Dipping my toes into digital waters...

[sainswor99]

I've finally decided to start recording digital TV; comcast is offering one TV station over clear QAM that I can't get without a cable box (and ironically, it's the Retro channel, which only offers SD programming). Anyway, I'm thinking of getting the Hauppauge HVR-1600 card based on the following assumptions:

1. I do most of my watching over Placeshifter and MediaMVPs, so I''m looking for a card that will record to MPEG-2.

2. I will eventually hook up a cable box to this card (I have an Nvida DualTV for my analog cable, but I'm not sure how to hook up sVideo to one side of it) for additional channels.

Should I be looking at the 2250 instead? Can the MediaMVP handle playback from this card, or can I lower the quality of the recording (like I can with Standard Def cards)?

Hoping I'm making sense.
Stu

[hemicuda]

Welcome to the digital age. As far as the MVP "handling" the digital stream, that depends on the horsepower of your server. Anything above 480i will have to be transcoded at the server first. I went to a Quad-core server since my old Athlon 3200+ couldn't handle transcoding HD to the MVP realtime; it could muster about 15-20fps. The autocompress plugin was an intermediate step until I got the HD extenders. A fast dual-core may be enough depending on what you have installed.

Recording quality is set by the digital stream; there are no adjustments even though they still show up in the menus.

I'm thinking of getting one of those DTA's and trying to pipe it into one of my analog cards just for giggles. It would be good practice for when Comcast forces me to switch to Sat in the future due to some stupid policy. It would be low on the merit list of course.

[vikingisson]

I started my system late in the game with the preference for digital. I'm only now doing analog with the HDPVR. For your single QAM channel (are you sure only one ch?) you would be wasting the 2250 since it only has a single connection. Something like 1600 would give you the digital tuner for QAM and an analog tuner for cable tv for as long as it is available. The 2250 would be good if you have enough content (analog *or* digital) on a single cable and can make use of the dual tuners.

Anything you can get from an internal card whether digital or analog is preferable to any STB even with the almighty HD-PVR, IMHO. Save that part for the encrypted nonsense. Digital OTA is a real treat even if you only get a handful of channels from it. If you have analog cable I'd connect that too if you have a free port. hint, just because you buy digital cable doesn't mean there isn't analog on the same line.

I like the mix and match of low cost and free sources vs the insane pricing from single source providers. The EPG becomes the biggest challenge but worth the effort.

[sainswor99]

First, thanks for your suggestions; they were very helpful. I think, based on your responses, that I'll be OK with the 1600, but I am curious about the possibility of the 2250.

Decisions, decisions.

Originally Posted by hemicuda

As far as the MVP "handling" the digital stream, that depends on the horsepower of your server. Anything above 480i will have to be transcoded at the server first. I went to a Quad-core server since my old Athlon 3200+ couldn't handle transcoding HD to the MVP realtime; it could muster about 15-20fps. The autocompress plugin was an intermediate step until I got the HD extenders. A fast dual-core may be enough depending on what you have installed.

I'm running an older Quad-Core Q6600 (2.4 Ghz) with 2Gig of RAM. I bought it a couple of years ago to try and future-proof myself a bit; works great for rendering Placeshifter across the WAN and running Comskip and recording. I'd say 80% of my TV watching is Placeshifter on LAN (I watch while working); do you know if there's transcoding required for that, or will Placeshifter simply play back the mpg? BTW, thanks for the tip on 480i; the one channel I'm interested in is probably SD (again, it's the retro channel).

Originally Posted by hemicuda

Recording quality is set by the digital stream; there are no adjustments even though they still show up in the menus.

Boo. But good to know. Thanks!

Originally Posted by vikingisson

I started my system late in the game with the preference for digital. I'm only now doing analog with the HDPVR. For your single QAM channel (are you sure only one ch?) you would be wasting the 2250 since it only has a single connection.

