Another Newb Question About AMD Hardware and HD

[EBTV]

Forgive my ignorance on this.

I've searched a little, but wanted some conformation that my systems specs are ready for SageTV and HDTV OTA broadcasts.

As with many nowadays, we're on a budget, and hoping that the SageTV Hybrid Media Center In-a-Box will fit out needs to move from DISH back to OTA + online streaming. We're stunned with the OTA broadcast quality vs. satellite/cable.

Anyway, if it'll work well with the PC we've got on hand, then we're definitely going to do it.

If not, then we'll probably stick with DISH for the time being.

Here's what we're working with:

Windows Vista Home Premium
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 2.60 GHz
3070 MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT

Anything else I'm forgetting to list?

Thanks so much for any help you can yield, and we're looking forward to (hopefully) joining up with SageTV. The software looks fantastic.

[Fuzzy]

That system should be able to handle the OTA broadcasts just fine... all you need is a tuner card. (I'd recommend the HDHomeRun.. it'll give you 2 ATSC or QAM tuners oer ethernet). Sage will work fine right out of the box with that setup. Another thing you need is a method of controlling it. i use a universal remote, and a USB-UIRT.

[EBTV]

Thanks, Fuzzy. So the Hauppage card that comes with the bundle isn't all I'll need, I'm taking it?

And the remote with the bundle. Is it acceptable?

I've been looking at iPhone remote apps as well. Intriguing, but I like the idea of physical buttons. I guess I'm old school (or just old).

[Thomas Wischgol]

If it came with a remote you should be able to use that. Most likely it is a MCE remote, which you can simply enable in Sage. If it just sends some unconventional key-codes you can still remap those in Sage to fit your needs.

As was said before, your computer should be able to hande OTA HD just fine. If the Hauppauge card is an ATSC-capable card (i.e. digital) then it should work with Sage as well. You can check the requirements where you download the trial version of Sage to make sure.

Thomas

[topperdude]

The SageTV Hybrid Media Center In-a-Box bundle that I believe the OP is referring to in his first post does include an HVR1600 which has an ATSC (in addition to NTSC) tuner and should be able to do OTA. The bundle also includes a remote control which I believe should work with Sage as well.

I am hoping someone more knowledgeable can comment on whether the OP's hardware can handle online content (Hulu and other flash based players?) as my server is only an Athlon XP 2200 that I believe is too underpowered for streaming online media such as Hulu, etc (not that I have tried it since its a server and not my primary desktop ).

Hope this helps,
-Topper

[Tiki]

I suspect the earlier posters missed your line about "SageTV Hybrid Media Center In-a-Box" This consists of a Hauppauge HVR-1600 card and a Sage TV Media Center License.

The HVR-1600 is a PCI card that includes a remote control with IR Reciever and IR Blaster. It has 2 tuners - one Analog (NTSC) and one Digital (ATSC / QAM).

The Hauppauge Remote works with the IR Receiver so that your computer (and the SageTV application) can receive signals from the remote. The Hauppauge remote is not a Universal remote, so it can't control your TV (to turn the screen on or off or to switch input sources, etc) or other A/V equipment. For many people (including me) a Universal Remote is not required - you just might have to juggle a couple of remotes.

If you are not real familiar with the various capture card technologies, read on...

The Digital ATSC tuner allows you to hook up directly to an antenna (roof top, rabbit ears, etc.) via a standard coaxial cable with RF connector. The capture card tunes the channels directly, just like the tuner inside a newer digital TV. Since the data is already being transmitted from the TV station in digital format, the capture card does not have to re-encode it. The video just gets stored to your hard drive in its native digital format at whatever resolution and bit-rate it was broadcast at.

The Digital QAM tuner is pretty much the same as the ATSC tuner, except it works with digital cable instead of OTA (Over The Air) signals. One caveat with QAM though is that the cable company encrypts many of its channels. A Digital QAM tuner can only receive the un-encrypted channels. You would need a special decoder to get any of the encrypted channels which usually means you need to use a STB (Set Top Box) from your cable provider. The signals that come out of the STB are usually analog or a protected digital format that won't work with a QAM capture card.

