Cable to Satellite help please

[e4gulf]

I've finally gotten fed up enough with Cablevision and there rate changes to go ahead and make the switch to Satellite. I have chosen dish network for there HD package which comes with more standard HD channels. Here is my setup:

2 Hauppauge PVR 250's
1 Hauppauge PVR 150.
TV is a Philips 55 inch HDTV
1 USB-UIRT with 1 IR output


Here what I will be getting:

1 HD reciever
1 standard receiver with a dual tuner built in

My question is, will I be able to hook up everything with my current equipment or will I need to add some hardware? I would like to retain the ability to record three shows simultaneously. How do I hook up the single USB-UIRT to the three recievers and control them? How can I record the program from the HD receiver and maintain the HD quality? Thanks in advance.

[mike1961]

I recently switched from Cable to Satellite DirecTV. I personally would start by trying to find out if any cable boxes are available that will allow you to change the channel via a serial cable rather than IR. Yours may already have that, I don't know. Then, you won't need the usb-uirt to change channels. Next, with your standard cable, you indicated you only have one cable box. Personally, I would get two cable boxes for the standard because you said you have 3 tuners (2 for standard and one for HD) otherwise you will need a splitter. Further, you will need three channel lineups one for basic, one for the standard STB and one for the HD.

Finally, I don't know too much about keeping the HD quality but there is a card called the R5000 that as understand it (although expensive) will do this. Do a search here and there's more info on that card.

Mike

[dbfresh23]

I'm pretty sure that you will actually need 2 single tuner receivers instead of 1 dual tuner receiver. Also I don't believe that serial control is an option so you'll need to go the IR Route.

Mike is correct, the only way to record HD from Dish Network w/ SageTV is via an R5000-HD modification. It is however not a card, you actually ship your HD receiver to this company and they open it up and actually solder custom hardware into it. This modification would also control the HD receiver via the USB port they install in it.

[mike1961]

Originally Posted by dbfresh23

I'm pretty sure that you will actually need 2 single tuner receivers instead of 1 dual tuner receiver. Also I don't believe that serial control is an option so you'll need to go the IR Route.
.

Perhaps IR is not an option with that receiver but I would still contact Dish and search the web and do whatever I could to find an STB that will use serial over IR any day and twice on Sunday.

Mike

[dbfresh23]

Originally Posted by mike1961

Perhaps IR is not an option with that receiver but I would still contact Dish and search the web and do whatever I could to find an STB that will use serial over IR any day and twice on Sunday.

Mike

I know how well serial control of D* boxes work, I use it myself. There is a big problem, the dll that controls it is specifically using commands that control DirecTV boxes, not Dish Network boxes. Even if you were able to find a dish receiver that had a serial port you'd have to know the command set to control it. Bottom line is that if there was a way of controlling a Dish Network box other then IR - I'm pretty sure it would have been found out by now.

[jelevin]

I'm thinking about switching from comcast to directv and would also like to expand to be able to record 2 shows at the same time (perhaps with the new nvidia dualtv or perhaps by adding another card to my current hauppage).

We will be viewing via 1 sage cliet and 2 or 3 mvp boxes.

What would the experts recommend? What should I order from directv? Any other advice?

Thanks!