Dumping cable to go with dish...

[briands]

I hope to dump my analog cable in favor of Dish in the next week. I ordered the additional input panel for my 500 card and will use it along with my 150 and 250 cards to capture via svideo. I will start 3 sd and one HD box (I know it will not be HD capture over the svideo, but the componant straight to the PJ will serve for live viewing until I can swing the R5000). I also have an OTA ATSC card to cover some HD recording (in true HD) duties.

Couple questions:

Is there a way to capture the digital audio stream as well to maintane the discrete surround track? I'm pretty sure none of the current cards do... anyone know why? Is it a syncing issue?

Is there a difference in encoding quality (over s-vid) for the different Haup cards? Which would likely be best (so I can use it for the HD box)?

Tuner control... Are there any serial control options for dish boxes? I didn't think so, so I ordered another USBUIRT for the server. Is this still the latest on control for multiple dish receivers?

On a slightly unrelated note... Can anyone recomend a good powersupply for my server? The one I have is marginal with my raid 3 (5 300gb drives) configuration so I have a second PS powering those drives ... not pretty, but seems to work well, but I will be relocating the server with the additional Dish boxes so I thought I should clean it up a bit.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by briands

I hope to dump my analog cable in favor of Dish in the next week. I ordered the additional input panel for my 500 card and will use it along with my 150 and 250 cards to capture via svideo. I will start 3 sd and one HD box (I know it will not be HD capture over the svideo, but the componant straight to the PJ will serve for live viewing until I can swing the R5000). I also have an OTA ATSC card to cover some HD recording (in true HD) duties.

Couple questions:

Is there a way to capture the digital audio stream as well to maintane the discrete surround track? I'm pretty sure none of the current cards do... anyone know why? Is it a syncing issue?

The R5000, that's about it.

Is there a difference in encoding quality (over s-vid) for the different Haup cards? Which would likely be best (so I can use it for the HD box)?

Probably not going to make much difference. I'm using one input on my 500 currently with a ViP211. I dropped my default encoding quality from 3GB/hr to 1.6 and haven't noticed any compression issues.

Tuner control... Are there any serial control options for dish boxes?

Nope.

I didn't think so, so I ordered another USBUIRT for the server. Is this still the latest on control for multiple dish receivers?

Probably, though I did find that I think you can use more than one UIRT in a system.

On a slightly unrelated note... Can anyone recomend a good powersupply for my server? The one I have is marginal with my raid 3 (5 300gb drives) configuration so I have a second PS powering those drives ... not pretty, but seems to work well, but I will be relocating the server with the additional Dish boxes so I thought I should clean it up a bit.

I've had good luck with Fortron Source PSUs, nice, quiet, powerful, oh, and cheap. I had an FSP300 (300W) powering my server with 8 drives for a while. I added a couple drives, and am now using an Antec Smartpower 500 in my server today (10 drives).

[insomniac]

as far as controlling more than one dish box at the same time, its very easy. You will find a zip file on this forum that has UIRT1.ir and UIRT2.ir. All you need to do is stack up the IRD's, change the remote ID on IRD's to the respective 1 and 2, throw the USBUIRT in front of them, and configure sage.

I have had the UIRT controlling 3 stacked IRD's w/o issue. Only Dish network has this option, and its a great one!

EDIT: so basically, you need no additional hardware and no magic tricks. you just have sage send a slightly different command (remote id) per device via the already configured .ir files available on this forum. All dish network receivers seem to work fine with these files. I believe you can control up to 10 DN IRD's this way...

Originally Posted by briands

I hope to dump my analog cable in favor of Dish in the next week. I ordered the additional input panel for my 500 card and will use it along with my 150 and 250 cards to capture via svideo. I will start 3 sd and one HD box (I know it will not be HD capture over the svideo, but the componant straight to the PJ will serve for live viewing until I can swing the R5000). I also have an OTA ATSC card to cover some HD recording (in true HD) duties.

