What's the current recommended capture choice for DirecTV HD?

[Twinkle]

I'm currently a DirecTV customer using a DirecTivo for my PVR needs. I'm going to be upgrading to HD, at which point I need to build my own PVR, since Tivo is then out of the picture and I wouldn't touch DirecTV's DVRs with a ten foot pole.
I've searched and read quite a bit on the forums, but I was wondering what the current concensus was, insofar as the best solution for an HD dual tuner 5.1 setup.

I assume I'll need to get two of the regular HD receiver boxes from DirecTV and output via component video to the PC - but what is the best solution for the capture itself? I've seen talk of the Black Magic capture cards as well as the Hauppage HD-PVR, but they both seem to have issues, and I haven't see a clear choice yet. I assume there's no feasable solution to capture the sat feed directly...

So is the best solution going to be one of those two, or something else?

[phelme]

Originally Posted by Twinkle

I'm currently a DirecTV customer using a DirecTivo for my PVR needs. I'm going to be upgrading to HD, at which point I need to build my own PVR, since Tivo is then out of the picture and I wouldn't touch DirecTV's DVRs with a ten foot pole.
I've searched and read quite a bit on the forums, but I was wondering what the current concensus was, insofar as the best solution for an HD dual tuner 5.1 setup.

I assume I'll need to get two of the regular HD receiver boxes from DirecTV and output via component video to the PC - but what is the best solution for the capture itself? I've seen talk of the Black Magic capture cards as well as the Hauppage HD-PVR, but they both seem to have issues, and I haven't see a clear choice yet. I assume there's no feasable solution to capture the sat feed directly...

So is the best solution going to be one of those two, or something else?

Except for the NextCom MPEG-2 receiver-based R5000 option, which doesn't work with the new MPEG-4 receivers, the brand new Hauppauge HD-PVR is the only way to go for DirecTV HD. The Black Magic solution is too complicated and storage happy.

Follow the threads in the Hardware Forum to see how the early-adopters fare with the Hauppauge. It'll probably take a few weeks for all the associated support software to settle out.

[Twinkle]

Originally Posted by phelme

Except for the NextCom MPEG-2 receiver-based R5000 option, which doesn't work with the new MPEG-4 receivers, the brand new Hauppauge HD-PVR is the only way to go for DirecTV HD. The Black Magic solution is too complicated and storage happy.
Follow the threads in the Hardware Forum to see how the early-adopters fare with the Hauppauge. It'll probably take a few weeks for all the associated support software to settle out.

From what I read, the HD-PVR doesn't support 5.1 audio right now (I'll believe full support when I see it - I've been burned too many times by vaporware promises). But that aside, I have a few questions about using it:


1. Am I correct that if I use that, I will not need any additional capture cards? It just plugs into USB 2.0?

2. Are there any issues with using more than one at the same time? Sage TV can handle it? And will there be issues caused by them not having the full USB bandwidth available per unit, if they have to share?

3. Are there any issues with Live TV, performance, or anything else if the capture is coming over a USB connection instead of a direct PCIe capture?

[eopian]

1. Correct, 1 HD-PVR per hd box (and only 1 tuner per box)
2. Nobody knows yet as hauppauge is only shipping 1 per customer right now, but I assume somebody will know soon enough.
3. No. I am using a USB hard drive and several people use USB tuners already.
4. I would think about adding a SiliconDust HDHR and an OTA antenna to tune the locals in hidef as they are usually higher quality and will keep your HD tuners free for other uses.

[MarkV]

Have an R5000HD in a DirecTV STB and can control everything via the program guide in SageTV and I like this set up. It means I don't have to "boot" the TV to record content (aka leave my office and run down to use the terrible DirecTV program guide/search interface). Unfortunately, that means no mpeg4 content and I'm "under contract" with DirecTV for another year.

Given an HD-PVR and any DirecTV HR20, is there an automated way to have Sage control it ? the HR20 has a serial interface that I'm driving via a Philips TSU9600, but I can't see an easy way to have Sage's program guide drive the HR20. It looks like the typical way this is done via Sage telling something to puke IR cores.

What would be doing what in terms of control in the case of an HD-PVR with a set top box ?

[BFisher]

FWIW - I have 2 HD DTV boxes that I'm recording through an svideo card (well, 2 cards ), and the picture looks very good. HD? No. But very very good (significantly better than SD DirecTV). The downside is that the sound input is only stereo - no 5.1.

I view this as a step towards the HDPVR box... but I'm waiting for the bleeding edge users to find it's problems before I try it

[Mildcat]

I'm pretty much in the same boat with the OP - directv, looking for a HD solution (to eventually replace the HR20 I have in my home theather setup). I'd like to just throw in my experience so far in finding a solution, perhaps we can both benefit from the excellent Sage community.

I've taken a long look at SageTV, but have never jumped in. I recently put together a WHS box and really like that SageTV has a solution for WHS.

Now that the Hauppage HD device is out, looks like a viable solution is finally available.

