hdhomerun EPG mess

[arylin]

Hi,
I used to use an analog tuner with SageTV and it worked very well
in all respects. Now that I bought hdhomerun I'm totally
freaked by the need to do manual lineup configuration
(in two places - HDHR and SageTV !)
I've never managed to do it right. I wonder why SageTV
can't make it easier, especially since it's technically
quite possible - MythTV had no problems with EPG/HDHR.
I also wish SageTV could skip commercials - MythTV does that.
If somebody from SageTV reads this, could you
tell whether SageTV is planning to do something
on any of these issues ?

[Conejo]

This, the price you pay for being part of the evolution.

This stuff takes time.

SiliconDust has been working with SageTV to automate the channel discovery and configuration process. Yet we, the users, have demanded early access to the technology because WE WANT IT NOW. We're willing to deal with it not always being easy -- and every once in a while one of us will develop something to make it easier for the next person.

ATSC Over-The-Air is easier set up, being an open standard.
QAM tuning by computers is another thing all-together. It's not supported my Microsoft. Cable technical support is non-existent. The QAM channel assignments aren't published. This makes it difficult to automate the process.

SiliconDust is trying to make it easier. They've created a work-around to Microsoft's limitations and developed a server to help deal with program stream identification. You then pick up to 68 channels to tune and match these up in SageTV. Because this process is still evolving, damn us demanding early adopters, it will become better in the near future.

BTW, SageTV does skip commercials. There are at least TWO options you can use. Install the software.

Disclaimer: I am an end-user who has gone through many evolutionary developments of SageTV and the HDHR.

[arylin]

Conejo,
could you elaborate a bit on the 2 ways to skip commercials in SageTV ?
I do have SageTV installed (on XP32) but never knew this feature existed.

As for the EPG/HDHR, I guess that SiliconDust has done its part
as MythTV's EPG works well with HDHR - on Linux.

You mentioned some issue with Microsoft not supporting QAM.
Well, SageTV also works on Linux, isn't it ?
I didn't try it myself, but I'd guess that SageTV
on Linux has the same issue with EPG setup.

[Conejo]

Sorry about the slow reply. My net connection to the Sage forums seems to be failing, making the forum searches unbelievably long...

For commercial skip, there are two parts you need, an analyzer and a playback import module (STVi) to read the .txt or .edl frame skip files.

ANALYZERS available:
ComSkip Monitor + Comskip: Download and Discussion Thread
Showanalyzer: Download and Discussion Thread

PLAYBACK IMPORTS available:
STV Import: Comskip Playback for Default STV (v1.4.9 24/October/2007 for SageTV 5/6)

or... for those with a more refined taste:
STV: SageMC 16x9 Version 6.x (latest dev build) This option reskins entire SageTV experience and included the commercial skip module.