mark, get set, go!

[smithcferg]

Hello. Just threw together a primitive experimental htpc (using ati mmc). Lots of fun!

I am starting my first htpc with SageTV, as I have heard it is a good piece of software for this purpose.

I have an IWILL kk266-r (kt133a) raid board with 1.3 ghz Athlon.
An audigy zs, using the card to decode to 5.1 logitech speakers.
ATI aiw 128 pro 16mb pci card, Hauppauge pvr 250. I can potentially swap in an ATI aiw 9600xt - though I am hesitant to do that, if it will only give me negligible benefit.

HP MP3130 SERIES DIGITAL PROJECTOR with svga, s-vid and composite connectors.

I intend to hook the svga output to the rear projector and for non-projector use hook to tv (to save bulb life) using composite vid from ati aiw 128pro to tv or, if I use it, hook to another monitor from aiw 9600xt.

I have searched through the forums, but a few questions come to mind.

Some questions: Does SageTV do a good job of integrating different tuner brands so the whole process is transparent?

Captions are very important to our family, as my wife is deaf. This was why I purchased the pvr-250. Will I get captions from aiw tuners also? Will the commercial skip also work using the aiw tuners? All info on how I might expect software encoding tuners to work with pvr250 will be very useful. I have already read about registry hacks etc. necessary to get pvr250 going.

I noticed under system requirements that SageTV says software encoding tuners need 1.5 ghz Athlon processor or better. Will I run into definite problems with 1.3 ghz processor? Do they take into account all processes SageTV might be involved in with that quote with this estimate? I.E. are they assuming best case or worst case scenario? If I use 2 sofware encoding tuners would I expect to need a processor that is twice as fast?

Does SageTV facilitate .tivo recordings that are brought to it through Tivotogo? Or can it use Tivo recordings through some other fashoion painlessly?

Is it a relatively simple operation to burn a DVD of a show, preserving captions or overlaying with subtitles?

Can SageTV use a composite-input-only card and an ir blaster to utilize a VCR's tuner?

I would value any opinions anyone might have about how I might improve my system, especially with regard to important areas that I might not have thought of/relatively cheap ways to get much better bang for buck/alternative ways of doing things that might be better.

Thanks for your help, glad to join the SageTV club!

Sincerely,
smithcferg

[Opus4]

Comments on a few of the items:

Originally Posted by smithcferg

Some questions: Does SageTV do a good job of integrating different tuner brands so the whole process is transparent?

If they are all supported by SageTV, use of different tuners should not be noticeable to someone using SageTV. (Unless, of course, the tuners have drastically different recording quality capabilities.)

Captions are very important to our family, as my wife is deaf. This was why I purchased the pvr-250. Will I get captions from aiw tuners also?

I believe the built-in closed caption 'experimental' support, as mentioned in the manual, requires a 250 or 350.

I noticed under system requirements that SageTV says software encoding tuners need 1.5 ghz Athlon processor or better. Will I run into definite problems with 1.3 ghz processor? Do they take into account all processes SageTV might be involved in with that quote with this estimate? I.E. are they assuming best case or worst case scenario? If I use 2 sofware encoding tuners would I expect to need a processor that is twice as fast?

I don't realy know about absolute cpu requirements, but software encoders require v3 and running 2 of them will most likely not work well at all.

Does SageTV facilitate .tivo recordings that are brought to it through Tivotogo?

v3 should be able to play them.

- Andy

[smithcferg]

Thanks for the quick reply. Anyone have any success with using aiw 128 pro with a pvr250? Or a aiw 9600xt with pvr250?

Thanks for the tip on using both aiw tuners together, looks like a bad idea to try it.

Any majjor differences in using winxp over win2k?

[stanger89]

There's no problem using an AIW with Sage as a video card. As Andy indicated, the tuner portion isn't supported in 2.x, and IMO, software encoders like the AIW are best avoided all together.

[dvd_maniac]

If I use 2 sofware encoding tuners would I expect to need a processor that is twice as fast?

