Configuration question - I'm confused!

[Roscoe62]

I'm about to install SageTV on my HTPC. I will be connecting my set-top satellite box to a Hauppauge PVR150MCE via S-Video cable + L&R audio (NOT the inbuilt tuner), and I will have to control the sat box via a USB-UIRT (already installed).

In the Sage User Manual, in the setup section (page 111 Step 3A - Selecting Tuning Options), I have to select Use External Receiver. From there I have to jump to Step 5 - Select the Tuning Plugin. Here, I guess I'm selecting the USB-UIRT. So then I'd go onto Step 6 - Select the Cable box or Satellite Receiver. Now I'd lay money on my Sat box NOT being listed in Sage's Receivers list (being from NZ), so I'd have to Add a new Device. After naming the new device I see that I have the option of teaching Sage the 0-9 IR commands for controlling the Sat box, but there doesn't seem to be anything further in the manual about how Sage will use these commands.

In my country, as far as I know, there is no EPG info available, so there is no list of available channels to use.

My questions are:

1) Does Sage require a list of available channels in order to control the sat box via USB-UIRT? The manual does not specify

2) If so, is this something I can do manually, and if so...how? OR

3) If not, what does Sage do with the USB-UIRT 0-9 codes?

4) What about things like "channel up" & "channel down"? There seems very little information about Sage controlling an external cable/sat box in the manual.

I'm willing to accept responsibility for overlooking information in the manual, but at this point I can't find any answers to my questions.

Any direction you can give is appreciated!

Cheers
Ross

[kny3twalker]

you should point the remote for the cable box at the USB UIRT and enter the number as it ask for them

thats about all it needs then point the USB UIRT toward the Cable box

and you are teaching the USB UIRT how to change channels on the cable box for when you are not around and want to record something and so you can use the SageTV interface to change channels for liveTV

also you should setup the channel line up for the service provider you have

[Roscoe62]

Yep,

I think I understand how to teach the IR commands to Sage OK. But I guess what I'm trying to get at is....if I've got a channel I regularly watch like "Sky Movies" which is on Channel 21, how does Sage know to send 21 (probably a 2 followed by a 1) through to the Sat box? Do I have to configure the channels manually? If so, how do I do that? I cannot find any reference to that anywhere in the manual.

Or in the case of scheduling a recording, the same question applies. How does Sage know which channel is which?

Where do I get to tell Sage ...Sky Movies is channel 21, Sky Movies 2 is channel 22 etc, etc...?

As far as I know there is no EPG here.

Am I missing something?

[Opus4]

I believe you are going to need some sort of EPG data to make full use of SageTV -- if there are no show/channel listings, I'm not too sure how it will schedule recordings. Since you are outside the US, XMLTV would be what you use. Until someone who knows something about XMLTV jumps in, you might want to check some of the threads in the SageTV Australia/New Zealand and SageTV EPG Service forums, and/or search on XMLTV.

- Andy

[Roscoe62]

Thanks Andy,

I just did a quick search locally and there are some individuals who have pieced together a rough n' ready EPG that may be compatible with XMLTV, so that might work. For some strange reason it looks like the TV networks here don't want to make the channel data available and get very septic towards those individuals who attempt to scrape the data together by themselves. It certainly doesn't make setting up a great package like SageTV very easy. But I guess that's another story.

I'm obviously going to have to spend a lot of time doing research to answer my own questions about getting an EPG of some sort running.

I do have other questions but I'll hold onto them until I can get the XMLTV stuff sorted.

Cheers
Ross

[nielm]

In the short term, you could create a dummy XMLTV file with just your channel names (and no episode data), so that Sage knows at least what channels there are on the sat box.

http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...78&postcount=2

[Lucas]

And through the Channel Setup screen remap the sage "channels" to the sat box channel numbers.

So, when from the epg you select channel 21, sage will send the digits "2" followed by "1" to the UIRT. Your sat box will receive these and change channel.

You don't need to have XMLTV data or a dummy file to do this.

Without these your EPG will show channels 1-99 with "No Data".
I started like this then did Nielm's recommendation until I got hold to real xmltv data.

With the dummy xmltv data you need something like this:

=================================================
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<!DOCTYPE tv SYSTEM "xmltv.dtd">
<channel id="SM1">
<display-name lang="en">Sky Movies 1</display-name>
</channel>
<channel id="SM2">
<display-name lang="en">Sky Movies 2</display-name>
</channel>
<channel id="SM3">
<display-name lang="en">Sky Movies 3</display-name>
</channel>
</tv>
==========================================

This will give you 3 channels with their names.
Then you have to go into SageTV Channel Setup and "Remap" the each channel to their correct sat box channel numbers ie 21, 22, 23 respectively.

Hope this helps.

[Roscoe62]

It sure does!

Thanks for at least getting me started...I appreciate it!

Cheers
Ross