The Analog NTSC tuner works with old analog OTA broadcasts (which were phased out in the US earlier this year). It also works with the RF output from old VCR's and cable boxes (anything that put out video on channel 3 or 4). These tuners would tune the signal directly, then encode it into a digital format (usually MPEG-2). The HVR-1600 has a hardware encoder that can do high quality encoding without putting a load on your computer's CPU. SageTV allows you to set the encoding quality (higher quality encoding creates larger files on your hard drive).

Finally, the HVR-1600 has S-Video and RCA Composite jacks. These can be connected to a video source like a STB (cable or satellite) or a VCR or Camcorder. When using the S-Video or RCA Composite jacks, the tuner inside the capture card is not used. If your source is a VCR or camcorder this is no problem, but if your source is a cable or satellite STB, you need a way to change the channels. This is where the IR Blaster comes in. You place the blaster in front of your STB and program the Blaster software so that it knows the remote codes for your STB and then the computer can send "fake" remote control signals to the box to change the channels.

The HVR-1600 uses the same hardware encoder that it would otherwise use for the Analog NTSC tuner, so you can only use one analog source (Analog RF, S-Video, or RCA) at a time. But, you can still use the digital tuner at the same time as one of these analog sources.

Lastly, the HVR-1600 is a PCI card. To install it you must open up your computer case and you must have a free PCI slot. PCI is being phased out in favor of the newer PCI-express (PCI-E). Many newer computers have very few or no PCI slots - be sure that this will work with your PC before ordering!

Now, a couple of other things to keep in mind. First, if you know for sure that you are only going to use an OTA antenna with no satellite or cable box, the Silicon Dust HDHomerun is probably the best choice for a tuner. It is an external device that connects to your network via Ethernet and it has two tuners that can be either ATSC or QAM for digital OTA or digital cable. It will not work with a Set top box, but based on everything I've seen, it seems to have the most reliable tuner (it works better than most other tuners with both weak signals and overly strong signals). It is also easy to install since it doesn't require opening up your PC and it offers some flexibility since your PC doesn't have to be located where your cable comes into the house.

Second, the HVR-1600 is very inexpensive and gives you some flexibility if you think you might want to use a STB in the future.

Third, if you want to have multiple HVR-1600's you can still only control one STB with the Hauppauge blaster (at least that was true last time I checked). If you will have multiple capture cards and multiple STB's, you may want to use an alternate tuning method... 1 there is a device called the USBUIRT which is an IR blaster and receiver that is more flexible than what comes from Hauppauge - it can control up to 3 zones and can be programmed to receive commands from any remote. 2 you may be able to use a serial cable to control your STB with your PC. or 3 you may be able to use a firewire cable to control your STB with your PC (this depends on what model of STB you have).

Fourth, if you want to use a universal remote, you will need a different IR Receiver than the one that Hauppuage supplies with the HVR-1600. The best device I have seen for this is the USBUIRT.


...Lots of info I know, but I hope it helps.

[SWKerr]

Your hardware will be fine. That video card will even playback h.264\Bluray content when configured correctly. You should also be able to to Hulu or Netflix in HD without issue. Go ahead and download the Hulu desktop now and see if it works.

If you are considering dropping Dish then you may want to consider the Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250 with MCE remote. It is more expensive at $132 plus another $80 for Sage but you would be able to record two HD shows at once. That along with the online content would probably keep you happy. It will do analog capture from the Dish receiver but if you are talking about getting rid of it then you probably don't care.

I have a one at a time Netflix account that doesn't cost much but also lets me get access to the Online catalog. They seem to have a lot of TV content you can't get on Hulu plus some premium shows from Showtime etc. Plus you get the DVD\BluRay in the mail.

I have seen BluRay drives selling for $60 now and a HDMI\HD capable video card can be had for less than $40 if you should have problems with your current setup.