Couple questions:

Is there a way to capture the digital audio stream as well to maintane the discrete surround track? I'm pretty sure none of the current cards do... anyone know why? Is it a syncing issue?

Is there a difference in encoding quality (over s-vid) for the different Haup cards? Which would likely be best (so I can use it for the HD box)?

Tuner control... Are there any serial control options for dish boxes? I didn't think so, so I ordered another USBUIRT for the server. Is this still the latest on control for multiple dish receivers?

On a slightly unrelated note... Can anyone recomend a good powersupply for my server? The one I have is marginal with my raid 3 (5 300gb drives) configuration so I have a second PS powering those drives ... not pretty, but seems to work well, but I will be relocating the server with the additional Dish boxes so I thought I should clean it up a bit.

[briands]

Originally Posted by stanger89

The R5000, that's about it.
snip

Anyone have any idea why digital audio capture is not available? Doesn't seem like it would be that hard to incorporate.

Also, is there a way to capture more than one sound track for a TV file? Thinking of radio simulcasts of college football/ bball games.

[briands]

Thanks for the replies guys... knew I could count on the forum.

Insomniac, I'll be looking to you if I have any problems with the IR setup.

Couple additional questions...

Does anyone know what model boxes you get with the Four room deals that they have now? I heard that they give you the dual boxes (which I know are not what I want). Is there specific models to ask for? Also, what dish/lnb combo do I need (for HD not interested in locals as I have good OTA reception).

Also, do these boxes come back on after a power outage? How much current do they draw (not much I suspect). I am contemplating a small UPS to power them mostly for the brief flickers that happen so often as part of summer thunderstorms. Either that, or I can get one BIG one to power the four tuners, the server PC as well as my workstation PC that is also right there. Any recomendations?

Lastly, are there any special codes floating around to improve the price for Dish service?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by briands

Does anyone know what model boxes you get with the Four room deals that they have now? I heard that they give you the dual boxes (which I know are not what I want).

Probably two 322s, and yes, they're dual boxes.

Is there specific models to ask for?

You'll probably want a ViP211 and then 311s for the rest.

Also, what dish/lnb combo do I need (for HD not interested in locals as I have good OTA reception).

You'll get a Dish 1000 if you sign up for HD, at least that's what I got. One thing to be aware of, is that with 4 IRDs, you'll need a DP44 multiswitch, as the 1000 can only supply 1 IRDs. They may well charge extra for that.

Also, do these boxes come back on after a power outage? How much current do they draw (not much I suspect). I am contemplating a small UPS to power them mostly for the brief flickers that happen so often as part of summer thunderstorms.

Probably a good idea, you can get a pretty big UPS pretty cheap these days.

Either that, or I can get one BIG one to power the four tuners, the server PC as well as my workstation PC that is also right there. Any recomendations?

I'd just get one, personally, in fact, I'd recommend one for the Server regardless, and you should be able to connect the boxes to that "for free".

Lastly, are there any special codes floating around to improve the price for Dish service?

AFAIK, if you sign up for the HD pack, you get $20/month off for 10 months, plus free hardware (unless you want the HD DVR).

[lobosrul]

Does the r5000 do the channel changing? Or would i need an ir blaster??

Im making the switch here soon, actualy i just bought a used 411 on ebay for $150, gonna send it in to be modded soon.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

Does the r5000 do the channel changing?

Yes

[insomniac]

Any time. If you cant find the files, I may have them stashed somewhere from when I used to use them.

Originally Posted by briands

Insomniac, I'll be looking to you if I have any problems with the IR setup.

[briands]

It's like Christmas...almost...
Today the additional Hauppauge input and USBUIRT from PCAlchemy came in and I was on the right side of town to swing by CompUSA and found a Belkin UPS900VA for $60 AR. I grabbed a new Antec SP500 power supply while I was there.

