Will Sage going to support HDTV cards (QAM)?

[Orthogonite]

<bump>

Any updates? I'm itnerested!

[bizarro]

Listing of QAM HDTV tuner cards Here is a listing and some info on a few QAM HDTV tuner cards.

[blade]

Originally Posted by bizarro

Listing of QAM HDTV tuner cards Here is a listing and some info on a few QAM HDTV tuner cards.

They only do QAM with the software they're packaged with. None of them will do QAM in Sage or any other Windows based PVR.

[rsagetv99]

Speaking completely from a novice's perspective, could something be developed that would allow Sage to control the proprietary software that these cards are packaged with? Sort of a network tuner option like the Peter's MyTheatre plugin?

Of course I don't know how to do this, just grasping at straws here. Football season is just around the corner...

[Kirby]

Probably not with the MyHD card, the others I dont know about. Some people over at AVS forums tried to hack into the MyIRC control app that controls the MyHD and couldnt get anywhere from what I recall. They have managed to work out some scheduling ability, but I think it involves shoving in registry entries for the show that needs to record. I havent been following that project much though, not what I am looking for. I think a few others here have been following it though.

One thought I had on the QAM tuning thing was to take a STB QAM tuner like the LG 3510 (I think thats the right model) which has a firewire port to output to DVHS. I was curious if that could be hacked up in a way to use something like the firewire STB control for cable boxes, coupled with a IR blasting setup to tune/watch shows inside Sage. Problem is, the LG unit is no longer made, and sells for high dollars on ebay ($400 or more used).

[insomniac]

whoa, i missed this statement! Are you going to at least give a teaser so that I can go out and buy whatever hardware/software necessary to get QAM ported into sage?!?

Im assuming this will be a MyHD or Fusion card, being that A180 drivers have yet to be exposed? throw me a bone here. Im chompin at the bit!

I.

Originally Posted by Stealth1971

DVICO does use BDA driver model for ATSC (8SVB modulation / OTA). So that was probably their BDA reference. However, Microsoft does not currently support QAM for the BDA interfaces.

However, this does not mean there isnt a way to get QAM in your PC Look for announcement from me in the next few weeks.

[bizarro]

From another nonprogrammer point of view, couldn't you use hooks to the cards native program to send info for it to record at a specific time. Or do something like a mouse emulation program? Seems to me that the card manufacturers would be wanting to be supported by an established program (Sage) to help them sell more cards and establish themselves as the card to use in the HD marketplace. Then there is the blue ray mentality or Sony who insists you gotta do it our way or not at all.

[Stealth1971]

Originally Posted by insomniac

whoa, i missed this statement! Are you going to at least give a teaser so that I can go out and buy whatever hardware/software necessary to get QAM ported into sage?!?

Don't go buy any hardware!!! The announcement IS about a HARDWARE device that will work with Windows and Linux and does NOT require proprietary drivers.

We are trying to get costs down right now so its reasonable. Thats one of our hurdles right now, but we are close to getting this resolved.

Stealth

[DFA]

Keep it up! Looking forward to a break through.

DFA

[insomniac]

No kidding. I bet sage is looking forward to this too!

[avonnied]

So with Vista just around the corner is this all going to be fixed/changed?

for some reason i thought the whole problem was going to go away (the ability to tune QAM) with vista..

[stanger89]

No because you're not going to be able to buy an OCUR except on a pre-built large-oem (eg Dell) MCE machine. Cablelabs won't certify anything else.

There's the small possibility MS will add QAM to normal BDA, but that seems somewhat unlikely.

[evilpenguin]

Count me as very interested in what you've got going on as I just moved and I can't rip HDTV streams via firewire with my new equipment

[dbfresh23]

Any kind of time frame? If it's still in the getting costs down phase, I'd assume that it's gonna be a while before they are on sale being that they would need to hit the production line first...

[DFA]

If I understand correctly, it sounds like a piece of hardware is involved. I'm curious to know what that thingy might be.

DFA