346 replies to this topic

[GThomas]

Ahhh...

Unfortunately we did achieve misunderstanding.

I am not going to set clients for recording. At all. None of them will have any form of hard drive.

Instead, I'm going to use clients, yes- KODI, to send requests for recording on their behalf.

Kind of Kodi shouting "Yo! Enigma! There's a program on BBC 1 at 3pm. Record it for me on your drive, I'll fetch it off you later. Please."

By initial run of demo PVR client built into KODI, and all sorts of descriptions either written or as youbauble clips- this is how PVR plugin of kodi works..

As for SkyQ. Indeed. They are difficult. But they do use UnicableII, just altered for their.. maybe not "needs".. more like wish to obsuscate everything possible.

This bit of info I'm already trough:
Standard, normative, LNB with capability of 32 clients will have 32 UB channels, each 37.5MHz wide.
Sky adaptation, uses only few of UB channels, explicitly: 3,9,11,14-26, and each channel fos Sky use is (behold!) 46MHz wide!

And yet- there are records indicating a " hidden menu" on SkyQ receivers, with ability to switch it to standard unicableII.
Makes sense, really. One thing Sky doesn't seem to want to be involved with, are delivery networks in multiple-household blocks.. Let's say one dish serving 30..40 apartments.

These will have "normative" unicable system. Sky, to keep its "I'm different" image, would have to build their own. Too expensive. Set boxes to fall back to standard unicableII.

And to think that mere 5 years ago I was one of those thinking that simple splitter will give me ability to use 2 sat tubers (read: noob)

[GThomas]

To think about it..

It wouldn't be that sky, by forcing 47MHz channels, is preparing infrastructure for 4k or even higher programmes?

Edited by GThomas, 23 October 2018 - 14:25.

[WanWizard]

If Kodi can interact with Enigma on that level, fine. I'm not a Kodi expert (sort of the wrong forum for that ).

 

Besides the user bands, also the DiseqC subcommands to the SkyQ LNB are different from the standard Unicable/JESS commands. We've been trying for a while now to get hold of them, but appearently they are under heavy NDA, none of our contacts with switch or LNB manufacturers is willing to provide them. So for SKY the other way around shouldn't be difficult too.

 

SKY is only interested in one thing: making sure there is no alternative, and taking your money. Lots of it.

[WanWizard]

It wouldn't be that sky, by forcing 47MHz channels, is preparing infrastructure for 4k or even higher programmes?

 

I doubt that, in the bandwidth of a user channel you can "easily" squeeze 80Mbps into 36Mhz (based on 8PSK, FEC 8/9), which is enough for plenty of 4K or even 8K channels...

[GThomas]

Coming back from a slight "off topic" of sky and kodi..



That solution with 3 LNBs 32 channels each..
I'm still reading so this is only my initial thought:

I understand that I can set each tuner (in a FBC cluster) to use given channel of Unicable2.
So let's say

Tuner A chan1
Tuner B chan2
Tuner C chan3
...
Tuner H chan8



Then on LNBs:

LNB1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off
LNB2 off off off off off off off off 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 off off off off off off off off
LNB3 off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off off 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

ERM.. Doesn't look right.

Is it possible to assign tuners channel.. "dynamically"?
That is, if signal from LNB1 is requested, tuner will be set to first available channel from 1-8
If signal from LNB requested, it will be first available channel 9-16 and so on?

I'll be back to reading.

[WanWizard]

Is it possible to assign tuners channel.. "dynamically"?

 

If you use a Unicable or JESS switch, you use standard quattro LNB's per sat position (so the switch has access to all quadrants at the same time), and every user band the switch supports can be mapped to any transponder on any connected sat position. Which gives you a total of 32 tuners for most switches, as there is a one-to-one mapping between tuner and user-band, the switch does the selection of the correct sat.

 

If you don't use a switch, but have Unicable LNB's, the tuner needs to select the sat position ( = the correct Unicable LNB). You have to split your user bands over your LNB's, say 1-8 for LNB1, 9-15 to LNB2, etc. You need a Unicable LNB programmer to do that. On the receiver side you can define a maximum of 64 LNB's per tuner, and in case of Unicable, one LNB = one user band. So you can assign user bands 1, 9, 17 and 25 to tuner A, 2, 10, 18 and 25 to tuner B, and so on. This gives each tuner access to each LNB, but is limited to 8 tuners due to the fixed allocation, instead of 32 in case of a switch.

 

Logically this works the same as if you had two quad LNB's per sat position (as you need 8 outputs), connected to 8 standard 4-1 switches, each switch output connected via a separate cable set to DiseqC A/B/C/D. The only difference is the serial vs parallel solution, i.e. the number of cables between dish and receiver.

 

( disclaimer: I'm like you an avid reader, let's wait for confirmation of someone with actual experience )

[Erik Slagter]

Are there already switches available for more than 2 positions? Cascading switches will quickly become a very expensive habbit...  

 

I'm planning to switch to Unicable/JESS as well, early next year, for 4 positions, so very interested in a cost-effective solution.

Unicable can address two positions. Technically it would be possible to cascade switches to allow for more positions, but I don't know if there is any one switch that supports such. JESS can address up to 16 positions (from the top of my head). Probably there won't be switches that actually can have 16 LNB's attached (= 64 cables....), but four positions is quite common and one can, with some models, cascade one or more other switches giving additional 4 positions per switch.

