Upgrading Equipment and Have a Bunch of Questions

[MadH]

If I should has this in another forum or a different section please let me know. I have not found a good/active HTPC forum besides sage so if anyone knows one please lets me know.

I've been a sage user for almost 5 years. I rarely upgraded the software because it has done what I've wanted it to.

But I'm moving on to HD and building a new HTPC.

Here come the questions.

1. I know sage supports multiple tuners, will it work with 4 (HVR-1800 and PVR-500)?

2. Recording HD is confusing me. Are the only channels I'll be able to record OTA or can I record HD through my STB(Cox Cable)?

3. I'd like to put a blu-ray drive in to watch movies. Will the Sage DVD player support this or do I need another player. If so is the quality degraded running through the HTPC? Should I forget it with the HTPC and get a STB?

4. The differences between PC and TV resoultions has always confused me. If your running at 1680x1050, for instance, this is much larger than 1080(I believe). Will the TV picture be stretched to fit the resoultion causing a crappy picture?

5. My new video card has HDMI out. Along the same lines. How do I set the resolution sent to the TV and what should it be set to.


Thanks in advance everyone.
MadH

[CollinR]

Originally Posted by MadH

Here come the questions.

1. I know sage supports multiple tuners, will it work with 4 (HVR-1800 and PVR-500)?

In theory yes however that is probably too much to be useful with a retail license. Once you go past 11 total tuners you are pretty out there.

Originally Posted by MadH

2. Recording HD is confusing me. Are the only channels I'll be able to record OTA or can I record HD through my STB(Cox Cable)?

You'll probably want to use QAM capture through the HVR1800, this lineup will vary by location.

Originally Posted by MadH

3. I'd like to put a blu-ray drive in to watch movies. Will the Sage DVD player support this or do I need another player. If so is the quality degraded running through the HTPC? Should I forget it with the HTPC and get a STB?

Too new to fully respond. I have confidence it will happen but right now there are few decoders for it. This will most likely be a server/full client only thing.

Originally Posted by MadH

4. The differences between PC and TV resoultions has always confused me. If your running at 1680x1050, for instance, this is much larger than 1080(I believe). Will the TV picture be stretched to fit the resoultion causing a crappy picture?

1680x1050 is smaller then 1920x1080, having the setting wrong will cause a stretched/distorted picture.

Originally Posted by MadH

5. My new video card has HDMI out. Along the same lines. How do I set the resolution sent to the TV and what should it be set to.

Use the native resolution of the TV, be that 1024x768, 1366x768, 1920x1080 whatever it is.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by MadH

1. I know sage supports multiple tuners, will it work with 4 (HVR-1800 and PVR-500)?

Yes it does. I'm running 8 tuners in my rig, and have recorded from all 8 simultaneously. The last I heard, the record was 9 or 10.

2. Recording HD is confusing me. Are the only channels I'll be able to record OTA or can I record HD through my STB(Cox Cable)?

HD is confusing to everyone.

Basically, you options are:
OTA with a digital OTA tuner like the HDHomerun.
Unscrambled cable QAM channels (ymmv, but usually just local digitals and maybe a couple other digital channels) via a QAM tuner like the HDHR.
Unencrypted non-5C channels from your STB via Firewire (ymmv on this as well to what your STB will output from the firwire port with 5C encryption).
Modify a cable or satellite STB with a R5000HD mod to be able to record all subscribed channels.