Question about DirecTV & SAGE

[krutaw]

I'm currently utilizing standard cable for my SAGETV, however, since the company that I get cable through has only a few channels (60ish), doesn't have all that I want, and isn't properly listed with Zap2it, I've been thinking about going with DirecTV instead.

I checked into it, however, it appears that the channel numbers range from in the 70's to 600ish. My question is how on earth do you make the hauppauge card recognize channels over 125, or can you?

[fidget]

Although I don't have a satellite receiver, I believe that you either need a serial (RS-232) interface to the receiver box or an IR interface. That will allow SageTV to send the "tune" command to the receiver and cause it to change to the proper channel. You then feed the S-Video and audio signal from the receiver into the proper inputs on your PVR-250 (or whatever).

[IVB]

fidget is right, i'm doing this right now. The hauppauge card is permanently set at ch3, just like your TV would if the sat receiver was hooked up directly to it. Sage then sends a serial [in my case] command to the tuner whenever it needs to change the channel.

The obvious insinuation is that you can't just run a cable to the input, like with analog cable. You have to have a sat receiver next to the myHTPC, dedicated to it. If you want to record 2 shows at once, you need 2 receivers.

[krutaw]

Originally posted by IVB
fidget is right, i'm doing this right now. The hauppauge card is permanently set at ch3, just like your TV would if the sat receiver was hooked up directly to it. Sage then sends a serial [in my case] command to the tuner whenever it needs to change the channel.

The obvious insinuation is that you can't just run a cable to the input, like with analog cable. You have to have a sat receiver next to the myHTPC, dedicated to it. If you want to record 2 shows at once, you need 2 receivers.

Sweet, turns out the real lack of info was on my part, I didn't know that you had to use a receiver with satelite. Anyway, that's cool cuz now I can talk my wife into getting DirecTV (she was gonna kill me if SAGETV didn't work after spending as much money as I have on the system if I had wanted to switch without it working.)

[Myth2Sage]

Originally posted by IVB
fidget is right, i'm doing this right now. The hauppauge card is permanently set at ch3, just like your TV would if the sat receiver was hooked up directly to it. Sage then sends a serial [in my case] command to the tuner whenever it needs to change the channel.

The obvious insinuation is that you can't just run a cable to the input, like with analog cable. You have to have a sat receiver next to the myHTPC, dedicated to it. If you want to record 2 shows at once, you need 2 receivers.

Yep, that's what you need. Unfortuanatly, getting 2 receivers to work in channel changing via serial is a chore and a half.

If anyone has been able to do this, I would very interested in knowing how. I have spent all weekend working it for naught.


M2S

[Cayars]

I think you can do this by running SageRecorder on your SageTV machine. You would then have seperate control over another serial port.

[Myth2Sage]

Originally posted by Cayars
I think you can do this by running SageRecorder on your SageTV machine. You would then have seperate control over another serial port.

Hmmmmmmmm

Never in my wildest dreams did I consider this option.

Tell me more.

I'll check out Recorder right now.


M2S

[SprDtyF350]

I have 2 tuners with Directv receivers hooked up to each with serial cables changing the channel of each. Pretty easy, just need 2 of everything. 2 receivers, 2 serial ports, 2 cables, etc.. Set them up as tuner 1 and tuner 2 using separate com ports for each. Works fine. I use the S video input on the PVR250 cards instead of the regular cable.

Randy

[Myth2Sage]

Originally posted by SprDtyF350
I have 2 tuners with Directv receivers hooked up to each with serial cables changing the channel of each. Pretty easy, just need 2 of everything. 2 receivers, 2 serial ports, 2 cables, etc.. Set them up as tuner 1 and tuner 2 using separate com ports for each. Works fine. I use the S video input on the PVR250 cards instead of the regular cable.

Randy

OK I have all you have. Are you saying that you need to use Different inputs on each? IE SVideo on one, Composite on another?

Maybe my concept of Multi Support is not possible? Here is my way of thinking of Multi Card/STB support. Basically, I have mine set up with identical configurations. So, if I am watching a show on say, channel 12, that reception is coming from STB1. Now, if I pull the plug on that one STB and flip to Channel 12 again, I should still be able to receive the show from STB #2. Therefore, if I want to record a show on Channel 12, that recording will come from STB #1. And if I want to record Channel 6 at the same time, then that recording will come from STB #2.

Is that an accurate assessment of what Multi card/STB support means?


M2S

[SprDtyF350]

Not sure I follow you but I can be recording something coming from one receiver, and be watching something else on another, or recording something different from the other. If I turn off one of the receivers Sage doesn't automatically realize it and switch to the other. It would just record nothing for that time. If you tell Sage to record a program and then change the channel your second receiver is going to cover that. Basically I can record two separate different programs and watch a recorded show all at the same time.

Only problem I have ever had with this is an occasional time when the channel would not change on one of the receivers, or in Sage 2.0 I have had it forget it has 2 tuners to choose from a couple of times. A reboot has always fixed that.

Hope this is what you were looking for.

Randy

Edit: I have both of mine hooked up with S-video cables. One is PVR1 and the other is PVR2. They both use the same guide info.

[Myth2Sage]

Originally posted by SprDtyF350
Not sure I follow you but I can be recording something coming from one receiver, and be watching something else on another, or recording something different from the other. If I turn off one of the receivers Sage doesn't automatically realize it and switch to the other. It would just record nothing for that time. If you tell Sage to record a program and then change the channel your second receiver is going to cover that. Basically I can record two separate different programs and watch a recorded show all at the same time.

Only problem I have ever had with this is an occasional time when the channel would not change on one of the receivers, or in Sage 2.0 I have had it forget it has 2 tuners to choose from a couple of times. A reboot has always fixed that.

Hope this is what you were looking for.

Randy

Edit: I have both of mine hooked up with S-video cables. One is PVR1 and the other is PVR2. They both use the same guide info.

It is. Nearly exact. Sounds like you have exactly the setup I have.

But you seem to be able to designate your STBs as PVR1 and PVR2. How did you do that??

And, did you do anything special to set up the Channel Changing Serial ports? I selected COM1 and COM2. I can change channels when one STB is hooked up. Doesn't matter which one. But when they are both installed and configured, neither of them work for Channel Changing.

[SprDtyF350]

Nothing special to set them up. The PVR1 PVR2 thing is just my description of going into setup where it shows that you have 2 tuners to setup. I can't pick which one does what. Sage does that by itself.
I am wondering if maybe you don't have a conflict somewhere in your computer that shows up when trying to use both serial ports. Maybe a serial cable with a short in it. Have you tried tuning a single receiver with each cable using each port to test?

[IKK]

Ok I will take a stab at this. You will need to capture Cards (I have 2 prv 250 in my machine) I have 2 dtv receivers connected to my Sage server. (Careful there are only a few receivers that have serial interface in the back of the box). If you have a serial interface, you need to build or buy a cable which connects your sat box to the com ports on the back of your Sage Server. If you do not have enough com ports, like me, you can by a PCI board with more, and use those to. Once all connected all you need to do is go to the wizard setup. In the wizard setup it should show 2 capture cards configure the first to one com port and then the other to the second com port that is all that is needed to do. To check if it works record a channel and surf with the other card. Then with the first card recording record with the second card a different program. Once they are recording with both cards try to change the channel. It could ask if you want to stop recording the current channel its on for both cards. (With the extra Com ports on my system I plan to add another capture card and direct feed from antenna so I then can tell sage just to use that card to record channels that are not encrypted like NBC, CBS etc. Since I record a lot off Sat and she watches a lot of regular antenna)

Hope this helps.