 

I didn't say it's cost effective though

[GThomas]

Thank you.

I already begun checking availability and prices for parts involved (namely LNBs + T pieces+ programming).

2 shops said "No".. But it doesn't mean anything

I'll find it yet.

I treat it as " possibly cheaper (pending verification) but not expandable option"

Now- I know that it seemed that I'm ignoring JESS switches here, and in a way that's exactly what I was doing.

But only to check them out when I'm trough understanding programmable LNBs.

I think it might be that "slightly more expensive, but expandable" option.

I'm not asking any questions yet. I'll do my reading first

Yes.. It does seem that I'm reading a lot recently..

[Erik Slagter]

About the tuners and the transcoding. Transcoding is done in hardware, using dedicated sillicon. The CPU isn't quick enough to do it in software, by far. The most expensive receivers can do two simultanuous transcoding sessions, the somewhat cheaper ones, one single session and most receivers don't support transcoding at all.

 

The tuners: if it's a requirement to always have at least 8 services availabled, however distributed over positions, band, polarity and transponder, you will need to have more than 8 tuners. The VU+ Ultimo4k is then only receiver that can do that (two FBC slots = 16 tuners). It can transcode two services.

[GThomas]

Now I'm beginning to feel... Uneasy.

I know I'm yet to get to distinction between transcoding and streaming, currently I only know that these two exist and will be in use, but I'll get there.

I need to be thorough with this, so I do one at time, to the end, properly.

I'm just finishing topic of programmable LNBs and unicable system as such, next will be JESS switches, and after that I was going to investigate streaming capabilities...


Now you're telling me that even Ultimo can only transcode 2 at once..

Does it mean that I won't be able to stream 8 at once?
Or stream 4 and record 4?
Or any combination?

At this moment I can't imagine that as impossible- if it wasn't possible why would anyone even make a receiver box with capability of tuning into up to 18 transponders? To do what? Watch one and record the rest?

Yes, I am upset, but not angry.. Its just my style of writing..
Excuse me that.

I will get to this, eventually, but could someone tell me : is all my "gathering of knowledge" in vain? (Apart from just learning, which, I have to admit, I enjoy enormously )

Is the result already known- "will not work"?

[WanWizard]

I know I'm yet to get to distinction between transcoding and streaming, currently I only know that these two exist and will be in use, but I'll get there.

 

I explained that in my post this afternoon. So read that back please.

[GThomas]

Yes, you are right!

I had to read your post 3 times to grasp the meaning..

My bad.

[WanWizard]

No problem.

 

In short, a stream is a one-on-one realtime forward of the data stream received from the sat, in a transcoded stream that realtime stream is fed into the hardware trancoder which converts it to a different resolution/format and bandwidth, and a different codec.
 

A transcoded stream is usually used for low bandwidth and resolution situations, for example when you want to watch TV on your smartphone while out of the house.

[GThomas]

Right..
I honestly didnt expect to have to ask another question relating to unicable..

But here it is...

One of my "learning sources" indicates that it may not be possible to use unicable LNB at position other than 13E..

I can't imagine why, so either this information isn't true or I missed quite important piece of knowledge..

If it is true, I understand that use of JESS with either quattro or wideband (H+V) LNBs may help?

[Abu Baniaz]

Right..
I honestly didnt expect to have to ask another question relating to unicable..

But here it is...

One of my "learning sources" indicates that it may not be possible to use unicable LNB at position other than 13E..

I can't imagine why, so either this information isn't true or I missed quite important piece of knowledge..

If it is true, I understand that use of JESS with either quattro or wideband (H+V) LNBs may help?

It is not true.

I suspect the message that was lost was that Unicable is not designed for motorised dishes. It can work, but it is not designed for it.

[Erik Slagter]

The SoC of the Ultimo4k is designed for use in TV headends, it's not primarily targeted at settopboxes. So while it can transcode two streams, it can stream quite a bit of services at the same time, as many as you can fit in one gigabit and as any as you can descramble at the same time (subscriber card or CI limitations...) If it's all FTA, don't worry.

[GThomas]

I'm guessing a JPS1702-8M wouldn't be a bad choice of JESS?

Stackable, just in case it needs to be expanded- for example by SkyQ.

Apparently there are switches that offer just the "pattern" of unicable Sky thought up.

[GThomas]

On the second thought..

JPS1708-8T.

Terminated one- end of stack. If any other switches will be needed, I could add these before JESS.

Now to find one, and to find out what programming would that need, both on switch, and within FBC tuner cluster..

[GThomas]

Well... One thing is for sure..

You weren't kidding saying that its not cheap..

But £1300 for a multi switch?!?

I may be better off using these:
https://www.digital-...tes-quattro-lnb

But with 3 wideband LNBs.

Program each to behave just like these unicable LNBs above, and still retain ability to expand.

At £350+ cost of programming.. A "no-brainer"?

Comments?

[GThomas]

Oh, and this came in just 30 seconds ago:

Client requests meeting at 10 o'clock, Saturday..

Gotta be ready

But then, all I have to prepare by now are costs calculations and available channels for each country.

I'll be fine. I think...

Edited by GThomas, 25 October 2018 - 09:46.