No matter what software you use to record with, using two AIW tuners to capture is going to be difficult as each need a seperate Sound Card to record through. Also I believe the WDM drivers used by AIW would make this problematic at best.

I also believe that software encoding is only just now being introduced in the version 3 beta and not quite up to par yet. Although i haven't tried the beta yet, so I do not talk from direct experience.

[smithcferg]

I really appreciate the comments. You all seem to imply it is better to stick with hardware decoding, which means extra cost for another pvr 250 down the road.

So what is a good budget/bang-for-the-buck video card for such a system. Dual connectors would be nice (though I could use composite out/TV for alternate display). I would like some game play capability, but it is also low on the priority list. Should I consider a hardware decoder solution, or should I be able to get satisfactory results with just a good vid card and 1.3 ghz athlon?
Included in this question is mpeg4 decoding.

Is it a simple process to take a commercial-skip-marked file and burn it to DVD, while keeping captions/or using captions as subtitles?

Will SageTV support use of composite video in card/IR blaster to VCR/VCR combination so I can record shows using VCR tuner? If so, will it record it just as though it were being recorded by a tuner (maintaining program information, etc.)

Will SageTV display camcorder material through firewire and/or composite in?

Is there an advantage to using winxp over win2k?

I see SageTV supports .tivo files in version 3. (Thanks OPUS4, for this and your other comments). Does this include support for streaming .tivo files (which are supported by wmp9)

Can SageTV integrate different players into it's gui, making them look like they are a cohesive part of the "SageTV experience"?
For example, there is a very nice free-for-use file player called viplay. It does a really good job of playing .sami/.smi (and other format) subtitles on videos. Is there a way that it can "become a part" of SageTV using the right configuration?

Thanks for all your help!

Sincerely,

Smithcferg

[smithcferg]

Anyone care to advise on some of the unanswered questions left in this thread?

Thanks

smithcferg

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by smithcferg

I really appreciate the comments. You all seem to imply it is better to stick with hardware decoding, which means extra cost for another pvr 250 down the road.

Hardware encoding (FWIW). Decoding is a different issue.

So what is a good budget/bang-for-the-buck video card for such a system. Dual connectors would be nice (though I could use composite out/TV for alternate display). I would like some game play capability, but it is also low on the priority list. Should I consider a hardware decoder solution, or should I be able to get satisfactory results with just a good vid card and 1.3 ghz athlon?
Included in this question is mpeg4 decoding.

First, for basic playback, a 1.3 should be plenty for anything SD (480i/p). Now as for video card, the best bang for the buck (IMO) is the Geforce 6600, it's got the best deinterlacing I've seen, film detection, etc. From there you can go either way but you give something up, either performance, or money .

General recommendation, anything that's DirectX 9 capable, and stay away from the bottom end ones (6200 TC, Radeon 9550).

Is it a simple process to take a commercial-skip-marked file and burn it to DVD, while keeping captions/or using captions as subtitles?

Don't know about captions, but for commercials, it would be basically a 2 step process, 1, edit out the commercials with something like Video ReDo, or Womble, then author/burn it.

Will SageTV support use of composite video in card/IR blaster to VCR/VCR combination so I can record shows using VCR tuner? If so, will it record it just as though it were being recorded by a tuner (maintaining program information, etc.)

It can be done, but honestly, for capturing from a VCR, the Hauppauge software is easier. What you'd do is setup another source, pick your Composite/S-Video input and not configure a guide, then you'd have to do a manual recording.

Will SageTV display camcorder material through firewire and/or composite in?

Composite yes, Firewire, probably not. It will be a similar situation to recording (previous answer).

Is there an advantage to using winxp over win2k?

If you've got XP, use it, first that's the "standard" OS now, but it's got some improvements to audio (specifically higher sampling rate support and more channels). If you don't have XP, it would be hard to justify the cost.

Can SageTV integrate different players into it's gui, making them look like they are a cohesive part of the "SageTV experience"?

Nope, well, it might be possible, but nobody's tried AFIAK.