HTPC with DVB-C Tuner +CI and CAM w/ Custom Boxkey

[Blondal]

Hi All

I am kicking of a project to create a HTPC using the following components

• AMD Dual Core Processor
• 2GB Memory
• 1TB SataII Harddrive
• TechnoTrend Premium S-2300 (DVB-C Tuner)
• 3.5" CI-Interface
• DVBLINK for TV source

The aim is to use the HTPC to view my digital subscription TV channels.
This has proving to be slightly more difficult than expected

My Digital TV provider is UPC (Nagra3) and they pair their subscription smartcards with the provided boxes which to my understanding means that I would need to lift the Boxkey + RSA key of the provided Set Top Box (STB) and apply it to a programmable CAM in order for my HTPC to view the encrypted channels

My questions are:

• Which Boxkey Programmable CAM to use
• How do I get the Boxkey + RSA key information off the STB
• How do I add the Boxkey + RSA key information to the CAM

A solution is available for the Dreambox 500 to work with UPC (Nagra3) subscription cards (see link) so I basically need the same solution for my HTPC setup

I also read somewhere that the STB to Smartcard Pairing happens the first time the Smartcard is inserted to the STB, in which case it would seems that I just need to get a unused Smartcard from my digital TV provider, could someone please confirm this ?

[billy2]

pmsl if only things where that easy m8

[brazil_saint]

Blondal - good luck with what you are looking for, but it's not easy. You are right in what you need though. I use the Digital Everywhere FireDTV DVB-C card, with a T-Rex/Dragon CAM.

Getting it loaded with the Nagra stuff is the easy part, but the box key has me stumped too. Unless you want to start making JTAG cables and getting your soldering iron out, or your cableco tells you the box key as they are happy for you to do it this way, then you are going to struggle.

From what I see, it's easy to get rid of cable and move to satellite, which seems to have far simpler solutions.

Assuming you live in the UK you could settle for Digital Freeview, which seems to have a good selection of channels? Wish I had them here - there's about 5 HD channels on digital TV here, 1 is a test setup from a local university, 1 is a church channel and the other 4 are just rubbish, and broadcasted in 4:3

Good luck