Which way is best?

[pat_smith1969]

I am getting a new house and must make a decision on my TV provider soon. I need your guy's advice.

I am in the Maryland/Baltimore area. I can do Comcast, Dish, or Direct TV.

Which of these offer the best options for SageTV. Below are my criteria.
1. Multiple tuner ability. I have three or four TV tuners in my Sage TV now (working off the comcast feed with no STB) and when I use a STB I will need to use three or four of them.

2. Channel Changing method/reliability. We have a TIVO and it only gets the correct channel 7 out of 10 times. I am hoping for an alternative option to using an IR Blaster that works ALL THE TIME!!!

3. HD ability. I have a HDHomeRun that I like but I would like to eventually go to a solution where I can watch ANY hd content I pay for. I realize this means I will need to go with a R5000 or 169time.com solution, but which TV vendor works best with these solutions? I looked at each site and it seems that IF I get the right STB from Comcast and IF they turn on a port for me I can work with their solution. My experience has been that they will do NOTHING I ask of them. I looked at the Dish Network but there seems to be some issue with MPeg4 not working correctly.


What solutions do you have that you like, and that work best for you? Is there any solution for FIOS yet?

[mattdcknsn]

What do you mean? I have FIOS (in NOVA) and its working fine so far. I use a STB and have used analog but quality was too poor. I do use an IR blaster, but I have missed 1 recording in the past month that I know of because of it. There are no serial ports enabled on their STBs but otherwise its working fine.

Originally Posted by pat_smith1969

What solutions do you have that you like, and that work best for you? Is there any solution for FIOS yet?

[pat_smith1969]

BUt you cant get HD content out of it, at least not all your HD content, like HBO HD.

[bcjenkins]

I use 4 DirecTV boxes with PatersonTech USB tuning devices. I do not have any issues with tuning, I took the advice from the Paterson website and bought the serial adapters they said had the same chipset. (Bafo)

You can use your HD Homerun with basic lifeline service from comcast or verizon if you do not want a rooftop antenna. (This will get you local HDs via QAM)

Lastly, there may be an alternative to the R5000 later this year for cable companies. When the market opens up for consumers to purchase their own pvr boxes (Digeo Moxi is one) they may come with better/looser controls over some of the ports (firewire)

hih

B

[pat_smith1969]

If I go with Comcast, what are my current options for changing the channel on the STBs that comcast will provide? Apart from sending the STB into be modified, what are the options, just IR Blaster?

[ke6guj]

If the STB that you get has a firewire port, you can use firewire to change the channel (almost 100% reliable). If it has firewire, you may even be able to capture some, or all, channels in digital format through the firewire port, no tuner needed. Your mileage WILL vary on the number of channels you can record, it's dependent on your cable company and how much 5C encryption they do.

You may even be able to do serial tuning, but I dont' know the specifics on that.