What cam,card and programmer would you recommend for a beginner?

[bostrom]

I have installed a 110cm motorised dish and a Technomate 1500CI receiver, what cam, card etc would you recommend for me to watch sport and films?
Thanks

[Analoguesat]

Just patch your Technomate - it will give you everything a cam will.

[Mickha]

The only extra a Cam is getting is Premiere, at present, and the Diablo light is the cheapest option for that, but you will need a Cas programmer, the Cas 3 is the best to use.
There is no guarantee of how much longer Premiere will remain open, but if you want to spend an extra £100 ( Diablo and Cas 3+) it might be a good investment, the Cas 3 + can program cards, and cams, and might be useful in the future, or you could invest in a legitimate subscription, have a read of the DigitAlb thread in the General section.
http://www.satellitehelp.co.uk/forum...ic,5233.0.html
There is a lot available at the moment but we do go through spells where hardly any channels are open.

[linsladeboy]

Hi Mickha,
This is probably a dumb question so apologies initially ops:
Speaking hypothetically if I had let's say a Diablo light cam that from what I've read can at present is able to open Premiere package and say encryption was modified in the future, would it render cam obsolete or could you reprogramming it again ?

[Jimdefruit]

It would be pretty useless until the new encryption is cracked and new code available to put on the cam.

If you want a secure viewing option then the official card subscription is the only way. The programmable cams and cards option is a lot of fun though.

[nanochickin]

The programmable cams and cards option is a lot of fun though.

And can also give you an endless supply of ice scrapers for you car

The main trouble with cards IMO is that the people out there are only in it for the money and not for the joy of the hobby. They will bring out a new card, support it for a few months and when they have made a sh!tload of money the support will completely disappear and the following month a new card will appear on the scene from the same team as the old one >

You never know how long support will last. Sometimes you get a good run if you buy the card early enough although i have herd of people who have had six months out of a card when others have only had a few days or even hours before the card has become next to useless

Mind you though after support has dried up you do occasionally get reprieves like with the K3 card last month which started to open D+ again

To be honest i have stayed away from cards as i don't think they are worth the money for something which to me is just a hobby I couldn't even tell you which is the most current card ATM. If i was going to go down the card route i would probably go down the MOSC route (Opening up expired subscription cards)

As Jim says you probably best going down the route of a genuine subscription or you could always buy a Dreambox, although this is not the easiest of receivers to master, although it does appear at this moment in time to be fairly future proof



Nano

[Mickha]

Providers are always upgrading their encryption standards, for some reason they don't seem to like us viewing for free, I can't think why
Cams are only as good as their support, but the Diablo has had good support so far and I can't see this changing soon, as new stealth files are being produced, quite regularly, the latest opening Polsat.
For the money this cam has proved excellent value, so far, but you do need a Cas 2 or 3 programmer, and I would recommend the Cas 3+, or you could get the wireless twin cam version which has a lot more options but is more expensive.

[linsladeboy]

Many thanks everyone for feedback there's certainly a lot of food for thought there 8)
I would be quite happy to pay for official subscription card if I could get it directly from country of origin instead of having to pay extortionate prices from dealers
For example, a work colleague with French family enquired about Canal plus for me whilst visiting France last week and has told me that you you can only subscribe to it with a French bank account and address. I am pretty sure it is the same for German Premiere(by the way, how do dealers get hold of cards if that's the case :?)
I suppose I could go down Digitalb route, but they seem to have quite a lot of negative feedback!

[nanochickin]

I suppose I could go down Digitalb route, but they seem to have quite a lot of negative feedback!

I've had my Digitalb card for a while and have had no major problems with it Just make sure you get it from a reputable dealer like Marconi Digital

Both myself and Stick have had cards from this guy and have had no problems. He is quite competitively priced as well. He has Art, Digitalb, Nova, Premiere, Polsat and he is soon to be supplying Showtime although you will need a dish the size of Joderal bank to receive Showtime in the UK



Nano

[BGonaSTICK]

I don't normally recommend CAMS but the Diablo is pretty attractive at under £50, and doesn't fall into quite the same category as the cards IMO.

People who bought the Dragon CAM all those years ago have had better value for money than all of us!

Mind you, some of the other CAMS have been shockingly short-lived

I wouldn't swap my Dreambox for anything (except the 8000 ), but if I already had a good quality STB with a CAM slot, and not enough cash to re-buy the Dreambox at over £300, I would probably buy a Diablo and CAS3+.

They can be found bundled together for around £80.