Somewhat OT: MythTV / DVB in Israel

[Ohad Levy]

On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 12:18 PM, guy keren <choo at actcom.co.il> wrote:
> On 01/12/2012 10:44 AM, Antony Gelberg wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I'm about to cancel my incredibly expensive HOT Triple and get
>> Internet-only instead.
>>
>> I'm not that bothered about TV but I do have a MythTV box lying around
>> from the old country, and I'd be happy to see if I could get it
>> working here.  It would just need a PCI tuner card or two.  As I see
>> it in Israel there are terrestrial, cable, and satellite options.  I
>> don't have any terrestrial aerial or satellite dish connection in my
>> flat, so I'd be much happier to use the cable connection if I can (see
>> below).
>>
>> Questions to start with:
>> 1) If I was to cancel my HOT subscription for television, are any
>> channels at all provided over the cable for free?  As a reference
>> point, in the UK, if you cancel your Sky satellite subscription, a
>> limited number of channels are still available, unencrypted, over the
>> satellite link and set-top-box.
>
>
> no. if you disconnect from the cable company's TV service - you don't get
> any channels from *them* any longer.
>
>
>
>> 2) If not, if I went for terrestrial, does anybody know of a DVB-T PCI
>> card that works with Linux and the broadcast standard in Israel?  (I
>> understand it's MPEG-4 / H.264.)  If I needed to get a terrestrial
>> aerial fitted to the building, is that government-subsidized (don't
>> laugh, it is in some countries IIRC)?
>
>
> normally, you won't need any large antenna in order to receive DVB-T
> channels. in the worst case - you'll by a small active antenna to place on
> top of the tv - at least that's what is being advertised (and it works for
> me - i live inside a valley where the default tiny antenna that comes with
> the DVB-T doesn't work).

I'm a mythtv user, and I used to use the DVB-T broadcast in Israel,
the quality of the broadcast depends a lot of where you live.
for example, in Ra'aana it was really bad reception, buying active
(amplified) antenna's did not help much, and I did get the best
quality using a 40cm directional passive antenna, but sadly that was
not enough for WAF.

Saying that, a friend of mine who lives in Ramat Gan, got it to work
with just putting his finger where the antenna socket is.

I heard that you can buy a one meter antenna or something, and that
should be good enough, but I did not follow on it further, maybe
someone here knows where you can buy such antennas.

besides that, after mythtv is working (including EPG), you realize you
can only see 10,11 and 22 (there are others that are not so relevant).

Ohad
>
> as for a PCI card - i don't have an idea, but note one thing: the government
> made a decision to use a different type of broadcast in their future HD
> broadcasts, then the one originally assumed - check this before you buy any
> DVB-T equipment.
>
> --guy
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Linux-il mailing list
> Linux-il at cs.huji.ac.il
> http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il