Multiple tuners & satellite TV

[Ryand833]

Hello all,

I'm having some problems with the local cable company with reliability, and am considering switching to satellite.

The only problem is that I have 4 tuners in my sage box (two PVR-150's and one PVR-500). I already have media extenders on every TV in the house, so watching TV through those would be fine.

I would need to get four satellite boxes for the Sage server, but how would I be able to have Sage change the channels on these boxes? I'd have to use IR blaster, right?

And if I do that, I'd have to a way to control changing the channel on four boxes, so what would I do, get 4 USB-UIRT's?

Surely other people are in the same scenario I'm in, what would be the simplest way to achieve this?

*NOTE*
I have read a post mentioned in one of the stickies on this forum:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...534#post115534
I am researching the info mentioned in this post right now. I do already own one USB-UIRT unit.

[ke6guj]

Your UIRT can control 3 identical satellite recievers (STB). If you get Dish, I believe you can set up their STB to work on a different IR code, so you could run more than 3 STBs on one UIRT. Otherwise, you would need to get a second UIRT, or maybe look into serial tuning for 1 or all of your STBs.

[BFisher]

Or use serial ports for changing channels. Can get expensive though if you need to add serial ports. For 4, I'd consider getting a multiple serial port box (1 USB=4 serial ports). Depending on the satellite tuners you get, you may need a Patterson Tech cable (I have 1, works good), or you can control via a simple serial cable (I have 1 STB that works this way too).

Overall, serial works quite well, I've had no complaints...

[Ryand833]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Does anyone have experience with the dual-tuner satellite receivers? I guess you can run two TV's off of one receiver and use an IR remote for one and, I'm assuming an RF for the other.

I'm going to opt for 4 single tuners if I can, hopefully, but is there any solution for the type of RF/UHF tuning that a dual-tuner receiver uses?

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by Ryand833

Thanks for the replies guys.

Does anyone have experience with the dual-tuner satellite receivers? I guess you can run two TV's off of one receiver and use an IR remote for one and, I'm assuming an RF for the other.

I'm not aware of anybody getting access to 2 signals from 1 receiver. I know that hat the directivo box used the second tuner to record only, and the cable company STBs are the same way. Nobody has been able to get access to the second tuner via firewire. There was 1 Sage user that had a setup that did 2 outputs from one STB, but I don't recall what it was.

I'm going to opt for 4 single tuners if I can, hopefully, but is there any solution for the type of RF/UHF tuning that a dual-tuner receiver uses?

I think 4 singles is the only way to go. Even if you have a dual-tuner STB that can output to 2 tv's, there aren't any RF blasters, so you are gonna have to figure something else out.

[Ryand833]

Just ordered the package. I'll be getting four single receivers, Dish model 301's, confirmed with the tech support guy that they're IR, so I should be all set to go.

Thanks for all the help guys, and I"m sure I'll be making more posts on Friday when I'm setting it up