Basic Cable to Digital Cable.. questions...

[Stuntman]

I may be the last one, but I still use standard, basic cable tv for my TV.. well, now I have a HDTV TV and am thinking about getting digital cable/HD..

My questions are..

1) Will I need a tuner box for EACH of my 4 PVR cards, plus one for each of my TVs (assuming I don't watch TV through SageTV)??

2) Can SageTV Server 'drive' these tuner boxes independantly?

3) If my TV has a HDTV Tuner built into it, do I still need a set-top box for that TV?

Thanks in advance!

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Stuntman

I may be the last one, but I still use standard, basic cable tv for my TV.. well, now I have a HDTV TV and am thinking about getting digital cable/HD..

My questions are..

1) Will I need a tuner box for EACH of my 4 PVR cards, plus one for each of my TVs (assuming I don't watch TV through SageTV)??

You will need a digital box for each tuner that you wish to record digital channels on. You'll still be able to record everything you can now, without boxes even after getting digital cable.

2) Can SageTV Server 'drive' these tuner boxes independantly?

With a USB-UIRT you can control three boxes independently, not sure what you do if you have more than three.

3) If my TV has a HDTV Tuner built into it, do I still need a set-top box for that TV?

Yes, depending on your TV, (if it's QAM or "digital cable" capable or not) you may be able to get a portion of the digital channels without a box, but you will need the box for most channels.

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by stanger89

With a USB-UIRT you can control three boxes independently, not sure what you do if you have more than three.

If some are Motorola DCT-2xxx boxes, he could do serial cable control on some.

His cable company is going to love him though! All those STB @ $5 or per month each!

Regarding the "TV's" in question 1, I would try and limit the number of STB's as much as possible if you arent going to use Sage on those TV's. Not sure how many we are talking here, or how many will be viewed simultaneously, but I would get a channel modulator and feed those TV's from that, with the bare minimum number of STB's (which become virtual channels).

[garyellis]

I have a digital HD Cable box and 3 tuner cards...

I split the incoming cable four ways...1 goes to internet, 1 goes to my digital cable HD set top box, 1 goes to my PVR 150 (single tuner) and the last 1 goes to my PVR 500 (2 tuners)

I then have my cable settop box output via Svideo to the PVR 150 Svideo in port. The cable box also outputs via coax to my A/V receiver and on to the TV also.

Thus, on my 3 tuners (150 and 500) I can get extended basic cable channels (for me that's 2 through 77). Through the Svideo, I can get any channel (including HD channels) that my cable box is set to. (It looks like HD, but comes through Svideo..but very clear) I can record any thing from the 3 tuners or from the Svideo feed from the cable box.

Added to that, my cable box is also a DVR, so I can record HD or anything else there and then play back through the Svideo to my 150 PVR card. And thus, save it on my Hard Drive..

Thus, bottomline, only needed 1 cablebox/receiver...

Hope that helps..

Gary

[Stuntman]

Originally Posted by garyellis

I have a digital HD Cable box and 3 tuner cards...

I split the incoming cable four ways...1 goes to internet, 1 goes to my digital cable HD set top box, 1 goes to my PVR 150 (single tuner) and the last 1 goes to my PVR 500 (2 tuners)

I then have my cable settop box output via Svideo to the PVR 150 Svideo in port. The cable box also outputs via coax to my A/V receiver and on to the TV also.

Thus, on my 3 tuners (150 and 500) I can get extended basic cable channels (for me that's 2 through 77). Through the Svideo, I can get any channel (including HD channels) that my cable box is set to. (It looks like HD, but comes through Svideo..but very clear) I can record any thing from the 3 tuners or from the Svideo feed from the cable box.

Added to that, my cable box is also a DVR, so I can record HD or anything else there and then play back through the Svideo to my 150 PVR card. And thus, save it on my Hard Drive..

Thus, bottomline, only needed 1 cablebox/receiver...

Hope that helps..

Gary

Sounds like a good setup.. but I wonder.. how does SageTV tune the 150? Since you have, if I read you correctly, 2 sources of input into that card (1 from the cable directly, 1 from the svideo out of the cable box).. Can sage deal with both tuners on one card??

[stanger89]

Yeah, you can have as many sources as you want configured to one card, and Sage knows it can only use one at a time.

[Kirby]

It should also be noted, if you are sharing devices between the house TV's and Sage, that you could run into issues. Sage wont know if you are watching something on a STB, and could change the channel, and worse, you could watch a STB at a remote TV and not know that Sage has control of it and recording, and change the channel, thus screwing up your recording.

