Using my Sky Q dish for Freesat (UK), what do I need?

[something_fishy]

I've seen reports of a 24 tuner Kathrein server (Exip 4124) but I've never seen it for sale in the wild.

I also have an 8 tuner Megasat SatIP server which was much more affordable than the Kathrein but is no longer available and as you've found an increasing number of these products have been discontinued - I guess it's a sunset technology given IP streaming.

Unfortunately using SatIP NextPVR occupies a tuner per channel even if the channels are on the same mux (I think that this was in response to a bug I reported a couple of years ago) so eight tuners means eight simultaneous records or eight clients viewing. As you can split the two wideband blocks with passive splitters you could use multiple Kathrein servers. That said I have >400 series records and very rarely run out of tuners with a single Kathrein Exip 418 (but we tend not to watch many things live).

[mvallevand]

Yeah I don't think sub ever implemented multi-rec from SAT>IP. For sure DVB-S devices will give you mulit-rec and they are also cheaper unless maybe you could get a Digitbit Twin on ebay.

Martin

[something_fishy]

@Martin
At the risk of going off topic, I'm guessing that it was linked to this bug I flagged in 2022:
https://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?tid=63784

As you note SatIP hardware is now rare and expensive, however they avoid the problem of compiling linux drivers and passing the card to a docker container.

The Megasat I referenced above was a bargain - 8 tuners for less than GBP150 (but then it started to be flaky after about 4-5 years). The Kathrein is less well priced. I would be unsurprised if they all had the same hardware in them, they have very similar power requirements - 12V 3A and they look similar (there was a Triax 8 tuner server also I recall with the same form factor).

A possible option nowadays might be an Enigma2 set top box. However, I've never got mine to reliably to run a linux Sat2IP server. Their channel handling is great, but the ergonomics around their recording rules are (IMO) poor and they obviously don't have a real client/server architecture.

[Swindiff]

Does that mean I could not watch one channel and record others at the same time?

[something_fishy]

Eight tuners means that you could watch one channel and record seven other channels simultaneously. 

(if NextPVR was able to  do multi-rec you could record one mux and record seven other muxes which is close to nearly every channel that you'd actually want to watch simultaneously). 

[Swindiff]

Ah, so one mux contains multiple channels?  I did not appreciate that, I assumed with 8 tuners the maximum I could achieve would be watch 1 and record 7 others.  If this all works well I may share my freesat over Jellfin with my family.  Does that mean if we were watching channels on the same mux we would only be using 1 tuner?

Is there a list somewhere that shows which channels are on the same mux?

[mvallevand]

I linked you to KoS here https://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.ph...#pid600348 a mux would share the frequency/polarity see the TID I think.

Martin

[Swindiff]

Thank you both, I think it is starting to make sense lol.  Can you just confirm my understanding

Because these channels are all on the same frequency and polarity, they are on the same mux.  Therefore any of these channels can be viewed on the same tuner by an unlimited number of clients?  It would also be possible to record all these channels simultaneously using the same tuner, but that capability has bot been coded into NextPVR?

[mvallevand]

Almost. Only FTA (those marked Clear) are available for multi-rec. NextPVR doesn't support decryption.

Also NextPVR does support multi-rec for DVB-S/S2 and other digital tuners but we are waiting for sub to comment on SAT>IP. It could be feature that isn't implemented or possible a bug.

Martin

[Swindiff]

Thanks Martin