TSReader

Hardware Support


Updated March 2, 2004

Hardware Notes

MPEG-2 transport streams can be sent over a number of different medium. Your choice of hardware depends on which service you wish to receive and also where you located in the world. These are the standards TSReader supports:

System Medium Description Used in
ATSC Terrestrial (off-air antenna) 8VSB modulation in 6MHz bandwidth (same as NTSC). Argentina, Canada, South Korea, USA
DCII Satellite QPSK/OQPSK modulation. Used mostly by cable systems in the Americas at their headends. Americas
DSS Satellite QPSK modulation. Used on DIRECTV systems. Brazil, Latin America, USA
DVB-C Cable QAM modulation in 6-8MHz bandwidth. Worldwide
DVB-S Satellite QPSK modulation. Worldwide
DVB-T Terrestrial (off-air antenna) COFDM carriers with either QPSK or QAM modulation. Australia, Germany, Singapore, Sweden, UK
DVB-ASI Coax Cable 270Mbps SDI format but with MPEG-2 data bursts Professional MPEG applications

Input Sources

TSReader can process MPEG-2 transport streams in real time from the following cards:

Satellite Details Website
Twinhan DST-1020 satellite card. Supports the DVB-S standard. http://www.twinhan.com
Twinhan DST-1020a satellite card. Supports DVB-S and DSS standards. http://www.twinhan.com
Twinhan DST-1030 satellite card. Supports DVB-S with an additional Common Access Module slot for reception of subscription programming. CAM is not supported by TSReader. http://www.twinhan.com
Twinhan DST-1030a satellite card. Supports DVB-S with an additional Common Access Module slot for reception of subscription programming. CAM is not supported by TSReader. http://www.twinhan.com
Chaintech DST-1000 satellite card. Supports DVB-S. http://www.chaintech.com.tw/
TechnoTrend Budget PCI satellite card. Supports DVB-S. This card is manufactured by a number of different vendors including Hauppauge Computer Works. http://www.technotrend.com
http://www.hauppauge.com
Sky2PC (SkyStar) Satellite. Supports DVB-S. Note1 http://www.bbti.us/
Terrestrial (DVB-T)

Details
Website
Twinhan VisionDTV Mini Ter. Supports DVB-T.  http://www.twinhan.com
TechnoTrend Budget PCI terrestrial card. Supports DVB-T http://www.technotrend.com
http://www.hauppauge.com
Air2PC-DVB (AirStar) Terrestrial. Supports DVB-T. Note1 Note2 http://www.bbti.us/
Nebula Electronics DigiTV PCI Version. Supports DVB-T. http://www.nebula-electronics.com
Nebula Electronics DigiTV USB 2.0 Version. Supports DVB-T. http://www.nebula-electronics.com
Terrestrial (ATSC)

Details
Website
Air2PC-ATSC Terrestrial. Supports the ATSC system. Note1 http://www.bbti.us/
Cable (DVB-C)

Details
Website
Twinhan Vision DTV Cab-CI. Supports DVB-C. Note2 http://www.twinhan.com
TechnoTrend Budget PCI cable card. Supports DVB-C. http://www.technotrend.com
http://www.hauppauge.com
Cable4PC (CableStar) Cable. Supports DVB-C. Note1 Note2 http://www.bbti.us/
DVB-ASI

Details
Website
Linear Systems ATSC Master. A full duplex 270 Mbps card used with DVB-ASI interfaces found on professional MPEG-2 equipment. TSReader supports the read function only. http://www.linsys.ca
Linear Systems DVB Master FD. A full duplex 270 Mbps card used with DVB-ASI interfaces found on professional MPEG-2 equipment. TSReader supports the read function only. http://www.linsys.ca

Note 1: These cards contain demultiplexers which means TSReader must setup the appropriate parts of the transport stream to process depending on the function being used in TSReader. As a result, these cards produce incorrect PID and bitrate statistics and may not work with all muxes.
Note 2: This card isn't fully functional yet in TSReader primarily because we either can't get a card or don't have that format of modulation available to test with. If you have one of these cards, please contact us - we'd like to work with owners to get TSReader debugged on these cards.

Output Destinations

TSReader can output a single channel version from the multiplex being received and send it real time to the following devices:

Interface Product Website
Stradis Professional MPEG-2 decoder card. Some versions support the 4:2:2 video profile. http://www.stradis.com
D-VHS decks via Firewire on Windows XP. Some models (such as the JVC HM-DH30000 shown) have internal MPEG-2 decoders so in addition to recording, you can stream to the deck using it as an MPEG-2 decoder. Various

XBox Media Player's XNS protocol is supported by TSReader. This allows streaming of a program from TSReader over the LAN interface on the XBox hardware.

XBox Media Center is also supported by the XNS interface.

http://www.xboxmediaplayer.com
http://www.xboxmediacenter.com
VideoLAN.org's VLC player can use an HTTP connection to stream MPEG from TSReader. We also include control over the VLC client so that channel changes in TSReader correctly restart VLC. http://www.videolan.org