SageTV media extender details

[franco7777]

Hi, I'm thinking of purchasing a media extender but I'd like to know a little more about the device and SageTV's website is not generous on the details.

First, is there a picture available of the device that clearly shows all of the inputs and outputs? The pictures on SageTV's website are tiny and I can't tell what they are. Really what I'm looking for is whether or not it has coax cable input. I guess a better way to phrase my question would be, does the media extender have its own tuner, or does it require that you use one of the tuners from the SageTV server. I only have one tuner right now on my SageTV server, so a media extender wouldn't do me much good right now if it used the tuners on the SageTV server.

Which leads me to my second question....what's the video quality like if it has to stream live TV over the network connection, especially wirelessly? I can't imagine it being very good, which is why I'd think a tuner in the extender would be great. Does it buffer a lot of it? Can you change the settings to tell it to buffer more of the data before it starts playing?

I'm not a quality junkie. I just need nice decent analog TV quality playback to enjoy my shows, but I don't want delays, pauses, etc. while I'm watching my shows.

Thanks for any input you may have!

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by franco7777

Hi, I'm thinking of purchasing a media extender but I'd like to know a little more about the device and SageTV's website is not generous on the details.

First, is there a picture available of the device that clearly shows all of the inputs and outputs? The pictures on SageTV's website are tiny and I can't tell what they are. Really what I'm looking for is whether or not it has coax cable input. I guess a better way to phrase my question would be, does the media extender have its own tuner, or does it require that you use one of the tuners from the SageTV server. I only have one tuner right now on my SageTV server, so a media extender wouldn't do me much good right now if it used the tuners on the SageTV server.

Which leads me to my second question....what's the video quality like if it has to stream live TV over the network connection, especially wirelessly? I can't imagine it being very good, which is why I'd think a tuner in the extender would be great. Does it buffer a lot of it? Can you change the settings to tell it to buffer more of the data before it starts playing?

I'm not a quality junkie. I just need nice decent analog TV quality playback to enjoy my shows, but I don't want delays, pauses, etc. while I'm watching my shows.

Thanks for any input you may have!

It's a media extender, not a tuner. So no connection for TV coax. I wouldn't recommend wireless. Most people have better success with wired. And streaming the video to the extender and watching it on a SD tv results in an excellent picture. It has a hardware decoder and does very well. You won't see any delays or pauses if you're jsut recording SD analog TV and it is just reading mpeg2. It's when the Sage server has to transcode and HD stream or another format to mpeg2 where you may see some performance issues. And that's only if the server isn't powerful enough. I've had great sucess with 2 hard wired MVPs. Once connected to a 15" Sharp Aquos LCD tv and the other connected to a 26" Sony glass tube SD tv. (s-video connection to both)

Gerry

[waltraud]

Originally Posted by franco7777

Hi, I'm thinking of purchasing a media extender but I'd like to know a little more about the device and SageTV's website is not generous on the details.

First, is there a picture available of the device that clearly shows all of the inputs and outputs?

The Sage Media Extender is a Hauppauge MVP.

You can checkout the specs at http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/prods_mvp.html

PS: When you use it with SageTV it will not use the Hauppauge GUI but look exactly like a SageTV Client

[doc]

There are some slight differences on the units depending on where you're from.

The european model has a scart socket on the back for connecting to the TV, whereas the U/S version has composite and s-video connections.

[ntisdale]

The SageTV media extender is actually the Hauppauge MediaMVP (see http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/prods_mvp.html). Sage have developed custom software for it so that it can display the full SageTV interface through your TV without the need for a client PC. If you checkout the Hauppauge website you'll be able to see both the connections and the specs. No tuner is included in the extender as this is not it's function - it's a thin client for playing back media on your TV in essence. Note that the SageTV price for the extenders include the $29.99 license to be able to run the extender with SageTV.

Video quality is excellent for standard definition TV and IMHO far better than the quality many graphics card's component/s-video out outputs provide. Some people have problems with darkness & redness in the output of the extender but I think this depends on what design revision of the extender you receive - Both mine don't seem to suffer from this problem but it may be worth your while searching this forum (and others on the MediaMVP) for further details. As for delays alot depends on your SageTV server and I would also guess on the tuner card you're using too. I have very limited experience of tuner cards beyond DVB-T cards for UK digital TV but with my SageTV server running on an Athlon 2100 the channel changes are as quick as a modern dedicated PVR box I also own.

I would steer clear of using wireless to connect the extender to the network. I have a wired extender but people report that the wireless link is not so realiable and when it drops out the extender has to net boot of the server again which is not good when you're in the middle of watching something - wired is the way forward by all accounts.

[ntisdale]

Too slow :-(

[franco7777]

Thanks to everyone for the input. It looks like I'm not ready to make the jump to a media extender. I can't go wired unless I want wires running through my hallway (I'm renting the house, so I can't run it through the walls). I'll just live with one TV with SageTV in the house for the time being, until I move to a house that I own and will wire for Gigabit ethernet. I really appreciate all of the help though and I hope to one day be able to contribute to the forums as I become more of an expert on SageTV. I just purchased my license this past weekend.

[mdnttoker]

Originally Posted by franco7777

Thanks to everyone for the input. It looks like I'm not ready to make the jump to a media extender. I can't go wired unless I want wires running through my hallway (I'm renting the house, so I can't run it through the walls). I'll just live with one TV with SageTV in the house for the time being, until I move to a house that I own and will wire for Gigabit ethernet. I really appreciate all of the help though and I hope to one day be able to contribute to the forums as I become more of an expert on SageTV. I just purchased my license this past weekend.

You can go wireless...but do not buy the wireless MVP.

But a wired MVP and then buy a wireless bridge to plug it into. I'm running DD-WRT on a Linksys WRT54g wireless bridge and get excellent streaming SDTV.

[ntisdale]

Or powerline networking i.e. LAN over the mains supply

[obsidianjaguar]

kinda of a silly question , but lets sayI have got a Sage Tv PC all going ion the living room , and my partner is geting jealous , she wants to have all tah fuctionality in the bedroom .. I dont have a tv or LCD other than whats alrady on the pc in th eliving room ... Do I need to buy a cheap pc in order to get an LCD running in the bedroom , and if so what sort of equipment and sw must i get?

[stevech]

purchase a low cost small LCD TV and a Hauppauge MVP (from sage), with sage MVP license.

Run ethernet to bedroom from your home LAN router/switch. Connect ethernet to MVP and MVP to TV.

Add license to sage server on the main TV.

MVP can then do most everything the main Sage can.