[Thomas Wischgol]

Originally Posted by topperdude

The SageTV Hybrid Media Center In-a-Box bundle that I believe the OP is referring to in his first post does include an HVR1600 which has an ATSC (in addition to NTSC) tuner and should be able to do OTA. The bundle also includes a remote control which I believe should work with Sage as well.

I am hoping someone more knowledgeable can comment on whether the OP's hardware can handle online content (Hulu and other flash based players?) as my server is only an Athlon XP 2200 that I believe is too underpowered for streaming online media such as Hulu, etc (not that I have tried it since its a server and not my primary desktop ).

Hope this helps,
-Topper

Yep, I missed that note about the Center In-a-Box. My server (now) uses an Athlon XP 2000. You can actually do hulu with it, albeit only at a lower resolution (1360x768) and low quality setting. It only works in a web browser (for firefox there is a plugin for enabling low quality mode by default); hulu desktop is stuttering too much, which is why I upgraded to a separate client that has more power. Long story short, I would expect the CPU from the OP to be sufficient for playing hulu.

Thomas

[EBTV]

Originally Posted by SWKerr

Go ahead and download the Hulu desktop now and see if it works.

Thanks very much to all of you.

I'm cautiously optimistic that I can work this.

However, I just did as you suggested SWK, and the SD content works like a charm, however the limited HD content is pretty stutterish. Enough to make my wife unhappy with it.

My assumption (I know where that can get me - had a great theoretical discussion with my first physics prof about black holes and assumptions) is that the OTA recordings will play natively, and therefore without as much issue as HD streaming via Hulu.

Is that accurate?

Tiki, special thanks for the in-depth advice and options listings. We're trying to get 'back to basics' right now inasmuch as we can. We mainly watch network shows anyway, and what we can't get on network, ironically we can't get on DISH either without either premium charges or, in the case of Mad Men, at all.

We have the HD-only service already, but we mostly watch network, or Hulu, in bed (guilty confession, given that I used to read more - wrong forum to admit *that* ).

And thanks for the heads-up on the two-programs-at-once thing. My wife will *definitely* want to exercise that option.

If I'm figuring right, that's about four months of TV at our current DISH rate.

From what you're telling me, the HDHomerun would be in lieu of a PCI card, and could also record two programs at once? On top of that, it would allow me to keep the PC out of the living room? If that's the case, it does sound promising. That would still be in conjunction with Sage, though, correct?

Again, thanks for the patience, and thanks a ton for the help. I really, really appreciate it.

[Fuzzy]

well, the HDHomeRun is a network device, so it can be anywhere you have a network drop, power, and an antenna feed. Moving the PC out of the living room would require either a media extender (SageTV HD Theater) for playback, or a long video and audio cable, combined with an extender for the remote receiver. The HD200 is really the best way to do it, but it is definately an added cost.

[EBTV]

Sounds like the Homerun might work. I've got plenty of power, I hardwired the network to behind the TV when we remodeled, and I'm 3 miles from our tower 'farm' here.

[EBTV]

And one last dumb question...

With Sage and HDhomerun, can I also wirelessly stream to a Mac laptop with any success?

It's about the last thing I *need*, but it would be pretty awesome.

[SWKerr]

I have a HDHR and it works very well. The advantage with the HVR-2250 is that is also will do analog capture. If you plan to rid yourself of the Dish receiver than this is probably not a big deal. The HDHR sits on the Network but is really tethered to a particular PC. The Sage server would actually send the content to your other PC or Extender. You can get a Sage Client for $30 that will play everything on the laptop if it was hard wired but I am not sure about if it was wireless. MPEG2 would probably be ok on a Wireless G or N but I have never tired it.

