Considering HD extender... can I do this?

[papirov]

Hi folks,

Question (or maybe a few)

1) I'm currently trying to run SageTV on top of DVBDream setup. Getting Mpeg2 and h.264 channels thru DVBDream into SageTV. Seems to be working (after 2 weeks of non-stop tinkering). If I purchase the HD extender, will it be able to see the Guide and all of the channels including h.264 from DVBDream on the extender? If so, how's the performance?

2) I also have a DirecTV setup box (regular, no HD) and a video capture card (Avermedia M150 MCE Edition). I used to have MCE running and would capture the DirecTV channels into MCE thru S-Video and switch channels via the MCE remote (USB IRT thingy)... So..... can I configure SageTV to work with Avermedia capture card as well and capture DirecTV channels? Anything special do I need to have it tune either DVBDream or the Microsoft's USB IRT? And if this is all possible, will it all work on the extender?

3) What extra licenses do I need to run the Extender? or does it come with its own license? I'm running SageTV Media Center for Windows 6.4

4) And lastly, SageTV runs on a computer connected to domain. I had to configure the SageTV service to run as a domain user in order to have SageTV monitor network folders for media (videos, music, etc). Will the extender work with this setup as well? Will it be able to see network shares and have the right priviledges to connect to them? I know, with MCE extenders one has to do a simple hack to enable this feature as by default MCE extenders use a non-domain account to connect to MCE box.

Thanks and sorry for newb questions! Just want to make sure I get stuff right, before spending another few hundred bucks

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by papirov

Hi folks,

Question (or maybe a few)

1) I'm currently trying to run SageTV on top of DVBDream setup. Getting Mpeg2 and h.264 channels thru DVBDream into SageTV. Seems to be working (after 2 weeks of non-stop tinkering). If I purchase the HD extender, will it be able to see the Guide and all of the channels including h.264 from DVBDream on the extender? If so, how's the performance?

2) I also have a DirecTV setup box (regular, no HD) and a video capture card (Avermedia M150 MCE Edition). I used to have MCE running and would capture the DirecTV channels into MCE thru S-Video and switch channels via the MCE remote (USB IRT thingy)... So..... can I configure SageTV to work with Avermedia capture card as well and capture DirecTV channels? Anything special do I need to have it tune either DVBDream or the Microsoft's USB IRT? And if this is all possible, will it all work on the extender?

3) What extra licenses do I need to run the Extender? or does it come with its own license? I'm running SageTV Media Center for Windows 6.4

4) And lastly, SageTV runs on a computer connected to domain. I had to configure the SageTV service to run as a domain user in order to have SageTV monitor network folders for media (videos, music, etc). Will the extender work with this setup as well? Will it be able to see network shares and have the right priviledges to connect to them? I know, with MCE extenders one has to do a simple hack to enable this feature as by default MCE extenders use a non-domain account to connect to MCE box.

Thanks and sorry for newb questions! Just want to make sure I get stuff right, before spending another few hundred bucks

1. I can't answer. Someone else will have to speak to the HD100's abilities as far as DVBDream setups. I do have an HDPVR which records in h.264 and it plays fine, but I can't speak to the streams from a DVBDream setup.

2. Yes Sage can record from a supported MPEG2 encoder card from DirectTV. Doing the same thing from Dishnetwork. I don't know for sure if your encoder card is compatible, but as long as it is it can do it. However, a USBUIRT is different from the Microsoft IR Blaster you have. Setting up the Microsoft IR blaster is not natively supported within Sage so you will have to use the EXETuner plug in to get it working. This isn't difficult as many have done it, however, I just wanted to let you know that it is different than a USBUIRT (I use a USBUIRT so I can't be much help getting the microsoft blater to work with Sage)

3. The HD100 comes with a license when you purchase it. No additional licenses are necessary.

4. As long as Sage can read from the directories, so can the Extender. The reason is that everything moves thru Sage Media Center to the Extender. The Extender does not directly access your network shares. This takes a small amount of extra network overhead and server cpu usage (very small), but it takes a lot of guess work out of whether or not the HD100 will find/play the files.

Hope this helps somewhat.

[Zippster]

I also dont know much about using DVBDream with sage/hd100, but know there is a thread discussing it and a plugin to use MyTheater, quick search should reveal it.

[papirov]

Thank you for helpful answers!

DVBDream issue aside, is it fair to say that if I want to watch Live TV or a video on the SageTV Computer, I can't watch a different video on the Extender at the same time? (Since everything comes to the extender from the PC, even watching videos?)

[Sam]

Originally Posted by papirov

...is it fair to say that if I want to watch Live TV or a video on the SageTV Computer, I can't watch a different video on the Extender at the same time?

No, that's not fair to say.

That is, the SageTV Computer can server multiple different videos to numerous extenders, clients, placeshifter users each watching something different than what is being watched (if anything) on the Sage server itself.

The biggest limitation here is when the server must transcode a video if the client does not have native support for it. For example, the older MVP extender supports fewer video formats than the HD100. So instead of just streaming the video off the disk, it potentially has to transcode it (same with placeshifter clients).

Sage can still handle that if your CPU can.

With no transcoding on, you can probably have several different videos all being watched throughout the house with no problems. Network bandwidth can be another issue if using wireless instead of a wired network, or if you have multiple concurrent HD streams and don't have a Gigabit network.

But Sage isn't the limiting factor here.

Doug

[bcjenkins]

I would recommend sending SageTV a small clip for them to test on an extender for playback issues. How many different formats of recordings would show up in the DVBDream?

B

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by papirov

Hi folks,

Question (or maybe a few)

1) I'm currently trying to run SageTV on top of DVBDream setup. Getting Mpeg2 and h.264 channels thru DVBDream into SageTV. Seems to be working (after 2 weeks of non-stop tinkering). If I purchase the HD extender, will it be able to see the Guide and all of the channels including h.264 from DVBDream on the extender? If so, how's the performance?

It should work fine. Quite possibly better than the PC.

[papirov]

Thanks everyone for informative replies! Now just waiting for the extenders to show for sale... how often do they (SageTV.com) have them in stock?

[reggie14]

It's hard to say. You might be able to get an ETA if you e-mail Sage. Early in September Sage was saying they would get another shipment in 1-2 months.

[jhendrix]

I'm running SageTV on top of DVBDream (MPEG II only) and it plays fine on my HD extender. I can also play h.264 videos over the extender without any problems.