[vdr] Re: Basic question

[Carsten Koch <Carsten.Koch@icem.de>]

Sabine Miehlbradt wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> After using vdr on the job for quite a while my b/f and me are thinking
> about getting a dish and
> card for our own home.  Which is in Germany, btw.
> 
> I'd like to know
> a) we can only mount the dish on a slightly retired balcony facing east
> with a good view (hillside), is this feasible?

It depends. I assume you want Astra 19.2E?
The dish has to have an unblocked "view" to the satellite,
which is almost straight south (19.2 degrees east of the 
straight south line) at an inclination (up) angle that
depends on where you are. If you have an unblocked view
into that direction (from the righthand side balcony railing)
it might work.

> b) what size and kind of dish do we need? which is cheapest?

Smaller is cheaper, bigger is better.
What did you expect? ;-)
A 60 cm dish should do in most areas of Germany.
As the dish itself is really cheap, I'd go for an 80cm dish
which will give you reception even when it's raining.
You also need an LNB for digital reception.


> c)what card can you recommend? 

For VDR you need at least one "full" DVB-S card, as VDR is doing
its TV playback and its on-screen menus via the card.
Additional cards can be budget cards.
I have not bought a full card for a while.
It seems that you have to pay about EUR 235 these days.
Check out  http://www.geizhals.at/de/?such=dvb&a=1997


> Again, money is mighty tight. Would a
> decoder box be better, since we need to get the stuff on TV? 

decoder box?
You mean a commercial set top box?
If you only want to *watch* DVB, go to a DIY store ("Baumarkt")
and buy a complete system with a DVB receiver, LNB and dish.
Should not cost much more than 150 EUR.
See http://www.pollin.de/search.asp?global=570+639
If you want to *record* it, see this:
http://www.guter-rat.de/produkte/pro_13tab.htm

Most of these might be cheaper and they will almost certainly be much
easier to set up than a VDR system, but I believe a VDR system will 
be much better than any commecrcial system in many ways.



> TV out
> connector is available, though. 

If you refer to the TV out connector of your PC graphics card,
that is currently not supported by VDR.



> Well, what I'd really like is getting the
> stuff on screen for normal viewing easily. (b/f is no linux crack) and be
> able to record it with vdr (new toy).

If you and your boyfriend know nothing about Linux,
I'd recommend to familiarize yourselves with Linux
first and attempt to build a VDR later.

Carsten.

> 
> d) have I forgotten anything? We do have an electrical engineer friend who
> can mount the disk correctly and lay the cables inside.
>   I hope he can get us a used dish, too.
> 
> Sabine

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