Couple of newby questions

[deMayo]

I am new to HTPC and am looking to build one. From all of the software I have looked at I like Sage the best. Before I invest in new hardware I have a couple of questions, I have gone through the forums and elsewhere to try to answer them, but am still confused on a couple of issues:

HD is not a requirment, nor is placeshifting. Primarily looking for tv recording/playback and an interface to play mp3s on home stereo.

I have comcast digital cable with HBO. Will all features of Sage TV work with HBO and video on demand? PPV would be good, but I could live without it.

Without getting a second cable box, is it possible to watch one cable program and record another cable program?

I would be building a dedicated Sage PC which I would Remote Desktop into for adminstration, so no real monitor on it. Assuming I meet the overlay and DirectX 9 requirements, would a better video card make any difference to me?

Thank you for any assistance.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by deMayo

Without getting a second cable box, is it possible to watch one cable program and record another cable program?

For this one, it depends on whether you can also receive any of your channels via a straight analog coax connection. If not & every channel has to be decoded by your box, then you would have to have a 2nd box to record 2 shows at once. If you can get analog channels, then you could record one of the analog channels w/o a box + any channel from the box at the same time, providing you have 2 encoders in the computer.

- Andy

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by deMayo

HD is not a requirment, nor is placeshifting. Primarily looking for tv recording/playback and an interface to play mp3s on home stereo.

To be honest, the MP3 playback in Sage isn't the best for ease of use. I don't use it personally, but ther are some imports to make it a bit better. I have a nice HD display so I can just switch over to winamp or what ever for music.

Originally Posted by deMayo

I have comcast digital cable with HBO. Will all features of Sage TV work with HBO and video on demand? PPV would be good, but I could live without it.

It goes like this. You need a capture card of some sort for your computer. That capture card will likely do one of two things for you. Either:
1) you will plug your analog cable right from the wall into your computer 's new capture card and you will be able to tune and record basic/expanded cable channels to your computer. It basically makes your comuter like a VCR.
2) You will plug your cable box into the wall cable. Then you buy a thing called a infrared blaster or in some cases a serial cable etc. (search for usb-uirt) Anyway this blaster plugs into your computer and then transmits a signal to your cable box, imitating your cable box remote control, to tell it what channel to tune to. Then you plug the output of your cable box (usually composit video (yellow cable) and audio cables (red and white)) into your new TV capture card. This way sage can tell your cable box to tune to HBO and your tv card can record it.

To get on demand to work, you would have to write a program and build some hardware that would interface with the cable box so that sage would know what was available, plus how to navigate your particular cable boxes menus etc. This is not likely to happen. You'll probably forget about on demand after playing with sage for a while anyway.

Originally Posted by deMayo

Without getting a second cable box, is it possible to watch one cable program and record another cable program?

basically no, not if you want all your channels available for live tv. (See Opus's comment above) This would require two TV Tuner cards for your PC anyway, one to record from and one to watch live from. What you can do is watch a recording while recording another program. Remember, when you are watching something live in Sage it is actually being recorded. So if you want to watch live tv one of your tv capture cards will be busy.

In my case I have 3 tuners. One is hooked into standard cable. It can tune 74 channels. The second is hooked up to a digital cable box via the method I outlined above. It gets 200 some odd channels. Then I have a third tuner that gets over the air HDTV channels. In this scenario I could record two programs and watch a third live. however, each program would have to be airing on a channel available on an available tuner. I.e. I could watch a basic cable show and record a basic cable show at the same time because both the digital tuner and the analog tv card cover the same channel line up. I couldn't however watch and record two HD channels at the same time or two Digital Channels at the same time because there is only one tuner for each line up. Get it?

Originally Posted by deMayo

I would be building a dedicated Sage PC which I would Remote Desktop into for adminstration, so no real monitor on it. Assuming I meet the overlay and DirectX 9 requirements, would a better video card make any difference to me?

Yes, however, you can get along with lesser hardware if you don't plan on HDTV anytime soon. I had an old 32"CRT standard TV for years. I though it looked pretty good. It wasn't till I got my HDTV that I needed to upgrade my video card. When that time comes for you you will want top of the line hardware. I'd wait till you absolutely have to though, better stuff for HDTV will abound in the future.

Have fun,

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by jds23

I don't know if I am special in any way because I can do this

You can do this just like you can pick up your set top box remote and change the channel when ever you want while sage is recording. The problem is that Sage didn't know you did that. Unless SageTV has the appropriate channel line up for your TV provider that includes the PPV channels and what ever may be on demand, Sage will still think you are watching the Flintstones when in reality you have loaded up your fighting championship. Just like when my nephew comes over and turns off the cable box. I record a couple hours of blank screen because sage doesn't know any better.

The difference here is that you are inserting your intelligence into the system with your harmony remote and your selection of a PPV movie on your cable box. To my knowledge you can't make sage aware of what you and your cable box are doing. In this set up, its just a recorder. It really doesn't know what channel it’s on at all, all it knows is that it sent the command to tune to channel 5 at the top of the hour. It can only assume that the cable box has remained on that channel. Sage sends simple signals to the cable box, like channel numbers. That’s it, it doesn’t know how to send menu>onDemand>down>down>select>enter etc.

Can you still watch PPV movies and on demand from your cable box? Yes, though there may be some apparent button delay because of time shifting.
Can you schedule these tasks in SageTV to be performed automatically through the software? No.

Sage can record just about any signal you give it, but it only knows what it is recording when it can tune the channel. It can’t automatically tune ppv or on demand with out your help.

I'll be quiet now.

[deMayo]

So Sage will record whatever channel your STB (in this digital cable example) is set to? usb-uirt will physically change the channel on the STB by sending the appropriate remove command, right?

I didn't realize that I would be able to override Sage so easily. It sounds like I will be able to easily get on demand and PPV without the ability to schedule it. If so, that works.

One reason I am excited about Sage is because there is a great community behind it, thanks again for the thoughtful input.

[Humanzee]

I think we are all on the same page. You can figure a way to do just about anything, its just not granny proof. If you understand the limits of the hardware and what its doing you can work with it to achieve greatness.

And yes the forums have always been good here. Some ranting on occation, as you can see, but overall very helpfull.