Some Basic upgrade questions to add HDTV

[Kimper]

I have been happily using Sage with Cable STB now for about 2 years. I am running version 3.x

Now that Sage is supporting HDTV I would like to add an ota HDTV card and upgrade to the latest Sage version.

So what is the smoothest route?

1. First upgrade Sage, then install new HDTV capture card or
2. Install new card and then upgrade Sage?

I have no experience with dual capture cards, and am concerned about getting the EPG correct and keeping it all simple and integrated for the WIFE FACTOR

Any pointers would be appreciated!

[QuasiInsomniac]

Amen for the wife factor. I too would like answers to the above questions because I am also thinking about doing an OTA HD card. It's not worth getting digital cable for eight HD channels when OTA will get you 6 (no ESPN HD or Discovery HD, <insert sarcasm> darn).

[teknubic]

Here's roughly what I did:

1. Found a block of time where no recordings were scheduled (2h should do)
2. Performed a backup as described in the manual
3. Instead of restarting the agents after the backup, I ran the v4 install
4. Restart
5. Verified that v4 works correctly with existing hardware by doing some channel surfing.
6. Set the SageTV service to 'manual'
7. Shut down the computer
8. Install new hardware and boot the computer
9. Install drivers, restart
10. Start SageTV service, set to 'automatic' and add the new tuners
11. Tweak the bloody aerial till you're blue.

HTH

[Kimper]

That sounds good Teknubic, thanks.

Update:

1. Ordered the VBOX Cat's Eye DTA-150 ATSC Terrestrial HDTV Receiver, PCI from http://www.pcalchemy.com

2. Did my homework on http://www.antennaweb.org/
Turns out that I should be able to get everything I have interest in from OTA HDTV. Cool thing is I should be able to get channels that a QAM or satellite solution would not have provided.
Also found a great article on this topic here http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/articles...d_demystif.php

3. Ordered the Channel Master 4228 from http://www.warrenelectronics.com

I will keep you guys posted of my progress once the stuff arrives, so maybe others going this route can learn too.
Since I hear HD takes about 8-9 gigs of storage per hour I am giong to also research some more storage to toss onto the network... Stay tuned

[Kimper]

Progress Report:

Upgraded to Sage 4.0 today in anticipation of next weeks UPS deliveries. Upgrade appeared to go smooth, but.....

I normally launch Sage out of Meedio (superior DVD library ability), and for the love of Mike I couldn't get Sage to regain focus in windows xp after awakening from sleep mode. A simple thing like this can be deadly to the wife approval factor!
After only about an hour of work searching Meedio and Sage forums I finally found this great registry edit posted by Darren!
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...033#post138033

Thanks man! Sage now pops up into focus just like it should!

More progress reports to come!

[jlindborg]

I went the OTA route, too - another advantage of going this route (other than I hate Comcast and would rather eat glass than open another account with them) is that the image quality of the OTA broadcast is better than you get for those chanels via cable - they are usually compressed badly. Several folks I work with that got HD local chanels via cable switch to OTA to get better quality. I'm sure it varies by location and vendor but it's a pretty big difference around here.