Experimenting with pansat 2500 code

[jvvh5897]

Been playing with the mods needed to get 101 degree dss signal on old pansat SD boxes down in the advanced section. Can get the 2500 to lock into the sat, but haven't yet gotten audio. If there are any interested in playing along with me....

Should be something that could be done on any box with sti5518 processor ,stv0299 based tuner and the audio chip in most of these boxes (PCM1725). The Zarlink based tuner is the issue in my tests on the 2500 box, while the data sheet says that the chip can do the format needed, the register settings elude me.

Have figured it out for the digiwave 7000 box running coolsat 4000 code, so those boxes should be testable already.

[jedi]

Thanks for all your hard work jvvh5897
I've been trying to follow your posts in the advanced section - but most of it is way beyond my skills - wish I was a little smarter so I could follow along.

If you are able to master it - what is that you hope to do? Will you be able to watch both TV and radio channels from the 101 sat - or is it only for the radio channels?

What can be done with the modified digiwave 7000 boxes - can it get audio and video from 101?
If you have the digiwave 7000 mastered - are you just hoping to duplicate that for the Pansat 2500 receivers - or can you do more with that box?

Sorry if these are dumb questions.

[jvvh5897]

All I was ever after was to show that one could run dss signals on FTA box. It is part of testing IMO.

With the dg box you can get audio on all SD channels and might be able to get open video channels--there is one AFAIK on 101. There are also some chs on 109 that you can get--mostly other languages as I recall That is pretty much the same as one can do with HU card and old prov box but then you have the issue of card glitching and not all of us have the gizmo to do that. If one could do IKS with that prov then you could get all channels that the card supported--you would have to mod the code to send out the ecm packets that they use and get back the CW and write them to the processor key area as needed. It is likely that IKS will not work in the future for the current prov so that might be an option going forward. I have heard a little from folks south of us that they have ways of getting cards for use in old prov boxes--not sure exactly what they are up to as I have no real interest, but it could be that the folks that were upset that DRD420 boxes could no longer be used, could have an interest in FTA boxes that support dss.

The pansat project is to get more folks involved if there is interest. The pansat code can be used on 301-013 boxes as darkmalice file--so folks could have a use for 301-013 that are not able to do southern prov anymore. It will do nothing that the dg7k box does not also do.

It might be possible to do something similar with HD on that prov, but much like SD, they use a non-standard format. There are chips that support multiple formats though, just as the boxes I'm playing with have chips that support more than DVB-S.

In many ways the project echos one done on PCs with tuner cards a number of years ago--not really something new.

If your interest is experimenting with satellite signals, then it might be a good project to be involved with.

[jedi]

Thanks jvvh5897 - that let a little daylight into my noggin - I think I now see where you are going with this.

I still have a bunch of old 301-013 boxes that I haven't trashed yet - do you need the single or the dual chip one?
Is the pansat file available for download here to flash to a 301-13?

[wattso99]

I have some supersat 6000's new in the box if you want a couple I will give then to you.
Just let me know.

[jvvh5897]

I'm thinking that there is not a file here--odds are that if there had been once, that it did not follow the change in server.
It need not be the 211 darkmalice file, a modded HuMex convert file (pansat 2500 2.83 base) might be just as good. I have copies of either on a thumb drive, or you might be able to find them at dssrookie in the IRD to FTA section (though they dropped a lot of old files too)(also that is where I did my drd420 project, so lots of info in that thread on PIDs and the old MPG format as well as a little on what I saw on APG and the PIDs used there ). The 301-013 has conexant chip in the tuner, just as the drd430 does and there was at one time info on how to convert drd430 into a 301-013, so the two boxes are very similar.

As for the offer of supersat boxes--I'm not sure to whom the offer was addressed, but I sure don't need another box, and I suspect others do not either. If the goal was to get info specific to getting the boxes doing dss--why not work on the problem yourself? That is the main reason I post--to get folks to DO SOME CODING! Learn something! Start a thread on the box and show your work, find data sheets for the chips, disassemble the code--we have lots of source code for older boxes and data sheets for many chips around. I know Conexant processors such as in the coolsat5000 can do DVB-S, DSS and DCII, but it is not as obvious how to do dss with the processors from the source code, but the coolsat 5000/6000 source code does have a number of "dtv" strings in it so with a little effort one might be able to get some of that type of box working. Perhaps easier still would be to pick up one of the HD tuner modules that are out there--there are Broadcom based modules that the data briefs for the chips say DVB-S2, DSS, DCII so with a little info, you might be doing HD DSS---I suspect that the work done on SD might give one a few hints on how it might be done and what PIDs might be in use.

[jets]

jvvh5897,

So your choice of box to mod.. Why the Pansat? Is it the chipset, available bins and knowledge of the bins?

The reason I ask is I used to have lots Pansat's kicking around but they all went out for true FTA years ago. What I suspect is many others still have around are the Viewsats and not the Pansat. So if Viewsat will work (and don't know if they will) would in not be a better box to experiment with? Just because of the availability?

[jvvh5897]

I have pansat to play with and have worked with them in the past. They are more similar to dg7k and coolsat4k than the viewsat so they should be easy to get working (in theory). The Viewsat I have is Conexant based and the way they handle slots and transport stream is very different. I have sti5518 and sti5500 based prov boxes to play with, they can be jtagged and experimented on easily. The only Conexant based prov box that I have is ball grid flash, no jtag, no serial port--not experimenter friendly, so I haven't played with it at all.

IMO the idea is to show that it can be done on a box or two. The rest of the boxes out there have owners that can start projects, so no need for ME to do it all.

BTW, I looked around dss rookie site and they eliminated all but one of the old Humex convert files. Not even one darkmalice left from what I see---sad. I will post one down in the advanced section.

[jvvh5897]

This may sound simplistic, but I was reading the Conexant processor info that I suspect is in the vs plat box and it says that there are 4 modes: DVB, DSS, DCII and AUTO DVB/DSS. Over at dss rookies there is a report that the box locks onto 101 degree sat DSS signals. If the box is locking onto dss signals then I suspect it is in that AUTO mode. Also in the processor info is the fact that the audio and video streams are auto detected for what they are--so there should be no reason that the chip can't figure out that the audio is what dss uses. Why not just try to build a channel list using some of the info from the TPN mapping for 101 degree sat? See if you get audio.

[jvvh5897]

BTW for a good overview of the prov, do a google search on "dsscr manual satellite" you should find the pdf of the DSSCR for PC and satellite tuner card--it is dated now, but still better ref than elsewhere.