Is this accurate information about capturing from digital cable ?

[Taddeusz]

I have my HD PVR connected via optical but my STB is set to output PCM rather than AC3. As a result I apparently get the same stability as those using the analog RCA audio input. The only major issues I've had recently lie solely with my STB and not with the HD PVR. Every couple weeks my STB decides to go on the fritz for whatever reason. Yanking the power and having it start back up always fixes it without any need to touch the HD PVR.

[Clift]

Originally Posted by jimosity

Just an update for those that have been helping me with my HD-PVR problems and listening to my crybabying about it's flakiness....

Last night, I reinstalled WinXP Pro SP3 on a GX280 - made sure all drivers were installed as needed for general system devices; then installed my ATI 4550; made sure the full drivers and applications were installed...
Then I had a PCI/Firewire card laying around that I had bought for something else and never used; so I put it in and made sure the drivers installed ---
then installed the HD-PVR (on the new USB card) with the beta drivers - then all of the HD-PVR applications.
I configured the irblaster for the correct settings (in my case Cable Box/Scientific Atlanta/code 042 --- posting for my own ability to check back later in case I need to) --- I then installed Sage; leaving out the server settings and placeshifting options -- after configured, I then closed Sage; overwrote the ir*.ini file that was in the Windows directory with the updated one for the 45 button remote that I found in the link provided earlier (thanks) in this thread.

I started up Sage, configured a few settings (recording location, etc.) - waited for the Program Guide to be completed -- then tested watching a few channels - all seemed to start working much better.
I then scheduled about a half dozen 30 minute shows and a couple movies on random channels to start recording -- most of which were starting and ending sequentially - just to try to put it thru it's paces... I then left the box and went to bed.

This morning I went to check on it -- it was still recording a show that was on AND it had recorded ALL of the other shows I had requested!!!
The only thing that I had done different was to install a USB card and connect the HD-PVR to it instead of the onboard USB -- so that *seems* to have solved my issues and may be the trick that will keep me as a Sage/HDPVR user.

I've got it recording a bunch of shows all day today to test when I get home and then "True Blood" starts up this Sunday -- so then I'll really start depending on it. Glad I bought all those (4) Terabyte drives!

One final question - I know that in one of the previous attempts of Sage configuration, I pointed it at one of my drives that I store movies on (that are encoded with the xvid codec) - it didn't want to play those movies correctly -- then I installed K-Lite Codec pack and then Sage could play all of them without any issues.
Now that I have the unit working (I think) -- when I attach that drive to serve up my media; would installing that K-Lite Codec pack again be ok without screwing anything up or should I just install the xvid codec only?

Another thing - I love the compression of xvid, but the conversion process is sort of time consuming and painful -- is there another compression method that I can run (automatically?) on my recordings to keep them to a reasonable size? Keep in mind that I'm happy with the quality of xvid compressed shows; so it's not like I need some crazy large HD quality to be maintained.
What compression methods are best? I have never looked at any of the plugins or add ons for Sage yet as this is the first time I've really got things working well.

I'm glad things are working better for you. Did you look at whether or not you are recording to AC3 or AAC? probably doesn't matter, but who knows. Also, did you say you installed a Firewire or USB card? If you have firewire I would strongly suggest you use firewire channel changing on the SA 4240HDC as it is much faster and more reliable than the built in IR Blaster.

[jimosity]

Originally Posted by Clift

I'm glad things are working better for you. Did you look at whether or not you are recording to AC3 or AAC? probably doesn't matter, but who knows. Also, did you say you installed a Firewire or USB card? If you have firewire I would strongly suggest you use firewire channel changing on the SA 4240HDC as it is much faster and more reliable than the built in IR Blaster.

It's a combo card that has both firewire and USB, I'll have to investigate what firewire channel changing is and how I'd go about implementing it - remember I'm new to Sage.

[Clift]

I would be more than happy to help. You have PM.