HD question

[robk]

I've been using a Hauppauge 250, sageTV (and client and placeshifter) and a DTV set top box for a couple of years without any problems (serial tuning, SVideo connection). If I get a HD STB, I know I have to replace the Hap 250 with an HD card - my questions are: 1) what card would be best for SD and HD, and 2) what type of cable is used to connect the STB to the Hap card? It can't be as easy as using an SVideo cable and RCA plug audio. Do I need some sort of component video or other "exotic" cabling? This is in my home office, no real need for multiple tuner cards, display is a 21" widescreen (DVI input used from video adapter), decent ATI video card, Pentium4 2.6Ghz, 1 Gig ram - hopefully the hardware will suffice!

Thanks much-
Rob

[GKusnick]

Short answer is that there is no inexpensive capture device for taking HD output from DirecTV into Sage. There may be one or more component capture solutions materializing sometime this year (maybe in the next few months), but right now there's zip.

If you can't wait (and you're in an urban area), your best bet for right now is an ATSC HD tuner for receiving local HD broadcasts over the air.

[robk]

Well, that's not good to hear! I don't know why we even need HD TV. For the FCC to mandate it , in my opinion is crazy.

Also, I wanted to get premium movies in HD - I never watch network TV so no use for over-the-air stations with commercials!

I guess I'll put it off for quite a while since there is no easy answer to keeping the functionality of SageTV and integrating DTV or Dish.

Thanks for the advice-
Rob

[stanger89]

Hopefully there will be a solution from Hauppauge and/or Sage in a month or two.

[robk]

Is it just a video thing? In other words, the tuner card needs a DVI or HDMI video connector and compatible hardware to display the video?
Rob

[GKusnick]

HDMI capture for premium HD is not likely to happen anytime soon due to DRM issues.

Analog capture from component video is what we're waiting for. The issue there is price/performance: chips capable of encoding analog component video from your STB to MPEG4 in real time at reasonable file sizes are just now coming down to consumer-level price ranges.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Short answer is that there is no inexpensive capture device for taking HD output from DirecTV into Sage. There may be one or more component capture solutions materializing sometime this year (maybe in the next few months), but right now there's zip.

If you can't wait (and you're in an urban area), your best bet for right now is an ATSC HD tuner for receiving local HD broadcasts over the air.

Is the only way to record HD with SageTV with cable TV (besides over the air HD)? Or does Dish Network work?

I am thinking about moving to HDTV soon, and I would like to switch back to satellite from cable TV. If HDTV can only be recorded from cable TV, then it looks like I may be stuck with cable TV until there is a solution for Dish Network or DirecTV.

I do plan to buy a HDHomerun unit for over the air HD, since I suspect that I will be able to get a perfect picture with digital HDTV instead of analog over the air TV, which has fuzziness and some ghosting with the roof top antenna. I disagree with Robk about too many commercials on over the air TV, since Comskip or ShowAnalyzer makes most of the commercials go away.


Dave

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by davephan

Is the only way to record HD with SageTV with cable TV (besides over the air HD)? Or does Dish Network work?

Today, there are three ways to record HD with Sage:

1) You can record "clear" content directly, that's either OTA via an ATSC card, or over cable with a QAM card.

2) You can record "copy freely" content over firewire from a Cable box.

3) You can get your cable or satellite box modded with an R5000 mod and record anything you subscribe to, if you've got a compatible box.

In the near future (next month according to some reports) there should be a fourth way:

4) Record the analog component HD with a Hauppauge and/or SageTV component input hardware H.264 encoder device. This will work with anything with component outputs.

[sleonard]

Currently there is:

1) OTA ATSC HDTV tuners and whatever channels you get from an antenna. -- Cheap and easy but limited channels.

2) An R5000 modded box. Works best with Dish and certain cable boxes.
- All subscribed channels but very expensive and may not work with the boxes your provider supplies.

3) Wait a few months and get the upcoming Hauppage Device that captures the analog video from component (Y,Pb,Pr).
- Will work with any box that has component output no matter who is the provider (cable or sat) and is only moderately expensive. There are a few minor unknowns until Hauppage tells us more about this device.

S

[Pretzelboy]

Originally Posted by robk

Well, that's not good to hear! I don't know why we even need HD TV. For the FCC to mandate it , in my opinion is crazy.

The FCC didn't mandate HDTV, it mandated digital television. It's just taking the form of HDTV. Many stations aren't even broadcasting in HD. Digital television takes up far less spectrum than analog and they want to cram more into less space. Then they want to auction off the unused spectrum to the highest bidder. (That's been in the news a lot lately.) The HDTV part is immaterial. It's the digital part the FCC wants so the government can make lots of money off the unused spectrum.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by stanger89

3) You can get your cable or satellite box modded with an R5000 mod and record anything you subscribe to, if you've got a compatible box.

Do you have a link that would tell me what I need to buy and how to do the R5000 mod? I tried searching for R5000, but haven't found anything specifically what to buy and how to do the mod. I would like to switch to ether DirecTV or Dish Network from Comcast cable TV.


Dave

[stanger89]

Well that's easy, Nextcommwireless doesn't support any of the MPEG-4 DirecTV boxes, so your best/only bet is Dish Network, and they support most any box (eg VIP211).