Hauppauge WinTV HD PVR (H.264) screenshot and pre-order link

[nebulink]

Originally Posted by mihooper

Paulbeers,
This is where I'm confused. If the Sage server communicates with the HD PVR via USB, why do I need the IR emitter on the HD PVR to control the HD PVR?

Sorry to be so dense.........

The HDPVR is only a capture device. You have to have some way to control the HD STB and that is where the IR Emitter comes in. You can use the emitter that comes with the HDPVR or a USB-UIRT to accomplish this.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by mihooper

Paulbeers,
This is where I'm confused. If the Sage server communicates with the HD PVR via USB, why do I need the IR emitter on the HD PVR to control the HD PVR?

Sorry to be so dense.........

The IR emitter on the HDPVR is an option that you can use to control your STB.

[Razillian]

The IR emitter is to control your STB, ie to change the channels for sage. If you can change the channels on the STB that is hooked to the HDPVR another way (firewire or USB) then you don't need the IR emitter.

[mihooper]

The IR emitter is to control your STB, ie to change the channels for sage. If you can change the channels on the STB that is hooked to the HDPVR another way (firewire or USB) then you don't need the IR emitter.

The IR emitter on the HDPVR is an option that you can use to control your STB.

You have to have some way to control the HD STB and that is where the IR Emitter comes in.

Got it! Thanks guys! I will be using Firewire to control the STB, so it looks like I can dodge to bullet on the intermittent IR emitter.
Thanks for the help.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by mihooper

Paulbeers,
This is where I'm confused. If the Sage server communicates with the HD PVR via USB, why do I need the IR emitter on the HD PVR to control the HD PVR?

Sorry to be so dense.........

It doesn't control the HDPVR. It is used as an IR blaster by Sage and is used to change the channel on your set top box.

Gerry

[Taddeusz]

Yea, firewire is nice for changing channels. I got a new HD capable cable box a couple weeks ago and finally got that set up earlier in the week. It's quite noticeably faster than using my USB-UIRT.

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by mihooper

Paulbeers,
This is where I'm confused. If the Sage server communicates with the HD PVR via USB, why do I need the IR emitter on the HD PVR to control the HD PVR?

Sorry to be so dense.........

You don't control the HDPVR with the IR Emitter. An Emitter, emits, not receives. It has the ability to receiver also, in which you would address it as the HDPVR's IR Receiver. As far as I know SageTV does not currently know about or use the Receiver function, so ignore that it is there.

Sagetv tells the HDPVR via USB to start recording and to change the channel. If you have your IR Emitter configured properly, and SageTV sees it properly, the HDPVR internally sends an IR signal out of it's IR emitter to change the channel on your cable box. In my case this doesn't work with more than one HDPVR, so I have a setup that ignores the IR Emitter on the HDPVR, and separately SageTV tells my USBUIRT to change the channel on the cable box, at the same time it tells the HDPVR to record.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by cslatt

I ordered June 20th and was told my order wouldn't ship until the 2nd week in July. Haven't heard anything since then.

Ditto for me.

[Razillian]

I ordered mine about a week ago and was told it should ship out the end of next week.

[cslatt]

Mine shipped today. Ordered June 20th, order # 35630

[Taddeusz]

Well, I haven't gotten a shipping notice yet but it appears that Hauppauge has charged my card today. I had ordered mine on June 27th.

Update: Not long after I posted this I received the shipping number. It will probably be here on Monday since I got 2nd day shipping.

[sorrowstyr]

I am super excited that they got the over heating issue fixed, and DD is in the
pipeline.

I have quick question, I am going to buy 1 or 2 of the HD PVR's for my HTPC, but can my machine handle the decoding of 1080p video and output to my TV while its being recorded to the system?

Here are the stats of my machine:

AMD 4200+ w/ Win XP Pro
2GB DDR Ram
1 TB Seagate Sata
2 x 250 GB Seagate IDE
Nvidia 6600 GTS using DVI => HDMI to my TV

Since completely upgrading my machine would be costly, would just getting a STX-100 be the cheapest path ?

Thanks for the input!

