High Def... need ground zero help...

[hufnagel]

Ok. I have no idea what to look for here or even where to begin with this.

I have a client who has Cablevision's IO Digital Cable with High Def service. He's seen my PVR setup here and wants it for his own, but I'm on lowly old analog standard def cable service. Problem is I have no earthly clue how to do a HD setup. Now that the magic HD Extender has appeared can anyone point me to a tutorial on what hardware I'll need to make HD recording and playback possible for this guy? I'm betting it somehow involves hooking encoder boards to the decoder boxes he currently has (of which he has 3 at the moment) but beyond that I honestly don't even know what questions to even ask here so..... HELP!

[pez]

If this guy was a client of mine, someone who actually gives me money, and doesn't like to tinker with PC, I'd tell him to get an HD Tivo.

Now if he likes to tinker and has more to spend than what an HD Tivo cost, Sage is a good choice because you can distribute it throughout your house, etc.. you know the benefits.

You will want to look at either an R5000 or an HDHR or an ASTC tuner. HD shows are anywhere from 12Mbits/sec to 20Mbits/sec. So you'll need about 3-4x the space over SD. And, 3-4x the throughput on your harddrive.

The biggest issue is that if his cable company is not in the R5000 support list, he'll be stuck with ASTC or ClearQAM (HDHR). (I recommend you don't set up firewire for him.) This means he probably won't be able to record all the HD channels he's getting.

-pez

[hufnagel]

Right.

So is there anyone in the Watchung NJ area that's gotten Cablevision's service to work with their equipment? I've got a box put together with twin HVR-1600 boards. Has anyone sucessfully gotten any kinds of HD signals over the ATSC/QAM input and if so how? I can get the "Extended Basic" channells through the regular analog tuner port no problem.

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by hufnagel

Has anyone sucessfully gotten any kinds of HD signals over the ATSC/QAM input and if so how?

I have one of those, and ATSC signals are easy as long as your within reasonable distance of the tower. Just plug in an amped UHF ant. into the HVR's digital coax connector.

In Sage add a source, it should be named Hauppauge Digital or something like that. Add the digital local channels and you should be all set.

As far as cable, see the thread entitled "HD Component Capture with H.264 Encoder". QAM and firewire is fun to play around with, but good look getting any channels besides locals thru that.