Going to upgrade to Digital Cable....

[Mortanis]

I've used Sage coming up on 2 years. I'm currently on Comcast Basic + Extended Cable using a Hauppage 150 and 250. I'm really leaning towards upgrading my cable package to digital for Sci-Fi. That comes with a cable box, so its new territory.

Some questions:

I'll need a USB UIRT, correct? This will handle the changing of the channel on the box automatically? Will I need any specialized software, or will Sage handle this for me?

Can I plug the Cable Box into my 250, and split the cable BEFORE the box into my 150? I belive I'll still get the same channels I do now: Basic + Extended. Since that works fine for me now, and I'd be adding only a few channels with Digital, it shouldn't be a problem.

I have the 45 button Hauppage remote and the little IR receiver for that. Will that still be what I use for Sage, or will the USB UIRT take over that function? Hopefully I can still use my same remote - teaching the wife all over again wouldn't be fun. (I doubt I'll have to switch remotes, but I just want to cover all my bases)

Are there any special considerations I should know about?

Many thanks!

[lobosrul]

Can I plug the Cable Box into my 250, and split the cable BEFORE the box into my 150? I belive I'll still get the same channels I do now: Basic + Extended.

Yes. Although I think you may need a card with multiple tuners (or more than one card). Im not sure though.
EDIT: oh I see you have more than one card, so yes.

I'll need a USB UIRT, correct?

Maybe not. If theres a firewire port in the back of your box you can control it thru a firewire cable. There a program out there that handles it, and its quite simple to use. I think its called EXEtuner. You may also want to try video thru firewire, but thats a different animal.

[robertmcox]

What you want to do is a good idea - you'll be able to watch StarGate like the rest of us!!

The firewire route will consume too much bandwith for SD and it's a bitch to set up, so I'd use a USB-UIRT or IR200L. If you want to use serial control (or an IR200L), you'll need a serial port, so consider that. My experience says a USB to serial adapter does not work well with Sage. Also consider the serial control does not work with all cable/satellite boxes and you never know what you'll do in the future... I'd suggest the USB-UIRT is the preferred device because it is "future proof" and Sage will handle the USB-UIRT for you builtin with no extra customization.

You can split before the cable box, that's exactly what I'd do, but if you get a crappy signal consider installing a powered amplifier for $15 at ratshack (but get an adjustable one and don't over-adjust it).

Your Hauppage remote will continue to work, no changes -- unless you change something ;-)

One problem I believe you will come upon is that now you have 2 tuners with different lineups, but from the same cable provider. In my understanding, this is not a supported configuration. So you can either:
1 - "fake" it with 1 tuner using another provider instead of Comcast and then remapping the channel numbers.
2 - customize with xmltv to "grab" your lineup for 1 of the tuners.

Option 1 is probably easier.

HTH

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by robertmcox

The firewire route will consume too much bandwith for SD and it's a bitch to set up,

Not necessarily. I just added digital service and set up a firewire-equipped STB. It probably took me a half-hour following a set of directions from the mega firewire thread.

As for bandwidth, I have a Motorola HD box and it encodes the analog channels to digital internally and uses less space than my normal analog tuners. I have been watching the filesizes of the recordings and it seems to average around 1-1.2gigs per hour for both "native" SD digital and encoded analog SD. In my limited usage so far, HD recordings can be from 4-8gigs per hour.

Your Hauppage remote will continue to work, no changes -- unless you change something ;-)

IF you go with complete firewire recording or even just firewire channel changing, then your Hauppage remote and IR-receiver shouldn't need to be messed with.

One problem I believe you will come upon is that now you have 2 tuners with different lineups, but from the same cable provider. In my understanding, this is not a supported configuration. So you can either:
1 - "fake" it with 1 tuner using another provider instead of Comcast and then remapping the channel numbers.
2 - customize with xmltv to "grab" your lineup for 1 of the tuners.

I would look at your channel listings, but in my case, I had a digital lineup and an regular lineup available from <snip>. I just use the digital lineup for the Firewire STB and the regular lineup on the analog tuners. No remapping necesary at all.

If you have a digital lineup and a regular lineup avail, then your all set, just enable/disable the channels on each lineup that you need to and your done. IF not, then you may be able to find a neighboring city that has the same lineup and use that for one of the tuners. IF it is still Comcast and has the same channel lineup then you shouldn't need to remap anything.

[mechling-burgh]

I have Comcast in Pittsburgh and most of the digital channels are 5c encrypted. All of the over the air HD channels ABC, CBS, etc are not allowed to be encrypted so you could use firewire to record those stations the 5c channels won't record over firewire SciFi, HBO, Bravo, etc..

So I would ask Comcast for a HD box even if you don't hava an HD TV you can record the over the air HD channels through firewire and you could watch them on the computer in HD, cheap HD TV. I record all of the digital channels by svideo to a mce 150. I installed it twice with two diffrent cable line ups (Comcast extended and comcast digital) annd exetuner to change the channels. Sage is smart enough to know that the card is being used by the svideo cable and won't use the analog one at the same time. I have also found myself recording the shows I can in HD over the svideo instead of firewire. I use an mvp so I can't play HD back on it any way. I have found that the picture quality is much better that way.

The firewire seems to also be better and faster at channel changing from what I have heard.

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by ke6guj

As for bandwidth, I have a Motorola HD box and it encodes the analog channels to digital internally and uses less space than my normal analog tuners.

Damn, I wish SA boxes would do that. I cannot use firewire for channels below 101.

As far as 5C encrpytion, it seems some are luckier than others. For me I have most non-premium digital channels in the clear. As far as HD goes, I have 3 out of 4 locals + PBS-HD (some sort of dispute here with the CBS affiliate), Universal-HD, INHD, ESPN-HD, TNT-HD, Discovery-HD are all in the clear. The new music-HD, and ESPN2-HD are NOT in the clear. I switched out boxed recently, and when you do that you get every premium. I noticed Starz was in the clear, but none of the other premiums.

Its very strange to me that ESPN is clear, but ESPN2 is encrypted.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

Damn, I wish SA boxes would do that. I cannot use firewire for channels below 101.

As far as 5C encrpytion, it seems some are luckier than others. For me I have most non-premium digital channels in the clear.

Oh yah, the fact that the motorola encodes the analogs is sweet. I read that in the mega-firewire thread a while back and hoped that I would get a motorola box when I upgraded. It basically gives me 6 tuners, 5 internal analog tuners + the HD-box.

And as far as 5C encryption, I must be very lucky. No 5C on anything, and I get everything over firewire that I subscribe too. I haven't checked the digital music, so that may be, but I don't care about that.