since i’m switching from my analog WinTV-PVR-500 to a DVB-S setup in my mythtv box I installed a TechniSat Skystar HD2 card (a rebranded Azurewave AD SP400 CI VP-1041) and to my surprise I got it running fairly quickly.

here’s a description on the first steps i took in creating a mythtv box with DVB-S and hopefully DVB-S2.

install mercurial (distributed version control system). In debian based systems:
sudo apt-get install mercurial

then obtain the latest mantis multiproto drivers. there is no patching necessary for the card to run.
hg clone http://jusst.de/hg/mantisthen compile and install.
make
make install

more info can be obtained here under “Method 2”.

the modules can be loaded manually but to test the correct loading a reboot is easier. now the card should be loaded at boot.

to create a channels.conf you’ll need scan from the dvb-apps located on linuxtv.org.
the way to get this working quite easy is described here. the TerraTec Cinergy S2 PCI HD CI is another clone of the same card.

make sure that the changed line in the Makefile has the correct path. in the example it is
CPPFLAGS += -I/usr/src/mantis/linux/includebut since i compiled in my home directory my path was different (this is quite obvious but i thought i’d state it to be sure).

EDIT:i noticed that scan with the patch don’t work anymore… it should work just using the compiled scan in the dvb-apps/utils directory!

while running scan:
./scan dvb-s/Astra-19.2E > ~/.szap/channels.confcheck to see if these lines (or any stating: Using ‘STB0899 Multistandard’ DVB-S2) appear.
----------------------------------> Using 'STB0899 Multistandard' DVB-S2
Tune to frequency 11914500
DVB-S IF freq is 1314500
0x0006 0x0081: pmt_pid 0x0062 PREMIERE -- PREMIERE HD (running, scrambled)
0x0006 0x0082: pmt_pid 0x0063 PREMIERE -- DISCOVERY HD (running, scrambled)
0x0006 0x0084: pmt_pid 0x0065 BetaDigital -- ANIXE HD (running)
0x0006 0x0083: pmt_pid 0x0064 BetaDigital -- ASTRA HD+ (running)then you know that DVB-S2 is working also! yay!

afterwards i had 1187 services only on Astra 19.2E. half of them scrambled but hey, the numbers count ;)

now to test the whole thing enter the dvb-apps/test directory and try zapping to a channel (check in the ~/.szap/channels.conf to see which number is good to go and not scrambled).
./szap2 -r -n 085
the output will show you some channel data and as soon as “FE_HAS_LOCK” is displayed (keep szap running) open mplayer in a different terminal
mplayer /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0
and you should see a picture! alright, the card is up and running!

all seems good but i still have a problem with DVB-S2. and that is as soon as i’m trying to display a DVB-S2 channel like ANIXE HD (channel #550 in my channels.conf)
./szap2 -r -t 2 -n 550i get a “FE_HAS_LOCK” but mplayer then just returns:
TS file format detected.
VIDEO MPEG2(pid=1535) AUDIO A52(pid=1539) NO SUBS (yet)! PROGRAM N. 0
and that’s it…

i think i’m missing some codecs or something (w32codecs,DeCSS, x264, etc. is installed).
any help is appreciated though ;)

NOTE: don’t forget to add the option “-t 2” for DVB-S2 for szap

UPDATE: i noticed that when i zap to a HD station and wait long enough i get this error right after the “TS file format detected”:
Too many audio packets in the buffer: (4096 in 7340032 bytes).
Maybe you are playing a non-interleaved stream/file or the codec failed?
For AVI files, try to force non-interleaved mode with the -ni option.
MPEG: FATAL: EOF while searching for sequence header.
Video: Cannot read properties.

so i’m still unsuccessful at watching HD tv.

UPDATE 2!!: to watch HD tv stations you need the option -p when calling szap2!
-p : add pat and pmt to TS recording (implies -r)

so try
./szap2 -r -p -t 2 "ASTRA HD+" and open mplayer… wow

my 3GHz system that’s gonna be the mythbackend sometimes quits with mplayer saying:
************************************************
**** Your system is too SLOW to play this! ****
************************************************which means… my frontend system is gonna have to be upgraded!