Multiple source, channel overlap

[jrog]

I posed this scenario and these questions in another post, but it seems more appropriate to ask here. I guess I'm confused about the channel lineups and overlapping channels among devices. I only have an HDHomerun at the moment, but I'm going to be adding more tuners very soon. I'd like to continue to keep everything on the same channel number that I get from Comcast as well.

So, I just ordered a comcast HD box to use with my upcoming HD-PVR, and I have a PVR-150 I plan to use with just the coax input, in addition to my HDHomerun. Would it be best to the setup the Coax as Comcast-basic, the HD-PVR as Comcast-Digital, and then my HDHomerun as something else? Can I still make the channel numbers overlap? I've also heard people setting up some lineups as though it's in a different town? what's that about?

Lineup 1: 2-99 - PVR-150
Lineup 2: 800s - Unencrypted QAM HD only to HDHomerun
Lineup 3: Everything - HD-PVR

The first two would not overlap, but I would prefer both 1 and 2 to have priority over 3. Essentially, the only channels I wouldn't have dual tuner support for would be premium Digital/HD channels. Is this easy to implement?

Thanks,

jrog

[paulbeers]

Yes that is how you will do it. That is how I am doing it.

1. PVR150 is comcast basic
2. HD PVR is Comcast Digital (or whatever)
3. HDHomerun OTA (or whatever)

The only time you need to use different zip codes is when you are using the same line up (comcast basic for example) but need to turn off different channels per line up.

[bialio]

Channel mapping is one of the great strengths of SageTV - it's more flexible than anything I've seen on other PVR systems.

What you will prbably want to do (if the HDHR is only getting locals - which is frequently the case for clear QAM) is set Lineup2 to be OTA. You'll want to use Comcast Digital on your STB.

btl.

[jrog]

Sounds good. It seems to me that I can make the channels have any logical number I want... I can make the HD channels be 800s, or 200s, or whatever, and that's purely arbitrary, but it would be nice to have them correspond to what they should be from Comcast, and make things easier for the user.

Again, sorry if this has been explained, but after reading the manual in more detail, I'm curious about overlapping channels.

If I have 4 sources for FOX/CBS/NBC/ABC, 2 of which are QAM HD, 1 is analog only, and the third is capable of analog and HD (HD-PVR), can I still just map FOX to the same logical channel number across the board? It would only show up in the guide once, let's say, channel 25, but the priority would be the two QAM HD tuners, then the HD-PVR, and finally, the analog capture card? The user wouldn't know the difference, and for all intents and purposes, it would be HD all the time, unless there was a bunch of other stuff recording.

Or, does it make more sense to leave things spread out? Will this help to maintain control over what's what? I can see a problem where HD tuners are tied up recording SD content, when it might have made more sense to just record the analog SD feed in the first place.

[jrog]

So, I loaded up an HVR-1600 and configured the analog tuner yesterday, and when I tried to overlap analog channel numbers with HD channel numbers from my HDHomerun, I ended up with two channel 802s for PBS, one being the analog, and one being the digital. How is it that I would go about having only 1 channel 802 in this case, and have it be all three tuners? Then how do I set the priority, such that the analog version is the lowest priority for this channel?

[bialio]

The channels have to have the same name for Sage to combine them. Here in dallas PBS is KERA. So there is a KERA that comes in on analog cable, KERADT on QAM and OTA. So in that case, I changed the name of the analog one to KERADT. That puts them all on the same row in the guide. In the Channel Lineup screen you do this by remapping to a different station. It's the bottom option in the remap popup dialogue.

Then for priority there is a line in the sage.properties file for each tuner called decoder_merit. You need to make sure that the HVR-1600's analog tuner has a lower merit than the HDHR.

[jrog]

works like a charm. I have the digital version of the guide data (should support the HD flags better) and the analog tuner at a lower priority. Here's the tough situation in mind... When I add the HD box through the capture card, it will overlap with some of the analog only channels. For recording sake, I might want the analog tuners to be a higher priority, but for other recordings, I might want the HD. Is there a way to manage that, or should I eliminate the standard cable channels from the Digital settop box tuner, in order to make it easier? I just would hate to have my roomate be recording something on MTV in SD, and have it tie up my Digital HD Premium box so that I can't watch HBO or something.