After searching on the forums, I've put together this list of items to accomplish my final setup:
1. Patersontech USB TV translator ($42) (to control a new H20 receiver)
2. New directv H20 receiver ($19.95 upgrade from Directv for long time customer)
3. 500 GB HD ($85) (to be placed outside storage pool on WHS for TV recording)
4. SageTV HD extender + SageTV bundle ($249)
5. SageTV MVP license ($29.95) (I currently own an old wired MVP from back in the day)

Advantages (IMHO)
1. Central location for all media, TV, ripped DVDs, ect.
2. SageTV interface same across the board

Disadvantages
1. Only one HD tuner (unless 2 Hauppage HD devices will actually work)
2. Possibility of hours of setup, compatibility issues, and headaches
3. Cost. Considering I would be saving approx. $15 per month going from 3 STB to only 1 and removing my fee for DVR service, my payback time would be a whopping 4 years (this only considers the cost of the above). Throw in an add'l Hauppage HD device, add'l TV USB cable, and another HD extender - make that 7 years.

Considering the current costs and possible problems with the TV aspect of SageTV and Directv, I might just get the SageTV HD extender to stream my DVD collection and let the other stuff pan out. Currently, I've successfully been able to stream .ts formatted DVDs to the HR20 (what a piece of junk that thing is).

I've been researching media solutions for a long time now. I've found this forum to be the most useful, including some of the most helpful, level headed members I've seen to date. I noticed a cat avatar theme, so I jumped on that bandwagon.

[BFisher]

It depends on how much TV you watch record, but there is no way we could get by with just 1 tuner. We have 5 which works great for us.

3 are OTA (HD)
2 are HD DirecTV (currently recording through sVideo)
1 is SD DirecTV (backup, never needed it. Use it live for inlaws and babysitter mostly)

It's great to never worry about conflicts - I can record whatever we want on any channel... The DirecTV gets local channels too - but it only goes to them when it has to - otherwise it uses the antenna by first choice.

[jm9843]

Honestly, the best pure PVR solution for DirecTV seems to be upcoming with the Fiji edition of Vista Media Center and this. Then throw in a couple of Xbox 360's as extenders.

Of course, you run into problems if you are looking to stream DVD's with full menus, etc. or are looking for an integrated solution with Windows Home Server. Microsoft will stupidly not include it in version 2 I'm sure.

[Mildcat]

BFisher -

What tuners and what Directv STB's are you using?

Thanks for info -

jm9843 -

Wow, thanks for sharing that. I'll definately keep my eyes open for the HDCP20.

[jm9843]

Originally Posted by Mildcat

Wow, thanks for sharing that. I'll definately keep my eyes open for the HDCP20.

Glad that I could be of some help. I should have linked to the scan of the back of the pamphlet as well. It can be found here.

And on second thought, you may be able to integrate with WHS by running Vista in a virtual machine if (like me) you'd like to keep everything centralized.

[MarkV]

Originally Posted by Mildcat

...

Advantages (IMHO)
1. Central location for all media, TV, ripped DVDs, ect.
2. SageTV interface same across the board

Disadvantages
1. Only one HD tuner (unless 2 Hauppage HD devices will actually work)
2. Possibility of hours of setup, compatibility issues, and headaches
3. Cost. Considering I would be saving approx. $15 per month going from 3 STB to only 1 and removing my fee for DVR service, my payback time would be a whopping 4 years (this only considers the cost of the above). Throw in an add'l Hauppage HD device, add'l TV USB cable, and another HD extender - make that 7 years.

I see one huge advantage over using any DirecTV or Dish based standard recording system: long term content access. In addition to the R5000HD setup (which I would be completely happy with if it supported mpeg4) I have 2 TBs hooked up to an HR20 via esata. That's great and all until you don't subscribe to DTV or that particular channel. We had a recent storm and it reset the unit. The unit came up without access to some HD channels. It appeared that recorded content from the missing channels would not play back. This was a bit of a surprise. I was aware that if I cancelled my DirecTV subscription, the HR20 would become a paperweight, but wasn't aware how much the recorded content was tied to which channels I subscribed to. There's also the reality that the HR20 will die eventually so the content will go bye bye. It's just a matter of time.

The HDCP20 looks interesting although with HDCP in the name, I'm concerned about how the content will be protected.

As soon as they work out the hardware issues with the HD PVR, I'm going to add that as a route to get the content the R5000 HD is incapable of recording.

[BFisher]

Originally Posted by Mildcat

BFisher -
What tuners and what Directv STB's are you using?

Tuner cards are Avermedia M780 (2) and Hauppague 1800 (1). My STB's are H20s (2) and D12 (1).

[pat_smith1969]

I have the hd-pvr all setup and working on my Sagetv box. It DOES do 5.1 sound (on channels that support if of course). you simply use the optical SPDIF out cable from your STB to your HDPVR. It took maybe 1 hour to setup, probably less, of course I did some research before starting the setup so I saved time there.

The only down side I can see so far is that programs recorded on the hdpvr will not display on the MVP extenders (though the HD Extender works flawlessly).

Here is what I would suggest.

1. get one HDPVR and set it to record only your HD channels.
2. Get one HD Home Run and set it up to do OTA HD channels
3. Get a couple more tuner cards and set them up for non HD channels (using a svid cable from the STB to the tuner card).

This setup will give you the ability to record up to 1 channel of non-standard HD content. Up to 3 channels of standard OTA HD content (two HDHR recievers plus the HDPVR). Then depending on how many SVID tuner cards you chose to run you can have that many SD channels.

[BFisher]

Can you convert (transcode) your shows that you want to play on the MVP? It's not as nice as convenient because you need to plan... but I'm wondering if you transcode them to another format (that looks very good) if they'd play.

It's still early - Sage I'm sure will work on a real-time fix.