HDTV, Sage, and cable

[Aganerral]

Hey all, just want verification of what I've gleaned from multiple messages in this forum. I recently got a HDTV (CRT based, supports 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i). Unfortunatley, in my apartment (San JOse CA) I'm about 35 miles from the HDTV OTA broadcasts since they're all based out of San Francisco, so I get little/no reception with an indoor antenna. Comcast is my cable carrier and does provide local channels, but if I get a HD supporting set top box, the only way to input that into my computer and Sage is that rather complicated Firewire link up, correct? Comcast seems to use motorola boxes and they can output in DVI or component, but DVI inputs seem to be non existant as well.

I saw the thread while doing an unrelated search and not sure which of the major threads it was in, could someone provide the link?

[flavius]

Do you mean that one http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...t=firewire+stb ?

[Aganerral]

Yup, that's the one, thanks!

So after reading some of the set up instructions, I have a question for anyone that's done that. If I hook up the Coax output from the HDTV cable box to my existing TV tuner and the firewire as well, for channels that are "5C" (dunno what it means aside from not working through firewire), will the none HD channels feed ok through the tuner, and I can direct the HDTV feeds through the firewire?

Thanks!

[eobiont]

Your tuner in your computer will not be capable of receiving any HD channels via a cable connection. Your HD tuner in your computer can only receive HD programming via an antenna.

If your cable company encrypts HD channels using "5C", you will be unable to record those channels using your computer. The only channels you can record in HD are channels your cable company sets the 5C flag to allow. Typically these channels are the national network channels (ABC CBS NBC PBS FOX etc). Some cable companies, like mine, also set the 5C flag to prevent recording the programming on SD digital cable. The only channels I am able to record via firewire are the lower analog stations and the broadcast network stations mentioned above.

[Aganerral]

Eoblont,

Thanks for the explanation, but I think maybe you misunderstood my question. I'll try to be more clear

Currently, I have 2 PVR250s in my computer. one gets a straight cable feed and tunes it directly on channels 1-80whatever. The other receives the feed from the set tob box so I can capture the movie channels, etc.

If I upgrade the cable service to HDTV and have a HDTV box, could I hook up a non-HD link to the second tuner, AND the firewire link as well? For example, if channel 551 is HD and 553 is not HD could I have the STB output received by the PVR250 for 553 and use firewire for 551?

[eobiont]

AH, ok yes. You can do that.

I have a single hauppauge card. It receives coax to record 1-80 and s-video to do the digital channels. I have an output os s-video from my Moto 6200. I also have a firewire connection from the STB into my PC.

I am able to record the clear channels via firewire, and record the not-in-the-clear channels via Svideo from the same STB. Obviously though, the STB can only tun in one channel at a time.

The only problem I have with this setup is that both S-Video and Firewire use the STB as the source, but Sage doesn't know that. If Sage wants to record HBO on channel 300 via s-video and NBCHD on 807 via firewire, it doesn't know that that is a conflict (because those two video sources share a common STB). I am however able to record something on channel 8, using the hauppauge tuner, and something on NBCHD via the STB and firewire at the same time. There is also a problem with Sage in that it can only have one lineup per cable system. You will have trouble telling it that 551 cones in over s-video and 553 comes in on a different source (firewire). You can kind of get around this by saying that the S-video source uses one lineup and the firewire source uses a different lineup from a nearby community. You might have to do a little channel remapping if the two cable systems don't have exactly the same channel numbers. For instance, by s-video hauppauge source thinks it is in Iowa City, but the Firewire connection thinks it is in Cedar Rapids. I haven't messed with this is a while. Someone else might confirm that this is still a limitation of Sage in the current version. I have it set up correctly now and don't want to break it by messing with it.


Also of note is that you can set up the firewire cable to do all the channel changing funtions, and it works flawlessly every time. Since switching to firewire to control the channel, I have not had a single missed channel change. With the IR blaster, I was getting flawed changes maybe 5% of the time.

[Aganerral]

ALright, that answered my question. Thanks a lot!

[Aganerral]

OK, actually jsut one more quick question to confirm something The Firewire connection carries the audio laong with the video? or does the Audio require a separate conenction? I read the hook up instructions in the link, and it doesn't mention a separate audio conenction, but just want to be sure.

Thanks!

[eobiont]

Firewire carries a transport stream. It has both.

You will be recording the TS directly to the hard drive.

[padre]

I'm interested in the firewire channel changing feature. I plan to record only using the S-Video connection for now, and wanted to use the firewire for channel changing only. Is that complicated? Are there any threads on how to setup SageTV to use firewire to change the channels? It's for the Motorola HD STB.

Thanks!

Kevin

[Naylia]

do a search for firewire channel changing or some such...i posted a little tutorial a while back

[Naylia]

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...light=firewire

here it is...towards the bottom