Sorry; let me clarify. They have several QAM channels (the local affiliates, etc), but I get most of that programming via SD. Since I use the MVP's (and am not in a rush to replace them), having higher quality versions of the same programming I already get is NOT a priority. Nice to have, but I'm really just trying to get more stuff to watch. The one channel I'm referring to is the Retro channel, which is offered OTA as a digital channel, but not as an analog channel.

Originally Posted by vikingisson

Something like 1600 would give you the digital tuner for QAM and an analog tuner for cable tv for as long as it is available. The 2250 would be good if you have enough content (analog *or* digital) on a single cable and can make use of the dual tuners.

The reason that I'm leaning toward the 1600 is that I don't see a lot of digital content that I prefer to the analog content; I thought about the 2250 to future proof myself a bit, but I'll probably still have an STB when analog goes away. It just seemed like the 1600 (which would add a third analog tuner to my system AND the digital tuner) was the best bet; why spend $112 when you only need to spend $80 (at Newegg)?

Originally Posted by vikingisson

Anything you can get from an internal card whether digital or analog is preferable to any STB even with the almighty HD-PVR, IMHO. Save that part for the encrypted nonsense. Digital OTA is a real treat even if you only get a handful of channels from it. If you have analog cable I'd connect that too if you have a free port. hint, just because you buy digital cable doesn't mean there isn't analog on the same line.

Yeah, I get the extended basic (72 channels) of analog on my SageTV server (dual analog tuner). Our main TV has a cable box for my luddite wife, who is insanely afraid of all things technological. I'm just considering tinkering with the STB setup on the SageTV server to prep for the future.

Originally Posted by vikingisson

I like the mix and match of low cost and free sources vs the insane pricing from single source providers. The EPG becomes the biggest challenge but worth the effort.

I haven't considered trying a digital antenna; analog coverage was so poor in our area a few years ago (wow, I guess that was 10 years) even with an external antenna that I went with cable. Is digital coverage usually equivelent to analog, or is it usually better? I ask, because I have no real way to get an external antenna run to my Sage Server.

[vikingisson]

I'm running an older Quad-Core Q6600 (2.4 Ghz) with 2Gig of RAM.

That's what I run and it never breaks a sweat. It is also my primary viewing device via the Nvidea component output.

Sorry; let me clarify. They have several QAM channels (the local affiliates, etc), but I get most of that programming via SD. Since I use the MVP's (and am not in a rush to replace them), having higher quality versions of the same programming I already get is NOT a priority. Nice to have, but I'm really just trying to get more stuff to watch. The one channel I'm referring to is the Retro channel, which is offered OTA as a digital channel, but not as an analog channel.

I'm not familiar with the MVP and do all of my viewing on the server or from a Placeshifter client. HD content works fine. The HD-PVR is the bigger pain via placeshifter but tweaking solved that. Content from my 1600 HD & SD works great over placeshifter.

Yeah, I get the extended basic (72 channels) of analog on my SageTV server (dual analog tuner). Our main TV has a cable box for my luddite wife, who is insanely afraid of all things technological. I'm just considering tinkering with the STB setup on the SageTV server to prep for the future.

At least you can do both. I'll bet that you could slip an extender in there to replace the cable box and she'd never notice except for the channels that still require an STB, you'll get delays that she'll complain about.
If you could get her used to recorded tv vs channel surfing live she'll slowly get over the fear.

I haven't considered trying a digital antenna; analog coverage was so poor in our area a few years ago (wow, I guess that was 10 years) even with an external antenna that I went with cable. Is digital coverage usually equivelent to analog, or is it usually better? I ask, because I have no real way to get an external antenna run to my Sage Server.

You might be in a tough spot which would be a shame. The picture quality is superior and with a good tuner you don't have delays and extra boxes to drive you crazy. But it is all or nothing, digital OTA either works or it doesn't. Marginal signals are tough to manage. But with a proper antenna(s) and possibly a pre-amp you can make it work. Running the cable can't be worse than the other lines already there.