Help a newb pick a setup.

[tsitalon1]

System specs:

Amd 64 3000+ (1.8ghz) CPU
2g Ram
750 GB Hard drive


I have setup a MCE2005 system for a friend and was very frustrated with the limitations of MCE. So I want to build a Sagetv system fro myself. Here is what I want and what I *THINK* I will need. PLease correct me if I'm wrong, or if there is a better way.

2 standard tv's. 1 DLP HDTV
Input = Brighthouse cable analog/digital/hd

What I propose:

4 stb's (unknown brand/model for now)
2 Hauppauge PVR-500 cards
2 AV headers
1 AVerMedia HD A180 PCI Card
2 SageTV Wireless Media Extenders
1 OTA Antenna

Questions:

1. I know I can tune the OTA hd channels. What about the other HD channels offered by my cable company (QAM). Since the STB would be tuning the QAM signal, decoding it, and passing it to the pvr-500 tuner card, would I be able to view those channels in sdtv format? Or will the pvr-500 choke on the hd signal coming from the STB?

2. WHould the proposed system be able to handle this load?

3. What is the preferred method of STB control...Firewire or IR blaster?

4. Does anyone forsee any issues with this setup?

Thanks,
James

[tsitalon1]

Throw a guy a bone would ya!

[Opus4]

My guesses/comments...

Originally Posted by tsitalon1

1. I know I can tune the OTA hd channels. What about the other HD channels offered by my cable company (QAM). Since the STB would be tuning the QAM signal, decoding it, and passing it to the pvr-500 tuner card, would I be able to view those channels in sdtv format? Or will the pvr-500 choke on the hd signal coming from the STB?

The PVR-500 will be connected to the STBs via svideo, so they will be receiving & recording SDTV, so they would have no problem doing that.

2. WHould the proposed system be able to handle this load?

Should be able to. An issue could be any transcoding done for non-MPEG2 video formats for the MVPs; that might eat quite a bit of cpu.

3. What is the preferred method of STB control...Firewire or IR blaster?

If you can manage firewire channel changing control (or even some recording), I'm sure that would work best. If you go IR, you'll need to contend with controling those 4 STBs. If they all can be set to use distinct IR codes, the a single USB-UIRT can handle it. But, if they are all the same IR code set, then you may need 2 USB-UIRTs & yes, there is a way to get 2 USB-UIRTs to work.

- Andy

[tsitalon1]

Thank you Andy, this gets me started then!

James

[Polypro]

An AMD 3000+ can handle 2 PVR500's and 1 HD card (I have a Fusion5). I do this.

P

[PGPfan]

You might wish to consider changing the CPU to one of the X2 versions. 'If' you intend to do any transcoding from HD to SD, having a 'dual-core' type CPU can greatly enhance system performance.

-PGPfan

[tsitalon1]

Thankyou all for your replies. My family will really appreciate this