Ratatosk

Hello!

I have a question, or perhaps two (entirely unrelated), for anybody with knowledge to answer.

About to buy my very first DVB box, I have until now, believe it or not, been basically content with the analog cable-TV I had where I previously lived. (I was using a Danish-made box, KiSS DP-558, for EPG and recordings etc. - with some closed-source system on board, but running on Linux and at least allowing ftp and telnet access.) Now finally, however, the move to a new apartment has forced me to face the 21st century.

My basic requirements:

1. (Obviously) The box has to actually work where I (now) live. Meaning, for me, DVB-C tuner(s) and a well-working card reader for a Conax CAS5, to be run at 3.5795 MHz, I believe. (It is, from what I understand, what my TV company, Swedish Tele2, is using.) I also want (to install) a hard drive in it.
    
2. For the sake of principles, if nothing else, I'd also like as free and open a box as possible, meaning one from a manufacturer that plays well with the open-source community.

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Again, I am a complete newcomer to free (/“libre”) open source DVB receivers. Until a few months ago, I had heard about something called Dreambox only. Having now done some basic research, it seems that the Dreambox may have been the only truly free and open DVB box, as delivered, between 2003 (or December 2002) and 2008 sometime. But, since October 2011, Dreamboxes apparently aren't free or open at all anymore. So Dreambox is out. Instead, from what I understand, there are now primarily two or three brand names to choose from: Korean Xtrend, Korean Vu+, and possibly Hong Kong-made Coolstream.

Yes, I am aware that the last of these, Coolstream, isn't supported by PLi. I have now learned the names Enigma (on which OpenPLi is based) and Neutrino (used in Coolstream) and read up a little on their history too. Not that I am still sure about the relative merits of Neutrino or Enigma, but I've learned enough to know that both are GPL'ed, open and free (regardless of whatever Dream Multimedia chooses to call their proprietary and closed software), and it seems to me that Coolstream should probably be mentioned anyway.

Perhaps the full coverage of all this, and the grand history of open DVB boxes, is better left to another thread, though. Xtrend, in this respect, should in any case be a very good choice, as far as I can glean from other threads in this forum, which is why I am leaning towards Xtrend in the first place. (Right?)

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So, I had just about decided to go with an Xtrend box (9500 or 6500, not sure which) when I saw some talk about problems with Xtrend card readers or the drivers for them.

First, in some threads dealing with new drivers in February 2012 (in this forum, and another one) there is mention of a failure to properly lock access to a card reader, while one process is accessing it, so as to prevent another process from simultaneously accessing the same device (which would cause a program crash). Not that I am sure how much of a concern this was or is, if it's still not solved. The case specifically mentioned is when two softcams, OSCam and CCCam, are simultaneously running, but I am not entirely sure what the point of that would be. (Since OSCam apparently is open source while CCCam is not, I am pretty sure OSCam is what I will want.)

The other, perhaps more serious, problem, however, is (/was?) an inability of Xtrend card readers to run at any other frequency than 6 or 5 MHz. This sounds really worrying to me, as, again, I believe my card is meant to be run at a much lower frequency. The problem is mentioned in this German thread, dealing with crashes presumably caused by this (?). On page 6, it is said that some kind of fix was created and implemented in OpenPLi 3, in July 2012.

So will it now be safe to put my 3.5795 MHz Conax card in the internal reader of an Xtrend machine?

Or will I be better off with a VU+ machine? (or Coolstream or something else?)

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(And apologies for this post being a bit lengthy. It is more or less a summary of what I've got after trying to research the matter as far as I could on my own, and I come to you for answers only when no longer able to find them myself.)