Looking for SageTV/DirecTV recommendations

[jbarr]

BRIEF BACKGROUND
Back in the late 90's, we were avid subscribers to DirecTV, and combined with several ReplayTV boxes, everything worked well--very well. 3 years ago, we moved, and we have since been served by Charter Cable, and overall, the service has been great (service as in "offerings", not customer service--that's another issue.) Charter, combined with SageTV, has been an excellent choice, and we are happy with the results with one analog connection and one digital STB connection.

But as anyone knows who has dealt with cable companies, the honeymoon is long over, prices no longer are discounted, and the prices continue to go up and up. In an effort to try to cut some costs, we are again looking into DirecTV.

We found that the Choice Xtra package will fit our needs, and the overall price is less than Charter's "Big Value" package. We have no current need for HD, but eventually, we may (I do understand the issues related to Satellite HD.)

So the programming aligns nicely, but now, I need to address the SageTV technical issues of managing inputs and changing channels. What do fellow SageTV/DirecTV users recommend for a solid SageTV/DirecTV setup?

RECEIVERS
Initially, I would like to connect at 2 receivers to two existing PVR-150 cards. Down the road, I may add a third receiver and PVR-150 card, but for now, I'm limiting it to two. What receivers do you recommend? The DirecTV site seems to have limited "plain" receivers.

Do you recommend I purchase/lease new ones from a DirecTV dealer, or should I go to eBay and try my luck there? (I see LOTS of D10 and D11 boxes at very reasonable prices on eBay.)

CONNECTIVITY
I am also wondering how DirecTV boxes are controlled (to change the channels.) Are they plain IR requiring IR blasters, or can I use serial connections? (I prefer serial if possible.) Will I need any SageTV add-ons to control via serial? (For example, our DCT-2000 digital cable box needed a small add-on application to control the DCT-2000 via serial.)

My goal is to simply have everything functionally work the same as it now does: Select a show to watch or record, and let SageTV do the rest. It's the technical "middle part" I'm having a bit of trouble with.

Looking forward to your comments and suggestions....

[bcjenkins]

D11 or D12 are good enough. go to http://www.patersontech.com for serial tuning. Leasing makes more sense for the receivers as they will give you them free.

B

[trini0]

Check out my recent posts. I'm a recent convert to DirectTV, with the same package you're looking at.
Its not a big deal to get Sage involved with DirectTV.

[mayamaniac]

I tried serial connection to a D10, and that worked very well although I had to use an old DLL plus a registry entry to get it working.

By the way, that brief background isn't needed, all you have to ask was what STB to get and how to control DTV STBs.

For the DCT cable boxes, I just use Multi-DCTuner 1.2, which is just a DLL plus some other files to place in SageTV's Common folder, there is no external app.