Whats the best Software !

[deepcat]

Guys,

We have quite a few different flavours of software to support DVB-C.

Im really interested to see what your experience`s are with all and what you would rate as the best.


How would you rate the below out of 10 ? 1 being the best - 10 worse !!

DVB Dream
Prog DVB
Mediaportal
Windows 7 Media Centre ?
DVB Viewer

[ppenno192]

I have only used dvb viewer and Windows 7 media center using dvb-Logic's TVSource software, as I could not get any of the others to work on my system.

Of the two I prefer Media center as it brings everything together and allows easy scheduled recording and recording entire series.

However if you want to watch encrypted channels you will need to have descrambling option, either a hardcam or a sfotcam with dvb-Logic's TVSource software (which works great for me).

[deepcat]

Thanks

Can you use a softcam with windows media c 7 ?

[dmarook]

Originally Posted by deepcat

Thanks

Can you use a softcam with windows media c 7 ?

No for now. May change in future as MS has apparently made a deal with some of the US cable companies. Don't know how that will pan out for the rest of the world.

[Cafe.Rcaer]

Personally, 7MC. Media Poratl was far to complicated to setup, dvbviewer wasn't really "seemless".

As for softcams on 7MC, look at dvblink.

[Ugg]

If you want multiple clients then MP works, supports softcam via mdapi and is stable. Took me some time to get it right and I use it as the only source of TV in the house via 4 clients and share videos and TV inc recordings. EPG is available upto 2 weeks with xmltv. I use this for the main channels and the DVB-C EPG grabber for the rest. I use no plugins except Ipimp (used to watch recordings via an iphone and also to schedule recordings remotely). Also the xface skin. Vista is prefered in my experience as its a better OS. Win 7 is very close to being supported fully give it another few weeks. Works now with MP beta software but Win 7 has other issues with codecs etc so is more complicated.

And yes it does require effort but the support is there. I have never used any others so cannot comment on how much harder it is.

You need to understand PC's and networking, codecs to a very limited extent and softcams. If you are lucky it will work straight out of the box.

You need to install DVB-C BDA drivers, MP, Codecs, MDAPI and then Vplug. You can also use hardcams but there is no real difference in perfomance.

My main server/client is a 2 quad core processor dell server 2008x86 and will handle the clients simultanously fine. A good £100 nvidea card helps if you watch alot of HD movies .mkv on the server with clients connected as its offloads alot of cpu cycles to the GPU on the video card but not essential although improves quality.

My goal was to achieve Sky HD box quality via a PC and multiple clients and it is possible.

I will keep my setup even if VM closes the door. My next step will be a dreambox to share my sky HD card to the MP server via MDAPI.

[ppenno192]

Originally Posted by deepcat

Thanks

Can you use a softcam with windows media c 7 ?

Not directly into Win7 MC

But you can with a third party reciver software that streams channels into Win7 MC; Like 'DVB-Logics TVSource'. see there website and fourm, and my review in this forum: Windows 7 MC + DVB Link TVsource. Easy Cable TV within Media Centre

[TogaForComfort]

Mediaportal is my choice, I used Vista MC for a while but didn't look back after finding Mediaportal, you can customise pretty much everything.
Beware though, Mediaportal can become a bit of an obession