Encrypted HD QAM content into Sage

[btrcp2000]

that's a great find! why didn't i think of that?? maybe can become a workable plan b via an HDhomerunwhen they throw my 5c switch. I can't bring myself to experiment with it though, as I have have a stable sage setup for the first time since... ever, including 2 firewire tuners.

[mohanman]

Ummm guys.. This works. I just tried it out on my macbook pro, a elgato hybrid tv tuner (usb) and a comcast DCT 3416 box. I hooked it up as it stated in the the directions with rf output. The picture looks pretty good, I can't exactly tell if it is HD or not, I think it is. Anyway, the only thing is you do need to change channels manually or with IR blaster, but this is a good alternative. Just need confirmation this is indeed HD?
Thanks
Mo

[mohanman]

But then you would also have the issue of how to get IR blaster support for the tv tuner select in sagetv and how would the guide "know" what you are doing also with channel changes. Otherwise I think this is great.
Mo

[mohanman]

Nevermind. I tried it again. I can't get an HD signal, it only is at 720x480.
Back to the drawing board.
Mo

[m1abrams]

I tested this with my SA 4250HD which also has an RF output. I connected the output to my TV since my TV has a builtin QAM tuner. This is an easier test than using the HDHomerun.

What I got was the output modulated on channel 3. However as what the above poster noted the output is the downconverted HD signal and is an Analog signal. This is what I suspect the blog writer actually found. I currently have been using this method to record my TV anyhow except using the S-video outputs of the STB.

[GbrNole]

Originally Posted by m1abrams

I tested this with my SA 4250HD which also has an RF output. I connected the output to my TV since my TV has a builtin QAM tuner. This is an easier test than using the HDHomerun.

What I got was the output modulated on channel 3. However as what the above poster noted the output is the downconverted HD signal and is an Analog signal. This is what I suspect the blog writer actually found. I currently have been using this method to record my TV anyhow except using the S-video outputs of the STB.

how good is the quality of the hd recordings using svideo into sage? iis it comparable to dvd quality or does the cable box do a lousy job of downconverting?

[m1abrams]

Originally Posted by GbrNole

how good is the quality of the hd recordings using svideo into sage? iis it comparable to dvd quality or does the cable box do a lousy job of downconverting?

It is better than the analog version, and some shows are in letterbox format and by tweaking one of the aspect ratios I can fill my 16:9 TV panel without having bars.

[dlandrum]

I stumbled onto this thread when searching for something else.

Summary: Tune to a channel on a SD receiver, the RF out coax feed is 480i QAM of that channel.
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?p=249428

Let's say this works with my cablebox ... I am at work and have not tried it.

I have 4xHDHR tuners and 2xPCI SD MPEG hardware encoders.
It seems this is a great find as one could remove thier PCI cards and get digitial recordings of all SD channels. Although it is not HD, it should be a better picture than the analog version we have today.

I can not think of a way to make this work without some Sage development.

We would need a way to:
1) IR blast the channel change even though this is a QAM tuner
2) Always tune to QAM channel "3" to get the stream


Query: When tuning to an HD channel, does the 5.1 sound get included with the downgraded 480i video?

* merged *