HD issues with TBS DVB-S2 card

[jquin]

I am currently building an HTPC and yesterday I installed a TBS DVB-S2 card. I'm afraid I'm totally new to satellite. It did a full scan and found all the channels. The normal channels worked fine (showing quality between 50% and 90%) but BBC HD was very blocky and digitised. I was wondering if someone could direct me to what is most likely to be causing this:
1) The satellite dish was installed by SKY by the previous occupants of our house about 5 years ago. Could this dish have moved or be of too low quality for HD or are there any potential cable issues? I don't have a SKY subscription and was planning to just watch Freesat so would prefer not to have to get SKY round.
2) I was just testing it last night with a normal PC monitor via VGA - I presume no issues there
3) Is the Radeon HD 2600 512MB up to the job?
4) There are loads of settings - anything I can try tweaking?
5) I chose Astra 28.2 but I'm pretty sure that's right
6) Other people report getting good HD from the TBS card so I'm presuming it's not that.
7) As soon as I powered on the PC it said it had installed drivers but I then tried the CD and it looked like it installed drivers. I could try updating drivers?

Any other suggestions? Thanks in advance...

 

[Lazarus]

Almost certain to be one or more of:

Slightly misaligned dish, degraded cabling (physical damage or water ingress), dodgy F connections, failing LNB.

Misalignment has to be favourite. Sky Installers are not always the most diligent at mounting and securing dishes properly - often they don't use four bolts, for example, which leaves it prone to moving slightly over time.

If the dish is easily accessible and you have a "buddy", you can gently flex the LNB arm up/down and left/right the tiniest bit to see if Quality improves. Don't block the signal path, though!

Sky won't be the least bit interested in you. The dish is yours and you don't have Sky, so it would be better, if you need to, to seek independent help. DiY best.


Edit: Sorry - just reread your Post in detail and it appears it's only HD that is suffering. That therefore does not preclude Card/Driver etc issues.

 

[jquin]

OK - I'll try that. It's annoyingly about 40feet up but I think I could reach it with a stick from the top floor bathroom window! Some of the bundled software seemed to measure the quality of signal. What % do you think I need for HD or is it not as simple as that?

 

[Lazarus]

If access is difficult, don't do it! But if you insist on poking it with a stick, be very careful!

Also, I Edited my previous Post upon second reading of your problem.

Best wait for a few more replies, I think.

 

[Analoguesat]

If the standard def channels are ok its possible the computer cant cope with processing the HD signal.

Do you get he same problems on Luxe HD & ITV HD?

 

[jquin]

I'm at work now unfortunately but I'll try ITV HD and Luxe HD tonight and report back.

 

[jquin]

Both ITV HD and Luxe HD were sticky or digitised as well. Most other non HD channels I checked seem to be fine.

In DVBDream BBC HD is showing Level:98 Quality:91 - same as BBC 1 London (non HD) which runs fine.

I checked I have the latest drivers for the TBS card 1.0.5.4

 

[PaulR]

If the pictures are blocky (pixellated) this points to a signal problem. If the computer/video card isn't up to the job I think you would see frame drop and a jerky picture.

Can you play an HD file downloaded from somewhere?

 

[Analoguesat]

Not necessarily. My old Echostar 3000 used to struggle on high symbol rate (>30000) transmissions - it would run as a blocky smeary mess for a few minutes until the receiver crashed completely. Signal levels were fine.

 

[Llew]

Both ITV HD and Luxe HD were sticky or digitised as well. Most other non HD channels I checked seem to be fine.

In DVBDream BBC HD is showing Level:98 Quality:91 - same as BBC 1 London (non HD) which runs fine.

I checked I have the latest drivers for the TBS card 1.0.5.4

Have you tried different H264 codecs? ffdshow MPEG4 if you don't have it should work OK.

 

[Llew]

...or you could try a different viewer. I use DVBViewer Pro and CoreAVC H264 codec for my MPEG4 channels without any blocking or pixellation.

 

[Satellite Lover]

You have so awesome advices, I'm every day more and more love the satellite topic.

@jquin or anybody else can explain to me - What is the HTPC (I think I undersatand PC ? Personal Computer?)

 

[Llew]

HTPC = Home Theatre Personal Computer.

Basically, it enables you to use your satellite card-equipped PC to watch satellite channels/movies etc. on your TV.

_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_theater_PC

 

[Satellite Lover]

Awesome @Llew, thank you for the link reading right now!

 

[foxtail]

Don't think the video card is up to the job. Has been almost 6 wks...so not sure if you have fixed this or not.

 

[jquin]

I re-ran the cable direct from the box, under the floor and straight into the back of the HTPC and it's better though I still get some colour blocking (approx once every 10 minutes). A friend has offered to bring round a SKY HD box for me to compare. If it does the same, I guess it's the dish. If it's fine, I guess it's either the satellite card or the video card (probably the latter). Will let you know...

 

[foxtail]

As stated above, if it does the same with your friends box then I would think that the dish is off by a hair. If it does work with his box...then start to look at the codecs installed for the program. Not all codecs are the same, some are much better then others. The thing with pc based cards is that it is trial and error when it come to codecs. Google codecs for the card and see what others are using to get HD perfect. Hope that helps you.