Watch TV stream from a satellite directly on a computer
 

Hello,

a friend of mine has just rented a new flat. He was told that there is a satellite dish, mounted on the roof of the building.

At first he does not want to buy a TV or tuner receiver.

My question to You would be is there a way to stream the signal coming from the socket and watch it on the computer with some application? He would probably need some kind of a receiver. Are there devices which are able to stream the channels over the local network. How could one decode the signal and watch it on a computer if it is possible at all?

Thanks!

If you want to watch satellite TV you need a satellite receiver.

To watch TV on a computer you need a composite or HDMI video capture card depending on the capabilities of the receiver.

Since this is technically not a linux question per se your thread was moved to the General forum.

Also, the satellite feed is scrambled/encrypted, so you need a decoder before you can feed the signal to your computer.

FWIW most locations have at least several digital "on-air" channels and all it takes is a TV or even one that does decent double duty as a PC monitor and an antenna. It is actually surprising how cheap decent antennas are given their rather low number market niche. Because of the rapid advancement in technology and the vast number market niche of TV/Monitors and Smart TVs they have become really quite cheap.

For comparison a true 22 inch CRT of reasonable quality used to cost well over $1000.00 USD but the same "real estate" in a Wide Screen 30 inch Smart TV can go for ~$200.00 USD and it includes the ability to handle numerous inputs and decipher channels.

It would depend on the type of dish. There may be 20 or so in the world that have some or no encryption. However, every one that I've seen has to have a box that controls the dish. There may be a new one that is self contained.

Since this seems to fall under the UK way of watching TV there may be some legal issues.

This is a surprisingly large and complex subject, since there are hundreds of satellites up there. Your friend would need to do some research, but yes, there are several free and unencrypted satellite channels. Each satellite service needs its own unique receiver and decoder and pointing the dish at a satellite can be very tricky, but a lot of fun once you manage to hit the sweet spot and is able to watch free Azerbaijan TV or whatever. It would be best to look for a satellite hobbyist group in the vicinity or online and join them to get the details.

Not sure if this meets the threads criteria or not.

https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/turn...nder-20/4778/5

Guys, thanks to all, who posted so far!

If he buys an antenna, tv tuner or a tv, he is obliged to register that device at an agency and one must pay for it no matter if one watches tv or not. Just for having the device you must pay. But watching TV over the internet on a computer is free of charge. That is why i was thinking there could be a way to stream the signal to the network and then watch it on a PC.

The question was actually if i could find a solution to skip paying that additional fee.

Of course there are some DVB-2 channels freely available in the area.

You are right that many of the channels are encrypted. I do not know what kind of satellite he could get, but where we live the most common ones are ASTRA and EUTELSAT HotBird.

umm wait a sec. Are you telling us a government agency requires that any RF receiving device, in use or not, just merely possessed, requires a licensing payment? I can understand, somewhat, how a broadcasting device would as it is intrusive, but receiving? that's passive. Please explain.

Yes, in the UK the TV licensing people insist that if you have the capability of receiving live TV you pay a license. The legality of charging somebody just for owning a television tuner is debatable but it's quite possible one would end up in court having to explain not having a license for a tuner.

Where I live, this started with the principle that people didn't want their taxes to fund something they didn't use (public broadcast TV/radio), so a "small" fee was introduced per household if that household contains a receiver. I personally find it acceptable (only for DVB-T though).
Also beware that here the law was changed to include any receiver and not only receiver + display, so having a PC capable of receiving DVB-T is enought to qualify for the fee.

Yes, Yes, and "its complicated"
"Is it possible to watch on TV?" Yes, you will need a tuner though. I have positive experiences with tuners from https://shop.tbsdtv.com/ and will be trying tuners from https://digitaldevices.de/ for the next machine I build.
The programs that then receive it are (for instance) kaffeine, mplayer, vlc...

"Is it possible to stream it over the network?" Yes. I use tvheadend for that purpose. AFAIK Plex added this functionality recently. (Mind the legality of this though, especially if you save some money on the way...)
Also with satellite, depending on the configuration, you may not be able to watch more than 1 channel at a time (Even with 2 tuners, as a simple sattelite antenna configuration is not splittable).

"Decode and watch the signal" : For free to air (FTA) channels, the tuner+program is all you need. For paid channels it gets more complicated : you'll need a CA module which will decrypt the content. The CAM interface is called CI (Common Interface), but CI+ also exists, and there exists no compatible hardware (license restrictions) for the PC. Good satellite broadcasting information is on kingofsat.

Good luck... You'll need it ;)

with ffmpeg (or alt), you can stream a video.
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Capture/Webcam

It might be possible for other type of sources.

Another idea
 

Thanks to all who posted up to now!

Another idea came to my mind. Let's say i found someone who has a satellite signal in his house. Could i buy some kind of tuner and then stream the programs to his local network? After that could i connect via ssh to his local network or directly to the tuner and watch also the programs he has? Should i be able to watch the tv channels independent of what he is watching? Could the streams be so configured like every channel on a different port or something like that? Like a TV tuner but on the local intranet, respectively on the internet, only available via ssh? Please let me know if that could be possible and how? Sorry for my English, it is not that perfect.

Thanks again!

Read up on gstreamer and ffserver.

Why don't you become a radio amateur? Then you can send data and video over radio and download video from Mars or Jupiter probes...

We are back to the way your country allows you to get information.

For example. If you owned a legal device like a hdhomerun or tablo that has tcp/ip connections, you could easily view that data over some fast internet or point to point connection.

If you have a computer on some site that also has a tuner then you could remote into it or send streams out. Stuff like hls files might be used to send out bits of data.

There may be some other things like a Plex or Nvidia box that might be able to view and record with some programs and send to some place.

We can't help you bypass the laws in your country.