Looking at buying HD-PVR and SageTV

[jjg247]

I am looking at purchasing the HD-PVR and possibly SageTV as well. I just had a few questions that I hope the board could answer and would be very much appreciated.

I am looking to record HD broadcasts of College Football games (WE ARE...PENN STATE) and I think the HD-PVR is what I have been waiting a very long time for. I would like to capture the video and then edit out commercials. My setup is as follows...

Comcast HD cable box: Scientific Atlanta Explorer 3250HD
PC: Inspiron 531,Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (2.60GHz, 512Kx2) 2GB DDR2 SDRAM, no dedicated graphics card

1. Do you think my setup will work with the HD-PVR? I had read that for certain functions you may need a dedicated graphics card.

2. If that is the case, does anyone have any suggestions for a graphics card? Cheaper the better, I don't play any high-end PC games so I haven't had a reason to get one.

3. For my needs would you suggest getting SageTV? Sounds like a fantastic piece of software, but I already have a Tivo that I use for recording my TV shows.

Greatly appreciate and advice the board could give.

Thanks!

[jphipps]

It sounds like the HD-PVR should work. I would suggest getting the HD-1000 for the TV to display the content, and don't worry about getting a good video card. The current commercial skip software does not currently support the new TS (H264) files from the HD-PVR, but they are working on them, and they work very well in Sage currently for the SD content. The capture takes very little of the CPU for the capture, because it is mostly done in the hardware encoder in the HD-PVR.

The only warning I would give you about the Sage setup, is that it is not a plug and play solution, it does take some tinkering to get it to work the way you will want it to work, but the forums here are very good, and have a lot of answers...

Thanks,
Jeff