The OTA content is MPEG2 in HD and most video cards will decode it using less than 10% of CPU capacity. BluRay\h.264 content requires the codec(software) to be setup correctly but your card should support it as well. Silverlight in version three will now use the video card decoding as well. I have found Flash to use more cpu but it still looks good even on my older boxes. (That said your CPU should still be fine, I have an AMD X2 5050e and it works fine even with the CoreAVC decoder that does not support hardware decoding for h.264)

For Hulu and all online content make sure you download the latest drivers from nVidia for your card as well as the latest Flash, Silverlight players. Also the latest version of Directx may help with Flash.


Also: The extender is a great device but it does have some challenges related to online content. There seem to be band aid fixes for most things but an HTPC will always work.

By the way you can get Mad Men on DVD via Netflix without the adds.

[Thomas Wischgol]

Just a heads up since the HD200 (extender) was mentioned a couple of times. While it is a nice device and very capable of playing all the content that is within Sage, it will not be able to do hulu. You will need the server or build another PC-based client for that (or use something like PlayOn or Tversity on the server, which requires quite a bit of CPU power).

For the laptop, you can also use a Placeshifter. I use that here. The picture quality will be a little lower (not very much, though, if you are on the same network) but the demand in terms of CPU requirements etc. is significantly lower. And you can use that while you are traveling as well and watch your TV stuff from anywhere in the world (tried it even from Europe and it still worked fine).

Thomas

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by EBTV

T

From what you're telling me, the HDHomerun would be in lieu of a PCI card, and could also record two programs at once? On top of that, it would allow me to keep the PC out of the living room? If that's the case, it does sound promising. That would still be in conjunction with Sage, though, correct?

Just to be clear the HDHomerun (and the HVR-1600 and HVR-2250) is just a capture device. It will capture the audio and video and save them to your computer, but it doesn't do the playback. For playback you have two options (a) connect the video card inside your PC to either a TV or computer monitor for playback, or (b) use an "extender" and connect that to your TV.

So, unless you will also use an extender, you will still need the PC to be by the TV (but the TV and PC don't have to be near the cable jack).

SageTV's role is to control the capture device, get TV Guide data, playback the recorded videos, and provide the menus and controls for organizing everything. So, yes SageTV works with the HDHomerun. Sage supports multiple capture devices and you can mix and match so you could start out with the HVR-1600 and add an HDHomerun later.

There are a couple of different extenders around, but the one that Sage is currently offering (the HD Theater, HD-200) is currently the best. The extender connects to your PC via Ethernet and plays back all the videos, music and pictures through your TV. It handles all of the decoding so you don't need a powerful CPU or video card inside your PC, and you don't have to worry about video drivers and codecs. It will work with the SageTV media Center software on your PC so that it can have the same menus and allow you to browse the TV guide and schedule recordings. It is powerful enough to support playback of BluRay at full 1080p. Most people that have the HD-200's really like them. Again, this is something that you could add later if you want.

[EBTV]

Thanks again, guys. I think I'm going to go with the HDHR and Sage. It should work well for what I'm trying to do right now. Now I just have to find a suitable remote for navigating with a keyboard, etc. Pondering Hoofien's remote app for iPhone and hoping it would work well.

I really appreciate the crash education in this stuff, guys.

[EBTV]

Okay y'all, one last issue/problem/possible stumbling block I need assistance with...

I'm having a head-exploding experience trying to get my 8500 GT to try and support a custom resolution for the overscan that my TV creates/fosters.

So far that I can tell the 8xxx series cards no longer support the custom resolutions that earlier NVIDIA products did.

Is this going to be a problem?

I know this isn't NVIDIA support, but is anything going to change with resolution support if I buy Sage?

If not, then I've got a problem. If so, then I might be able to relax.

I am at a level of frustration with my PC right now that I haven't experienced since I tried to install Moveable Type on my website a half-decade ago.

[Fuzzy]

Well, if you are going to use sage.. you don't have to worry about overscan. Sage has it's own overscan controls. In fact, you'd be better off NOT using the custom resolutions, because they will end up causing the videos to be scaled down to this new resolution, causing a loss of quality.

[EBTV]

Thanks, Fuzzy. I appreciate that. And that's good news, too!