Need some advice from those who know.

[panteragstk]

I am currently using sage as my media hub. (I only have one tv, but the same principal applies). anyway, i use it to record OTA hd broadcasts with wonderful results. My blu-ray rips play fine (except vc-1) my video collection finally gets used and my music is easily accessible. The WAF is very high as well because she can watch all of her shows I have gotten for her.

My delimma is as follows:
I miss all of my myth busters, hotrod tv, trucks, etc. I am debating on which tv service to get. I don't like directv because it has the most compressed signal I have ever seen. Dish Network has done me wrong in the past so no go. Cable tv in my area is a joke with their high prices and horrid stb's. My only other choice is something like hulu (which won't allow me to keep any recordings) or u-verse. I will be getting at&t fttu (fibre to the user) inernet so the tv service would be a nice addition especially since I can bundle them with my cell service. My wife doesn't understand why I need (at least) 2 hd-pvr's at ~$220 each when the uverse dvr can record 4 programs at once. My explaination is that I'd like to keep what I record (if I wanted to), but she says we could just buy the seasons of whatever show when they come out so we don't have to spend the money on hd-pvr's (buggy as they may be, but that is another discussion). In the end we would end up spend way more on dvd seasons vs hd-pvr's and recording in HD and keeping them on the hard drives. I also told her she would have to switch imputs on my receiver and the tv to try and complicate things.

What I want from you guys is your opinion on my logic in this situation. What would you say to your wife? Especially when she thinks you can never leave things alone...

[panteragstk]

ok, well without any opinions in this thread I've made my decision based on a few PM's I've received. I'm not going to mess with the tv service. The HD-PVR is still to buggy for my taste and hulu and netflix watch now will satisfy my needs if implemented correctly. Thanks anyway.

[Red Barchetta]

I have Direct TV and AT&T U-verse has just moved into my neighborhood with fiber. My DTV was payed for me, but that feature has ended this Jan, so I now have to sign up for new service. I am currently using the serial port to tell my DTV box to change channels.

I guess my options are to stay with DTV, and hope the new box has the serial input, if not I have to get an IR Blaster?

I have looked here, and do not see any mention on how anyone is controlling the U-verse box.

Any suggestions or thoughts on this matter will be appriciated.

[SWKerr]

I am not sure if it would make a difference on a larger nicer screen but I have DirecTV and after reading your post watched CSI Miami live for a few minutes on both the OTA and DirecTV. I could not see a difference. This was at 1080i on a 42” plasma. Perhaps it would be more pronounced with larger screens but I expect this is more a purist argument then any real world differences.

I really have the same issue with BluRay. I cut my BluRay rips into 1280x720 h.264 files because I decided the difference is not noticeable on my system and the smaller files are only around 4GB at 4000bps. I think there is a lot of overkill in the BluRay speck if you are not running a really big screen.

The other thing to consider if you want to use Sage is that the only way to capture it is with the HD-PVR and that will also compress it. I have convinced myself that there is a slight difference in original signal and the HD-PVR but it is not noticeable in normal use. The picture still looks really good.

The thing I like about DirecTV is the serial tuning of channels. I can’t say the IR setup was not reliable but I have never had a problem it the USB to serial setup and it is faster as well.