Simple setup of mixed Freeview/Satellite system

[ianb]

I currently use SageTV with multiple UK Freeview cards without problem, using over the air EPG data. Setup was very straighjt forward and I don't have to worry about EPG data - it just works!

I now want to add one or more DVB-S2 cards in order to receive UK satellite broadcasts, including HD transmissions, but unless I am mistaken, there does not seem to be a way of doing this in a simple way with regard to EPG data. There is a lot of online discussion re getting EPG data through "XMLTV" and the like and all solutions seem incredibly complicated and I am rather lost!

All I want to do is add a satellite card to my existing SageTV PC (running Vista 32 bit), tell SageTV that it exists , scan for channels and use "standard" EPG data. Is this possible without installing EPG grabber software, configuring scheduled downloads, manually editing frq files etc? All of this frightens the hell out of me, such that I do not feel confident enough to embark on it. I understand that Windows Media Center just works without any "techie" tweaking but SageTV appears to need a lot of tweaking just to get it to work with a mixture of Freeview/Satellite.

Can anyone put me straight? Is there a "simple" way to add HD satellite reception to my existing setup?

Any advice would be much welcome as I am tempted to abandon the SageTV platform in favour of Windows Media Center.

Thanks.

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by ianb

All I want to do is add a satellite card to my existing SageTV PC (running Vista 32 bit), tell SageTV that it exists , scan for channels and use "standard" EPG data. Is this possible without installing EPG grabber software, configuring scheduled downloads, manually editing frq files etc? All of this frightens the hell out of me, such that I do not feel confident enough to embark on it. I understand that Windows Media Center just works without any "techie" tweaking but SageTV appears to need a lot of tweaking just to get it to work with a mixture of Freeview/Satellite.

Can anyone put me straight? Is there a "simple" way to add HD satellite reception to my existing setup?

Any advice would be much welcome as I am tempted to abandon the SageTV platform in favour of Windows Media Center.

Thanks.

It's possible. Most UK channels have epg data anyway but it's limited to the current and next show.

The reason some of us go xmltv is to have 7 or more days of epg data.

The easy way is to do it just like you described.

Add the card, select no epg, scan, disable channel you don't want and then SageTV will use the epg data from the channel.

Most people start that way....

I found it a major hassle to perform scans periodically and then go through a thousand or so channels to enable or disable the channels.

When you can gather enough confidence then go with the works....

It's not that difficult really when you get the hang of it.

In fact, in terms of mainenance, there's probably a few hours of work you have to do initially and then a few minutes every now and then when channels change etc.

If I want to add a channel now, I can manually enter it in the frq file using info from lyngsat.com, update the grabber to get the epg for that channel, do an update of the epg and then go and remap the channel in SageTV to map to the physical channel number in the frq file. Less than 5 minutes.

Last time I checked MS Media Center could not easily do DVB/S2 etc and definetely doesn't have as good an extender support as SageTV.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by ianb

All I want to do is add a satellite card to my existing SageTV PC (running Vista 32 bit), tell SageTV that it exists , scan for channels and use "standard" EPG data.

You can exactly do that... The only little problem is the EPG data will not be so great (and only Now and Next).

Also you'll have a great number of channels after the scan, and requires you to remove unwanted channels.

If you want a better EPG, you'll need to import XMLTV guide data.

All of this frightens the hell out of me, such that I do not feel confident enough to embark on it. I understand that Windows Media Center just works without any "techie" tweaking but SageTV appears to need a lot of tweaking just to get it to work with a mixture of Freeview/Satellite.

This is not that difficult to setup.

1) Get XMLTV data for your channels
2) Make you channel scan in SageTV (for all your cards)
3) Eventually edit the .frq file to your liking (the .frq file is only the list of all channels that was found by SageTV and the channel numbers in those files are the physical channel number used to tune the channel. If you have for instance two DVB-T cards that receive the exact same channels, it's best that these two cards have the exact same .frq file)
4) Get a XMLTV plugin and create lineups. You need one lineup per set of identical channels you are receiving (so one for DVB-S, one for DVB-T). For these lineups you have to map the physical channel number to XMLTV guide data.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[ianb]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

You can exactly do that... The only little problem is the EPG data will not be so great (and only Now and Next).

Also you'll have a great number of channels after the scan, and requires you to remove unwanted channels.

If you want a better EPG, you'll need to import XMLTV guide data.

This is not that difficult to setup.

1) Get XMLTV data for your channels
2) Make you channel scan in SageTV (for all your cards)
3) Eventually edit the .frq file to your liking (the .frq file is only the list of all channels that was found by SageTV and the channel numbers in those files are the physical channel number used to tune the channel. If you have for instance two DVB-T cards that receive the exact same channels, it's best that these two cards have the exact same .frq file)
4) Get a XMLTV plugin and create lineups. You need one lineup per set of identical channels you are receiving (so one for DVB-S, one for DVB-T). For these lineups you have to map the physical channel number to XMLTV guide data.

Regards,
Stéphane.

Many thanks for the reply.

When you say "1) Get XMLTV data for your channels" and "4) Get a XMLTV plugin and create lineups.", can you point me in the direction of how/what I do to achieve these?

Many thanks.