"Combo" Listings - Is This Even Possible?

[aperry]

I have a bit of an odd setup in my house, and was wondering if it would be possible to setup Sage to work with it?

My channels are set up so that all of my analog cable comes in on their normal channels, but I also have hooked up an agile modulator from my cable box which outputs on channel 123.

What I'd like Sage to do is to record any of the analog stuff like it normally would, but also have the ability to on one of the tuners at any given time, tune to channel 123 to record stuff from the digital side (I would IR blast the channel changes).

The only way I can think of making this happen is to have one of my tuners set up to record off of channel 123 and change channels on the cable box. Is that right? Since I've got a PVR-500, I would not be able to have coax for one tuner and s-video/audio connections for the other, or is that possible?

Needless to say, I'm a bit confused here...

Thanks for any help you all can provide!

[aperry]

This is what I was afraid of... No way to pull it off.

Oh well, I'll keep looking into it and see if I can figure out a way to get it to work.

[Opus4]

You can set up a tuner input to use a specific channel to tune into an external converter, but I wouldn't know how to get that to work with the same tuner input also tuning analog channels too.

You could have analog channels going through the card's tuner (coax) input & have an external converter go into the card's svideo input: when sharing sources on a single card, both sources would have to use separate providers & you would have to make sure they don't share any networks/channels.

- Andy

[aperry]

My cable company has two lists (providers), analog and digital, but there is overlap between them (the digital list includes the analog channels). Would I just assign the digital list to the s-video and manually go in and remove the analog channels from its list? Would that mean that 1 tuner (the coax) on my PVR-500 would be available for the analog channels, and the other one (s-video) would be for digital only using the STB?

Couldn't I just leave the analog channels in both lists, and Sage would, if necessary, tune the STB to an analog channel to get a recording of the show I'm interested in? Would Sage be smart enough to figure out that each of my providers has a TBS on channel 2 and know what to do to depending on which tuner is needed for the recording? This way, the only way I'd "lose" a tuner for analog would be if there was some digital program recording at the same time... And in this scenario, would it be necessary to make sure that the "digital" programs priorities were set appropriately?

Another thing I'm considering in lieu of all this is to use the firewire connection on my STB. It is enabled and works, and I've used the CapDVHS (?) program to get video/audio through it saved off to my hard drive. The hard thing is figuring out how to get a program I've selected in Sage's guide to cause the STB to change channels (Girder is set up for it, just not sure how to tell Girder to key in some numbers), to capture the video/audio to the hard drive (which I've already found is possible), and to convert it from the TS format to the MPEG format.

[Opus4]

I think the thing throwing people here was the initial mention of tuning to ch 123 + using the analog coax...

Originally Posted by aperry

My cable company has two lists (providers), analog and digital, but there is overlap between them (the digital list includes the analog channels). Would I just assign the digital list to the s-video and manually go in and remove the analog channels from its list?

Yes -- but again: the only time you have to remove duplicate channels is when the same encoder is being shared by multiple inputs on the same card: analog coax to the tuner's coax input + converter's svideo cable to tuner's svideo input, for example. When using multiple cards/encoders, the duplicate channels are OK.

Would that mean that 1 tuner (the coax) on my PVR-500 would be available for the analog channels, and the other one (s-video) would be for digital only using the STB?

Yes & no: with a 500, since it has 2 encoders, you could do it that way & end up with all analog channels available on the coax input + all digital channels available on the svideo input; you would just have to make sure those inputs are actually using different encoders on that card.

BUT, the next thing was what I was going to suggest anyway...

Couldn't I just leave the analog channels in both lists, and Sage would, if necessary, tune the STB to an analog channel to get a recording of the show I'm interested in? Would Sage be smart enough to figure out that each of my providers has a TBS on channel 2 and know what to do to depending on which tuner is needed for the recording? This way, the only way I'd "lose" a tuner for analog would be if there was some digital program recording at the same time...

Exactly. Configure both analog coax inputs, then add the svideo digital provider. As the last step when adding the svideo input, just be sure to remove the channels/networks that are already available on the analog inputs.

And in this scenario, would it be necessary to make sure that the "digital" programs priorities were set appropriately?

I think you would want the analog source that _doesn't_ share the svideo input to have priority so that the analog+svideo shared input doesn't tune to an analog channel for no reason.

Another thing I'm considering in lieu of all this is to use the firewire connection on my STB.

There are some threads on that already, so check with the people who know how this works.

- Andy