Overview

A general reference to tuner features supported by MediaPortal.

Introduction

This page is not intended to be a complete list of all tuners supported by MediaPortal. MediaPortal supports far too many tuners to be able to list all of them individually. If you want to know whether a particular tuner is supported:

1. Check the "rules" for supported tuners below.
2. Check the unsupported tuner/feature list.
3. Check the forums for reports of compatibility problems.

Supported Tuners

If your tuner has a BDA driver (most DVB and ATSC/QAM tuners do) and is not listed in the unsupported list then there is a very good chance that it will work. 

In general, MediaPortal's TV Server supports:

1. Any DVB/ATSC card which has BDA drivers. This includes the vast majority of all tuner cards available today.
2. All analog tuners with dedicated hardware for video and audio encoding on board, and DirectShow-compatible WDM drivers.
3. Some analog tuners which require software to encode the video and audio. The tuner card must not require a connection to the "Line In" or "Microphone" input of a sound card to make the audio work. Not all software encoders are compatible with TV Server.
4. The TechniSat SkyStar-2/Airstar-2/CableStar-2 tuners, when using the WDM driver. The BDA driver is not stable.
5. The Hauppauge Colossus and HD PVR video capture devices. TV Server also supports capture inputs on cards with analog tuners, however other capture cards without tuners are currently not supported.
6. CableCARD tuners: Ceton, Hauppauge and Silicondust tuners are supported. ATI TV Wonder support is unknown. Hauppauge tuners require driver 2.4_20140121_32028 or later. Silicondust tuners require 20130708beta1 firmware or later.

Unsupported Tuners

The following tuners are currently unsupported or not yet fully supported:

• Anysee (DiSEqC, CI)
• AVerMedia (DiSEqC, CI) - please petition them if you want support for these features in MediaPortal
• Blackgold (DiSEqC)
• Compro (DiSEqC)
• DVBSky (CI)
• KWorld DVB-S100 - this tuner uses a proprietary method to control the power supply to the LNB; KWorld have not responded to our requests for an SDK/documentation
• KNC TV-Station DVB-S2 Twin (DVB-S2, DiSEqC, CI) - DVB-S tuning should work if you use the DVB-S network provider
• Omicom (DiSEqC)
• Pinnacle/PCTV Systems (DiSEqC)
• Realtek RTL2832U and RTL2832P based tuners (DAB, FM) - these Realtek chipsets are used in many tuners (eg. DigitalNow Dabby and Quad, Mygica T803 and T188) that support DVB-T/T2 and/or DVB-C with DAB/DAB+ and FM radio. DVB-T/T2 functions work fine, however DAB and FM functions are not supported at this time. DVB-C support may depend on the driver used.
• TBS (CI) - supported with a patch[ |tbs-ci-cam-support-and-other-improvements.103276]from our forum
• TechnoTrend Budget CT2-4500 CI, Connect CT2-4650 CI (CI)
• TechnoTrend Premium
• TeVii H700, S700 (CI)
• TerraTec H7, S7 revision 4 (CI)

Special Features

The following tables list the special features of various tuners that are supported by MediaPortal. It is not meant to be a list of each supported tuner.

DVB-C Tuners

DVB-S/S2 Tuners

DVB-T/T2 Tuners

Video Capture Cards

Feature Explanation

CI/CAM

Some cards have a CI/CAM slot. Some examples are shown below:

The CI slot allows you to watch encrypted (pay TV) channels when you insert an appropriate CAM and smart card. It is not possible to watch encrypted channels without a CI slot, CAM and smartcard.

CI Menu

CAMs generally have a service menu that allows you set parental control settings and view information about your subscription, smart card and CAM. If your card supports it, MediaPortal allows you to access the service menu in two ways:

1. from the fullscreen TV context menu ( or Info/More key)

1. from TV-Server Configuration

Multi-channel Decryption

Multi-channel decryption is the ability to decrypt multiple channels from a single transmitter (also referred to as a transponder, frequency, mux or multiplex) with a single tuner. Both the tuner and CAM must support decrypting multiple channels for this feature to work.

Digital Devices Tuners

Digital Devices tuners support an additional feature called multidecrypt (MTD) which many people confuse with multi-channel decryption.

Multidecrypt is the ability for multiple tuners to share a single CAM.

Digital Devices tuners support both multi-channel decryption and multidecrypt (CAM sharing). However, multi-channel decryption only works when multidecrypt is disabled. In other words, when a CAM is shared by multiple tuners (ie. multidecrypt is active) each tuner can only use the CAM to decrypt one channel.

MediaPortal only supports multidecrypt with Digital Devices tuners. Multi-channel decryption is not supported. Multidecrypt with multiple CAMs (chaining) is supported with a patch.

Multichannel decryption example

A single Digital Everywhere FloppyDTV S2 card can decrypt multiple channels from a single transponder with a single CAM.

Multidecrypt example

A Digital Devices Cine S2 card with its two DVB-S2 tuners can use one CAM to decrypt two channels from any two transponders. Both tuners must be used to decrypt the two channels, even if the channels are broadcast on the same transponder.

DiSEqC

DiSEqC is a communication protocol that allows satellite tuners, switches, LNBs, dish motors (positioners), and other related satellite equipment to work together. It is most commonly used by satellite tuners to control a switch or motor that enables you to receive channels from multiple satellites.

The picture below shows a dish with four LNBs. Each LNB is connected to an input on a DiSEqC switch, which is in turn connected to one or more tuners. When the owner of this dish wants to watch a channel, their tuner must use DiSEqC commands to select the correct LNB corresponding with the satellite which broadcasts the channel that the person wants to watch.

DVB-S2

DVB-S2 is the second generation DVB satellite broadcasting standard. It is commonly used to transmit HDTV H.264 channels since the better compression and modulation techniques allow HD channels to be transmitted using the same bandwidth as a normal SDTV MPEG-2 channel.

Related

References

• CAMs - Conditional Access Modules