Tomorrow, I'll bite the bullet and see if I can get one of the dish installers on the phone to request single tuner boxes and the right switch for the job.

Thanks again for all the help so far. I'm a little nervious about the transition from a WAF perspective. I guess I could leave the cable connected for a week to make sure we don't miss anything.

Now if we could just get the latest beta this weekend...

[briands]

Since I have an antenna that receives the locals pretty well, I don't intend to pay the $5 for the overcompressed (so I have heard) locals via dish. So I see two different options for locals. I can either feed the OTA coax to the Dish boxes and let the svideo and audio connections to the capture cards, or I could attach it directly to the RF connections on the capture cards. The biggest difference I see is that direct to the capture cards would be while tuning locals, you could avoid ANY issues with IR tuning. I guess sensitivity of the tuners may be a deciding factor.

What would you recomend?

BTW, this is mostly regarding SD. For HD, I will attach OTA coax to both the HD Dish receiver 211 and my ATSC 110 so I will be able to record real HD (via PCI card) and downconvered (via Svid from 211) at least until I go for the R5000. Now if someone could just get the MyHD card working with Sage, I could throw it back into the mix.

[briands]

Ordered the Dish installation today... waiting to find out who will do the installation so I can try to talk them into the receivers I need. One last question though. With the Dish1000, how many coax run from the dish into the house? I think its only 1, I thought I might pull it myself to reduce the risk for damage.

[lobosrul]

With the Dish1000, how many coax run from the dish into the house? I think its only 1, I thought I might pull it myself to reduce the risk for damage.

Its 1 per receiver. And its not like cable where you can run a loop, there has to be one line per receiver. Im going to be doing a self install in about a month, so I've been reading up, pretty simple though im only doing 1 receiver.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by briands

One last question though. With the Dish1000, how many coax run from the dish into the house? I think its only 1, I thought I might pull it myself to reduce the risk for damage.

Depends on how you want to hook it up, if you've got 1-2 IRDs, you run 1 cable from the 1000 to each IRD (ie 1 or two cables). And the third LNBF is "jumped" into the input on the twin LNBF.

If you need 3+ IRDs, you need to run 3 cables from the 1000, one for each LNBF. You'll then run them into a DP44 multiswitch and from there you'll run a coax to each IRD. For more than 4 IRDs, you'd cascade multiple DP44s.

I don't remember if the DP34 will work, but I do recall that the DP44 is the one you want.

[insomniac]

The DP34 can run 3 sats to 4 devices and is cascadable up to 16 devices i think.

Originally Posted by stanger89

I don't remember if the DP34 will work, but I do recall that the DP44 is the one you want.

[stanger89]

Yeah, but I thought there was something about the Twin LNB on the 1000 that the DP34 didn't like.

[briands]

Can you pass the OTA onto the DP44 for distribution to the IRDs? It looks like it has four inputs, but I can't seem to find an installation instruction for it?

If not, I guess I'll have 3 lines from the dish to the DP44 splitting out to the 4 IRDs. In parallel, I'll use my current amplified splitter to split the OTA signal to the ATSC110 and either the IRDs or the Hauppauge tuner cards directly. Any recomendations for what would be better? (hmm seems I asked this before)

[hemicuda]

The splitter we use has LNB A and LNB B on the corners and OTA as the center connection. Then the 4 outputs are on the opposite side. I can't say off-hand what model it is though. I can check when I get home in a few days.

[insomniac]

I dont really use the switch on the twin. I run a cable from both LNB's to the DP34, thus bypassing the need for the onboard switch. Has worked for the last few years for me without issue. YMMV.

I.

Originally Posted by stanger89

Yeah, but I thought there was something about the Twin LNB on the 1000 that the DP34 didn't like.

[briands]

Do I need 4 orbits? If I skip locals, I thought I'd only need 3. That would let me use a DP34 that is a LOT cheaper than a 44. Will there be a need in the near future for the 4th location?