03-04/2013
TELE-audiovision.com/13/03/tenow
36
TELE-audiovision International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 03-04/2013
—
The Ideal Satellite Card
for Multimedia and DX
TEST REPORT
Twin Tuner Multimedia PC Satellite Card
As is standard, the TBS
6991 is shipped in a black
package that also includes
a remote control, an IR re-
ceiver, a power adapter cable
and a mini CD. Installing the
card presents no problems; it
can be inserted in any avail-
able PCI-e slot, regardless if
it’s PCI-e x1, x4, x8 or x16.
As expected from TBS, the
card was perfectly fabricated.
In just seconds we were able
TBS 6991
Perfect TV card for watching TV;
ideal for DXers and satellite professionals
guarantee that enough power
is be available for more com-
plex satellite systems such
as with a rotor, polarizer,
multiswitch, etc. Since three
Molex connectors from the
power supply are necessary,
we had to figure out where to
get them from; our test com-
puter only had one free Molex
connector. For our tests we
unplugged two Molex con-
nectors from the hard drives.
Everything was working mag-
nificently but it didn’t take
long for the missing hard
drives to become noticeable;
some files that were needed
were on these hard drives.
Therefore we decided to op-
erate the TBS 6991 without
The Ideal Satellite Card
for Multimedia and DX:
Nothing Left Out with its
Twin Tuners and Two CI
Slots
If the term TBS doesn’t
mean anything to you, you
missed the last issue of TELE-
audiovision. The develop-
ments at TBS (also know as
Tenow) are running at a high
pace; there are always new
TV cards being introduced
that cover every possible
market niche. In the last is-
sue we introduced two DVB-C
receivers, the TBS 6618 for
PCI-e and the TBS 5860 as
an external USB box. In the
10-11/2011 issue we tested
right away four TBS TV cards
including the TBS 6984 with
an incredible four tuners!
The new TBS 6991 comes
with two tuners as did the
TBS 6981 (tested in the 12-
01/2011 issue) but this time
the card also comes with two
CI slots. Especially interest-
ing is the chip in use: the
TMAX TAS2100. Obviously
there are two of them since
this is a twin tuner card. Even
though the card only take up
one PCI-e slot, it will oper-
ate like two separate DVB-S/
S2 cards in the system. What
makes this chip so special?
It’s very simple: it makes
real Blindscans possible and
is supported 100% by the
CrazyScan software. More on
that later.
to screw the cabinet shut.
The power adapter cable in-
cluded as part of the acces-
sories is connected to three
of the Molex connectors on
the power supply. This should
the additional power sources
and everything worked fine
with the exception of mo-
tor control. In a further test