TBSDTV Community Forum

I'm newbie with regard to this. This card has just 4 inputs but 8 tuners. If I would like to put DiSEqC switches in front of the card inputs to switch between two different LNBs, how would it work? If on one input the switch will be switched to one LNB, does that mean that the same input would not be able to receive signal from the other LNB for the other receiver?

For example:
I would have 8 devices to which I would like to stream programs from two satellites (lets say Astra and HotBird). If 7 devices would stream programs from 7 different transponders on Astra and 1 would like to stream from transponder on HotBird, will that work or it won't work because all inputs are "tuned" to Astra LNB and hence no input could receive signal from HotBird LNB?

4 inputs, 8 tuners means every input is shared by two rivers. So those two tuners must tune the same satellite/polarity.

If you are

Yes. Generally, as far as I understand, one would need 8 inputs with LNB with 8 outputs to receive the signal and be able to control the LNB each. But there are devices that enable to aggregate two streams (inputs and outputs) into one as this card does and it works. What I don't know is whether this can work even with DiSEqC switches in-between the same way as if one would have 8 outputs on LNB and 8 inputs on card.

Hi fordfrog. TBS6909 have 4 input but 8 adapters. Each one can tune individual signals. For example in this video (an simple and little test) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhoBLpApCxo I´m using only 3 inputs and I get 5 channels from 5 tuned adapters.
I'm waiting a quad lnb to do a full tests of this cards.

About diseqc, as I know, TBS are working to add full diseqc suport in next drivers version.

King regards.

Hi all

For TBS6909 diseqc usage we have two way to use .
1.first use the normal mode not the multiswitch mode need to use a config file like this:
create text file "/etc/modprobe.d/tbs.conf" with line:

options tbs_pcie-dvb tbs6909_mode=0

0 is 1 input for 2 tuners,
1 is for multswitch



2.Another one we still on working ,when the user use one than one satellite multiswitch input need to choose the satellite when using
multiswitch.
first time it sends out DiSEqC to select the external mutliswitch satellite. that's tbs6909_mode=2,

options tbs_pcie-dvb tbs6909_mode=2

here is a test driver if you have interest you can have a try:
http://wikisend.com/download/365260/linux-tbs-drivers_t160302.tar.bz2

Thanks

Kind Regards

steven

Thank you both for answers. I studied the topic more and now I think I understand how it works.

There are generally two types of connecting this card:
1) to quattro LNB where all HH, HL, VH and VL bands are set statically on each LNB output and connected to the appropriate RF IN on the card
2) to quad LNB where the card itself takes care of setting LNBs to the correct band as needed

That means that when DiSEqC switch would be used to connect to two different satellites and it would need to switch to second satellite/LNB, one of the bands from the first satellite won't be available because there would be only three connections to that satellite so it can cover only three bands and programs from the fourth band won't be available at that moment.

I hope I got it right.

@fordfrog

not really, it actually depends on what DiSEqC switch and setup you have in mind. So, first as general rule if 6909 card driver is set to Multi-Switch mode then all 4 ports on the same card need to be connected to the same satellite in order to have all bands/polarities. however, the card can be in Multi-Switch mode and at the same time be connected to external Multi-Switch that offers connected to more than one satellite. in such scenario you can use "hydrid" mode of the driver (that is mode "2") - before first adapter on the card is used it sends out DiSEqC command to select switch all 4 ports on the switch to which the card is connected to the selected satellite, then no more DiSEqC commands are sent and the card is fixed to it's regular way of work in MSW mode.