TV and CI cards (co...
 

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[Closed] TV and CI cards (common interface) and foreign satellite

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 Sui
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Has anyone here ever replaced the CI + card that UK TV's come with and replaced it with a foreign (say Italy) CI+ card? There is 1 particular TV I have that doesn’t require the Freeview or normal aerial, so would like to change it to a direct Satellite decoder. I already have a Tivusat box that works, but I’d like to move that to a different room. I assume that the normal aerial input also acts as a powered input for an LNB?

cheers


 
Posted : 23/10/2019 10:06 am
 Sui
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have i defeated the STW massive -pah who would have thought..

failing that, has anyone used a streaming box for foreign tv, there is an offer using a Beeline box that has a VPN built in, but i've no experience with them. Anyone?


 
Posted : 24/10/2019 11:30 am
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have i defeated the STW massive -pah who would have thought..

I think, if others are the same as me, they don't understand what you are trying to do!

I assume that the normal aerial input also acts as a powered input for an LNB?

No. A terrestrial aerial input will not be powered.


 
Posted : 24/10/2019 12:27 pm
 Sui
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Ok fair point.

Typical foreign tv in the UK is done via sattelite and a decoder box, much the same as freesat in the UK (unless youhave a freesat tv), plugged in via HDMI.

However;

Most TV's have on the back of them a slot called a Common Interface, this holds some circuitry that in UK TV's decode ariel signals (DVB) and thus allow you to watch TV. In Europe as far as i know, you can replace this CI along with a viewing card in order to decode a different type of signal i.e. satellite.

So, i wont to replace my existing CI (which would currently decode DVB), and replace it with a decoder boxes CI and viewing card and plug the coax from the sattellite, straight to the TV*.

*Unlike aerials, the dish needs power to the LNB, i get that it normally gets this from a decoder box, however i'm lead to beleive newer tv's share the same input for passive aerials as they do for sat input, though not 100% so should in theory power the LNB too.


 
Posted : 24/10/2019 12:37 pm
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Are you looking at specialist channels?


 
Posted : 24/10/2019 5:39 pm
 Sui
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curvature

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Are you looking at specialist channels?

Yes and no😂

Anyway I've since found it is possible, but the TV I want to do it on doesn't have a sat decoder on it, even though lots and lots of tvs do...


 
Posted : 24/10/2019 11:40 pm
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Terrestrial, cable and satellite TV broadcast systems all use different frequency bands and modulation to transmit the signal. It used to be that the tuners in TVs were so called "narrow band" tuners in that they were optimised for terrestrial or satellite. Newer tuners are so called "wide band" and can access all TV frequencies.

Behind that there is software to decode the data transmitted alongside the programmes that allows the decoder/TV to actually access each channel. The layout of the data differs between DVB-T (terrestrial), DVB-C (cable) and DVB-S (satellite)* so unless the software has been written to handle more than one of the systems you can't just connect a terrestrial unit to a satellite dish and expect it to work.

I've not seen a TV with a CI slot (but I've not been in the market for one for a few years) so I suspect it's a newer feature.

*DVB-T is terrestrial standard definition, DVB-T2 is high definition and there are similar pairs of standards for cable and satellite.


 
Posted : 25/10/2019 8:01 am

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