[Stuntman]

Originally Posted by Kirby

It should also be noted, if you are sharing devices between the house TV's and Sage, that you could run into issues. Sage wont know if you are watching something on a STB, and could change the channel, and worse, you could watch a STB at a remote TV and not know that Sage has control of it and recording, and change the channel, thus screwing up your recording.

I figure in my setup, if I wanted to record digital only content, I'd probably then need 2 STB's.. one for the TV I watch live content on, and one on the PVR line to record digital content..

Now, if I can just justify the additon $40 a month to my wife!

[Stuntman]

I have a friend who has extended basic broadcast cable.. almost the bottom line cable choice for Adelphia.. He bought an over-the-air HDTV tuner and plugs his Adelphia cable coax into this device.. and he gets all the digital and Free HD content!!

Has anybody else done this, or used one of these 3rd party OTA tuners rather than an Adelphia STB?

My concern was that I thought OTA tuned different frequencies and wouldn't see the digital content coming from Adelphia.. the box he uses has both an 'antenna' and 'cable' input selection on the back..

[garyellis]

Stuntman, as Stranger said, Sage can handle all inputs, but only 1 can be working at a time on the 150 card.


The Svideo input is set up like it is a 2nd tuner for the 150 card, except you click on svideo, rather than cable...(some Settop boxes only have an extra composite out),so you could use that instead of svideo)..When I set it up, I mapped it only to channel 1. So, I can click on channel 1 and its the feed from the set top box.

Makes it easy to record that way, also

Gary

[mcbinder]

Originally Posted by garyellis

Stuntman, as Stranger said, Sage can handle all inputs, but only 1 can be working at a time on the 150 card.


The Svideo input is set up like it is a 2nd tuner for the 150 card, except you click on svideo, rather than cable...(some Set top boxes only have an extra composite out),so you could use that instead of svideo)..When I set it up, I mapped it only to channel 1. So, I can click on channel 1 and its the feed from the set top box.

Makes it easy to record that way, also

Gary

I wanted to set mine up like this as well.
How do I prevent Sage from changing the STB channel coming in on the PVR150 S-Video when it could get the same channel on a tuner? Mine seemed to want change the STB channel and leave the PVR500 tuners idle. For example, I may want to watch HD on the the STB via an HDMI output that goes direct to the TV HDMI in and let the Sage box record standard cable channels at the same time, but Sage wants to use the STB S-Video output and changes the channel.

I have my HD STB wired like,this:
HDMI (including audio) to TV
digital audio to home theater
S-Video and L/R audio to PVR150

mcb

[blade]

Originally Posted by mcbinder

I wanted to set mine up like this as well.
How do I prevent Sage from changing the STB channel coming in on the PVR150 S-Video when it could get the same channel on a tuner? Mine seemed to want change the STB channel and leave the PVR500 tuners idle. For example, I may want to watch HD on the the STB via an HDMI output that goes direct to the TV HDMI in and let the Sage box record standard cable channels at the same time, but Sage wants to use the STB S-Video output and changes the channel.

I think what you would need to do is setup two different channel line ups. One for the S-video and the other for the tuner on the 150 and 500. Then disable all the channels on the lineup for the S-video that the 150 and 500 can tune. Then Sage will only use the S-video for channels it can't get through the 150 or 500 tuner.

[stanger89]

You could adjust the encoder merit setting so that it uses the tuners first.

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by Stuntman

I have a friend who has extended basic broadcast cable.. almost the bottom line cable choice for Adelphia.. He bought an over-the-air HDTV tuner and plugs his Adelphia cable coax into this device.. and he gets all the digital and Free HD content!!

Has anybody else done this, or used one of these 3rd party OTA tuners rather than an Adelphia STB?

My concern was that I thought OTA tuned different frequencies and wouldn't see the digital content coming from Adelphia.. the box he uses has both an 'antenna' and 'cable' input selection on the back..

I have adelphia also. Can you get more info from your friend? How is it set up, what HDTV tuner did he use (brand/model)? I don't have HD from adelphia but I always thought their HD streams are encrypted and that you need to use their STB in order to decode it.

[mcbinder]

Originally Posted by stanger89

You could adjust the encoder merit setting so that it uses the tuners first.

How do you adjust this?
It's not on the setup menus, so do you have edit it directly in the sage.properties file?

What's the variable name?

mcb

[mayamaniac]

its somewhere in the sage.properties file, do a search on this forum for "encoder merits" and you'll find some thread with instructions on how to set it.