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how to setup unicable (en50494)

Posted:
Wed Feb 02, 2011 7:34 pm
by yamcenutzer
It was claimed that the 6980/6981 support unicable. I can't find a description anywhere.
The use case is media center 7 only.
Am I missing some docs?
Re: how to setup unicable (en50494)

Posted:
Thu Feb 03, 2011 7:28 am
by cody
yamcenutzer Wrote:It was claimed that the 6980/6981 support unicable. I can't find a description anywhere.
The use case is media center 7 only.
Am I missing some docs?
the DVB application needs to support Unicable (EN 50494) - for example application with such support is DVBViewer and you can read some details here:
https://shop.tbsdtv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=66
Windows 7 Media Center do not include Unicable (EN 50494) support - i guess you can contact Microsoft support and request from them to implement such support.
Re: how to setup unicable (en50494)

Posted:
Tue Feb 08, 2011 10:21 pm
by yamcenutzer
Unicable is a tuner device driver issue (as of win7 and pbda).
- 1.st setup...
So in other words, no unicable for any tbs in mce7.
Thx.
Re: how to setup unicable (en50494)

Posted:
Wed Feb 09, 2011 5:45 am
by cody
yamcenutzer Wrote:Unicable is a tuner device driver issue (as of win7 and pbda).
please, can you explain what you mean exactly, because Unicable has nothing to do with device drivers - it's implemented on application level the same way like DiSEqC - in fact Unicable uses special DiSEqC commands.
also, please, feel free to point me out to any Microsoft BDA specification/documentation that defines Unicable as part of the BDA specification (which is what at least i understand your words are supposed to mean). thanks.
Re: how to setup unicable (en50494)

Posted:
Wed Feb 09, 2011 7:01 pm
by yamcenutzer
That's the whole point.
WMC7 uses PBDA as opposed to BDA.
PBDA has some enhancements incl. Diseqc, CA and FRUN (First RUN, aka Tuner setup) which, when implemented in the driver, allows to add device specific setup (extended setup) steps e.g. to WMC7 (of course provided by the HW vendor).
This, IMO, could be used for things like Unicable, or CI setup.
At least, MS claims that was the idea behind creating this new API.
Added:
the swtuner sample in the WDK does some of these things. Alas, I know the WDK docs are missing some crucial info to PBDA, but the documentation pointers to the WINHEC site will lead to those.
INcluding a porting guide from BDA to PBDA.
Re: how to setup unicable (en50494)

Posted:
Mon Feb 14, 2011 6:36 am
by cody
thanks, we did look at PBDA as option to use for our CI solution, but back then did not think in the direction you're thinking and so i will give it more thoughts and discuss with my colleagues. in any case it will take time and i haven't heard anyone to provide such extended support in WMC, at least not yet.
Re: how to setup unicable (en50494)

Posted:
Tue Feb 15, 2011 2:22 am
by yamcenutzer
Well, http://www.shop.digital-devices.de/ does, to some extent, but also not nicely integrated in WMC.
At least their Unicable/CI stuff can be setup with an extra app. And then it becomes transparent to WMC (WMC has no problems with it).
i.e. The app stores all required info somewhere accessible by the driver, and that does everything else.
It would be nice to see someone finally using this. In your case, you're currently missing all Unicable/WMC users.
IMO the first one getting there might have some advantage.
Cheers,