CnxCAM is an emulator for original Conax Cas3 – Cas7 cards. It’s a plugin for the most common DVB viewing software (ProgDVB, AltDVB, DreamTheatre). What this means is that you will be able to view your encoded (pay to view) DVB (satellite, cable, terrestrial) channels with your pc, a TV-card and/or USB device and a phoenix interfaced card reader. You still need your valid smartcard but you will be able to view and record everything the way you like.

My Test setup:

  • ProgDVB 4.91.1(Also tried the new 5.15.1 but this actually didn’t work out for me with my DVB-T receiver)
  • Easylite DVB-T USB tuner
  • Infinity USB Unlimited smartcard reader/programmer

I tested the plugin myself trying to view the Digitenne (DVB-T) channels from KPN in the Netherlands. It wasn’t a straight forward succes, but after some trial and error I was able to get it fully working. At first I installed the cnxcam 0.1.0.3b, it was working and receiving ECM packets but not the EMM packets. Later on I found out the PID (Packet ID, used to the identify audio/video streams) are different for the ECM and EMM.   The problem is cnxcam 0.1.0.3b uses the same PID for both! This is a problem because when the smartcard isn’t receiving EMM packets (and processes) the smartcard can not be activated or be updated to decode the signal. My smartcard was activated before trying this but to process this activation an EMM packet needs to be written to the smartcard for an update. Now, beacause cnxcam 0.1.0.3b isn’t receiving these EMM packets because of the wrong PID, nothing happens.

After this I uninstalled 0.1.0.3b and installed 0.1.0.4. In this new version there’s a new option to scan on which PID the ECM and EMM are being transmitted. Now you’re also receiving the EMM packets and they are being written to your smartcard. Unfortunatly the screen was still showing nothing but a black screen. Despite the cnxcam monitor was showing me everything was ‘ok’ and ‘up and running’.

What Next? I uninstalled cnxcam 0.1.0.4 and installed cnxcam 0.1.0.3b once again. After doing this I finally got audio and video on all the encoded channels! The only disadvantage is that cnxcam 0.1.0.3b still isn’t receiving EMM packets and therfore won’t be updating your card when it needs to. This means cnxcam 0.1.0.4 has to be installed everytime the card need to be updated, that’s pity. I hope there will be a solution or a new version of the cnxcam soon.

Download cnxcam 0.1.0.3b here

Download cnxcam 0.1.04 here