-Sorrowstyr

------
Want Personal Freedom ? -- Get Sage TV baby with Com Skip

[Taddeusz]

Is that an X2 4200? In my experience, no, at 2.2Ghz the X2 4200 is not fast enough to playback 1080p H.264 by itself. Since you only have a 6600GTX then the decoding duties will be fully on the processor. At the very least you'd need a new video card and use a decoder you know for sure supports H.264 hardware acceleration.

BTW, I have an X2 4200 in my server and I was never able to get 1080p H.264 to playback smoothly on it. 720p yes, 1080p no. H.264 just requires more CPU to decode than MPEG2.

[sleonard]

The two remaining HD-PVR's arrived yesterday and appear to be working although time will tell. I had one really strange issue when setting them up in Sage. First a little info. The 3 HD-PVR's are replacing 3 PVR 250's that were connected to 3 STB's and using USB-UIRT zones for IR control. I went to a lot of trouble to get them set up so that tuner 1, STB 1 and USB-UIRT zone 1 were associated. Same for tuner 2, STB 2, and zone 2. Same for tuner 3, STB 3, and zone 3. This makes it much easir to figure out problems.

I already had one set up and working with Sage while waiting on the other two to return from RMA. It was connected to STB 1 and using the USB-UIRT zone 1 for IR control.

I connected the second HD-PVR to STB 2 and the Sage server and restarted the Sage service so that Sage would recognize it. I then went to Setup> Setup Video Sources> Add New Source. I then followed the standard steps to add HD PVR #2 to Sage as well as the USB-UIRT zone 2 for IR control. Everything fine and dandy at this point.

Then I connected the 3rd HD-PVR to STB 3 and restarted the Sage service (If you don't restart then Sage won't see the newly connected device). Setup>Setup Video Sources> Add New Source. Chose HD-PVR #3 and component. Here's where things went screwy. The preview was from STB 1 not STB 3 like it should have been so I went back to the previous page and looked at the previews for PVR's 1 and 2.

What I found was that as soon as I added the 3rd HD-PVR instead of naming it #3, Sage renumbered all 3 HD-PVR's so that none of them were connected to the right STB or using the correct zone. Real PITA to get corrected.

S

[sorrowstyr]

Yes it is an X2.

Ok. I ll start looking for a video card that does h.264 hardware acceleration. But does the STX-100 do this already? If so I can just get it and not worry about the server.

Edit:

STX-HD100 File Format & Codec Support

File Formats:
AVI, ASF, MPEG, MKV, QuickTime, MP4, Ogg, WMV, DVD (VIDEO_TS folder structures)

Video Codecs:
MPEG-1
MPEG-2 MP@HL
MPEG-4.2 ASP@L5
H.264 up to 1080p
WMV9/VC-1 up to 1080p

Audio Codecs:
MPEG Audio
AAC
Vorbis (stereo only)
AC3 (stereo down-mix/pass-through)
WMA
FLAC
DTS (pass-through)

Does this mean no transcoding required??? If so awesome!! I ll just go buy the STX-100 right now then, and I wont have to upgrade my server right ?

[Brent]

Originally Posted by sorrowstyr

But does the STX-100 do this already? If so I can just get it and not worry about the server.

Yes, the STX-100 handles HD-PVR output with flying colors. I have on HD100 with one more on the way. I also have a HTPC that handles the HD-PVR files, but it is a dual processor.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by sorrowstyr

Yes it is an X2.

Ok. I ll start looking for a video card that does h.264 hardware acceleration. But does the STX-100 do this already? If so I can just get it and not worry about the server.

That would be my suggestion. The HD100 plays back 1080p H.264 wonderfully with very little draw on your server. That's how I have SageTV connected to my TV.

[sorrowstyr]

Sweet, thats just what I ll have to do.

Oh wow, and I see they have the HD-PVR on SageTV product site now too. Time to pick up both.

Thanks guys!

[Opus4]

You can now purchase the HD-PVR from the SageTV store -- see this topic for links:

Hauppauge HD-PVR now available in the SageTV store

- Andy

[Shield]

Originally Posted by sleonard

1. Yes, that is how it is supposed to work.

2. I saw one post yesterday over at the AVScience forum about a program that can do it.

S

Regarding #2 - What about the "AVC HD Editor" that is part of the ArcSoft TotalMedia Extreme package? Anyone use it?