Free HD satellite content?

[AzJazz]

Is there any free HD satellite content available in the US?

If so, what would I need to interface with SageTV?

[jerryt]

Originally Posted by AzJazz

Is there any free HD satellite content available in the US?

PBSHD on AMC1 (87)

Originally Posted by AzJazz

If so, what would I need to interface with SageTV?

30 inch or larger dish with linear LNB, and Satellite tuner with MyTheatre (or DVBdream) and their respective network encoders.

[AzJazz]

Is there a 1x PCIe card (preferably, with hardware decoding) I can use? I have a slot available in my SageTV PC.

[jerryt]

Not many PCIe, check out Twinhan 1028.

[stuckless]

Some information about Software vs Hardware decoding in DVB cards. http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Full-featured_Card

Personally I have a "Budget" card, and recording content doesn't affect cpu usage much as at all. Viewing content (which is where the hardware decoding would come into play) does spike the CPU a bit. But if you have an HD extender (which includes hardware decoding), or if you have existing mpeg2 hardware decoding cards, then you may not notice any cpu usage as all. The article notes, that since mpeg4 encoded content is becomming more popular, then we may see a resurgence of hardware cards, but I would think that you'll gain the benefit of hardware decoding, if you use the video out on the card itself, or your software player, has direct support for the hardware capabilities of the card. Given that the HD extender has hardware decoding for mpeg4, then having hardware decoding is not much of an incentive for me.

Also, if you looking at buying a DVB card, then you may want to check out the DVB-S2 cards for futureproofing.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVB-S2

[zoundz]

Originally Posted by jerryt

PBSHD on AMC1 (87)

Not to pick nits but PBS-HD is on AMC3 at 87W not AMC1

According to Lyngsat: 12140V 30000 49 52 49

[AzJazz]

OK, so maybe I'll have to pass on the hardware decoding (but, I hate the idea of wasting valuable CPU/RAM for something that should be done more efficiently in hardware). I hope that on-the-fly decoding isn't required during the "saving to hard drive" processing.

I'm still very interested in your suggestions for DVB-S2 tuner(s) that work with SageTV. But, I don't have any PCI slots available in my current PC, just one 1x PCIe slot. USB may be an option, and dual tuners would sure be nice.

Also, do I need other software/hardware? I seem to be reading stuff in the forums here about problems getting EPG data, and interfacing with something called "myTheatre".

I'm new to this, and would appreciate any info ...

AzJazz

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by AzJazz

OK, so maybe I'll have to pass on the hardware decoding (but, I hate the idea of wasting valuable CPU/RAM for something that should be done more efficiently in hardware). I hope that on-the-fly decoding isn't required during the "saving to hard drive" processing.

Sage doesn't support any hardware decoder DVB cards anyway. If you don't want to use the CPU for decoding you'll want to look into PureVideo or ATI's UVD video cards (basically Geforce 8/9 series or ATI 2000/3000 series).

[AzJazz]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Sage doesn't support any hardware decoder DVB cards anyway. If you don't want to use the CPU for decoding you'll want to look into PureVideo or ATI's UVD video cards (basically Geforce 8/9 series or ATI 2000/3000 series).

Thanks, stanger89 - I have an 8800 GTS SLI setup, and PureVideo installed. I interpret your response to mean that the video card(s) will do all the "heavy lifting" for any required HD decoding.

So, anybody have suggestions for a DVB-S2 PCIe card or DVB-S2 USB device (with software decoding) to use with SageTV?

[stanger89]

I don't think the 8800 does full AVC/VC1 decoding but it should help a lot. I believe the GeForce 8200/8300 mGPU and maybe the 9 series are the first nVidia solutions with full decode.