to use this in a car as a portable unit you'd need a cigarette adapter for 12VDC in:

The unit itself is slightly larger than a floppy drive so it's definitely portable. The SkyStar2/Sky2PC is pictured here in comparison to an external DVD writer:

It arrives with a USB cord, 12V DC adapter and a driver/application CD which IMHO is useless as the drivers supplied are outdated and the application is unstable and omits a lot of features you'd expect to have in a PC application which is why I use ProgDVB:

ProgDVB has its own DisEqc routines however I used one of many plugins for DisEqc which allow positioner control/setup and preset position editing:

I couldn't get my SG2100 motor to work with this setup, I presume because I have a Nexus-S DVB card in my machine which is conflicting with the SkyStar2 however I did manage to tune ProgDVB into the NASA channel and was able to scan all transponders successfully.

If you have a machine with no free PCI slots, are a laptop user or just want to go portable with your FTA setup I recommend the SkyStar2, obviously I had my problems with it due to the way my PC is setup however I imagine it would work well with a machine without a DVB card already installed.

It's built well, as a rule it can be used with any software written for the SkyStar2 PCI model so it has the widest range of software support of any DVB card and can be moved to another machine within a few minutes.

Pros:
Largest software support of any DVB-S card available.
Drivers and apps are continually updated by DVB enthusiasts.
Built from steel.
USB connectivity is a great feature.
Pretty metallic blue.
Portable FTA with a laptop is the ultimate in geekdom.

Cons:
Good luck finding one.
Doesn't play well with other DVB cards installed in the same machine.

 

[Mr Tony]

very nice review Cascade!

 

[PSB]

Excellent review by an excellent member, nice one, REALLY useful info and a great product, I think we will be seeing more of these : )

 

[Cascade]

Update on the Diseqc issue.

MyTheater works perfectly with a Diseqc motor and the USB receiver. Some kind soul wrote an updated driver which rocks.

 

[Jimmy5]

Need Help

I bought a Skystar 2 USB and Sg2100 motor. I tried to use ProgDVB plugins(DiseqcU, Dixie, kvaDiseqc), but none of them can drive the motor. So could you please give me some points, like where do I get the updated driver? or anything else I need to do?

Thanks,

 

[Wholeshoe]

How Much and where do you get one for reference?

Thanks

Wholeshoe

 

[Jimmy5]

I bought the Skystar 2 USB on http://www.cyberestore.com for $150 and sg2100 motor on ebay $66.

 

[javier911]

You may find motors and computers are very annoying. I have a different motor, but it is Diseqc 1.2 and it does work with the Hauppauge Nexus-S. However, it often works incorrectly. I drive it in ProgDVB with DiseqcU.

 

[Stefan]

I have a few questions about this product that perhaps you can answer. First does it actually use and take advantage of USB 2.0 bandwidth or it is simply a usb 1.1 product which will of course work with a usb 2.0 port? Secondly what is the maximum symbol rate supported by this product and will it do HD? If it does do HD is it limited to only low bitrate signals like PBS (which is only about 14-15 Mbit) or will it do higher and if so how high? If this product will handle higher HD bitrates then I might definitely be interested in purchasing one. Also if not, does any know of another usb 2.0 or firewire DVB-s tuner that might be able to handle higher bitrates?

 

[Cascade]

Hi Stefan,
It's definitely a USB1.1 unit therefore HD is out of the question.
Our sponsor, Sadoun carry the newer unit which I believe is USB2 and encodes MPEG2 via hardware.