Will firewire recording from a STB work for me?

[BrettS]

First, I'm brand new to Sage TV (well, techincally I haven't even installed it yet... I'm still trying to evaluate whether it will work for me or not). My end goal is to get a whole house HD DVR. The HD200's look like they'll do well to distribute video through my house, so right now I'm basically trying to figure out how to get my content recorded.

Like I said, I want to be able to record HD content and right now I have a dual tuner SD Tivo (Which this would be replacing), so I want to have at least two tuners and even three or four would be better, especially since I plan to distribute this to all or most of the TV's in the house.

I have cable service from Brighthouse (in central FL) and from what I see online they provide very little, if anything in clear QAM, so I think I'm going to need a cable box. (Right now I just get their standard analog package with no cable box, so I'm not even sure what box I would get).

The wife isn't quite sold on SageTV yet (or even replacing the Tivo, for that matter), so the budget I have right now is pretty low. HD-PVR's aren't cheap and getting two would really be stretching the budget and three or four would be out of the question.

I just spent a lot of time reading the huge STB Firewire thread and it looks like it's working for some people, but I'm still left with some questions:

Can I record every channel I get on the STB through the firewire port? I don't subscribe to HBO or any of the other pay services, so I don't care about those channels, but can I record everything else? I saw something that seemed to imply that I couldn't record analog channels through firewire. If that's the case, I'm assuming I would need a seperate analog tuner as well to get the analog channels?

It looks like it takes a bit of effort to get working, but frankly that part doesn't really scare me. I'm an IT person and I rather enjoy playing around with things like that, so I have confidence in being able to get it working. But once it is working how reliable is it? People seem to be reporting differing success rates. Since this is something the wife will be using once I get it working it needs to be pretty close to 100% reliable.

If I have a decent chance at getting the firewire recording working I'll probably go ahead and get the free trial going and get an STB or two from brighthouse to see how it goes. If firewire isn't the best solution for me then maybe I'll wait until I can get an HD-PVR or two and then get the free trial.

Any other thoughts for me?

Thanks much,
Brett

[MitchSchaft]

I think the only real way to know is to try it out. It's gonna be different in each area.

[reggie14]

For some reason, I can only record about 80% of my HD channels (locals and most expanded basic channels) over firewire. None of my SD digital channels work over firewire, and certainly none of my analog channels work over firewire.

There's really no way to know if its going to work until you try. You might be able to figure out if its *not* going to work by figuring out what firewire-enabled box you can get from Brighthouse. If its not supported by the firewire STB drivers (either the old Timmmoore drivers or the newer ExDeus drivers), then you know its not going to work. But, this might be hard to figure out. I had to go to the Comcast office out here and have the workers keep bringing out different STB models from the back before I managed to get them to give me one with a firewire port (a Motorola DCT6200).

But there's no way to know what channels can be recorded over firewire without just trying it. Different cable companies flag their channels differently.

[BrettS]

Well, I was hoping for a nice straighforward answer, but I guess if that was possible there wouldn't be a 96 page thread about trying to get it to work

I guess I'll just have to give in and try it. I did just verify that the PC I had in mind does have a firewire port (I wasn't sure if it did or not), so if it doesn't work all I'll be out is the rental of a STB for a month or so and if it does work then life is good.

It does sound like I'll still need an analog tuner for the analog channels. I assume that Sage is smart enough to know which tuners have which channels available and can pic the one with the channel I want to record, no?

Thanks again,
Brett

[BrettS]

Just wanted to follow up on this in case anyone else with Brighthouse in the central FL area comes across this.

I was able to get an STB from Brighthouse with a firewire port with no problems (it's an SA Explorer 3250HD), but I failed miserably in trying to use it. I connected it and loaded the drivers... got channel changing to work (which might be useful in the future), but I discovered that I only got video through the firewire port on channels 1-20. From what I can tell it looks like they have copy protection enabled on the rest of the channels. Unfortunately channels 1-20 are only SD (at least I can get the locals in HD using clear QAM), so this is pretty worthless to me.

The video coming through on the channels I did get seemed pretty bad as well, breaking up and skipping and I'm not really sure what was up with that. Perhaps my drive or PC isn't fast enough, but I didn't really spend a lot of time working on it because this solution isn't going to work for me.

Guess it's a couple of HD-PVR's for me.

[wayner]

Do you still watch SD channels at all? If you do then you could add 3rd and 4th channels more cheaply as NTSC tuners are cheap. I have young kids so a lot of what I PVR is kids' shows that aren't HD.

[CollinR]

Yup x2 HDPVRs and x2 HVR2250s will allow you 6 sources and will cover most people's requirements and supply a boatload of HD.

Might want a USBUIRT for changing channels on the 2 boxes that setup would require.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by CollinR

Might want a USBUIRT for changing channels on the 2 boxes that setup would require.

Except that BrettS appears to already have firewire channel changing working for him. I would always use firewire as my first choice for changing channels and the USB-UIRT would be my second choice. You may as well keep the zones open on your USB-UIRT for future use - such as adding STBs that don't have firewire as SD tuners, etc.

[BrettS]

Originally Posted by wayner

Do you still watch SD channels at all? If you do then you could add 3rd and 4th channels more cheaply as NTSC tuners are cheap. I have young kids so a lot of what I PVR is kids' shows that aren't HD.

Up until now all I watched was SD channels using my SD Tivo and standard cable. I recently purchased a couple of HDTV's, so part of my goal in moving to Sage is to start getting HDTV content. Frankly. I'm still not really sure which channels I can get in HD and which ones I can't, but we watch a variety of shows and I suspect that at least some of it will still be SD.

Right now my cousin is staying with us and she has a 5 year old, so we go through a lot of kids shows. If they're all or mostly SD, then I think we will definitely be watching SD channels.

Originally Posted by CollinR

Yup x2 HDPVRs and x2 HVR2250s will allow you 6 sources and will cover most people's requirements and supply a boatload of HD.

I did actually get one 2250 and I'm using that now for SD cable channels and HD locals through clear QAM. It looks like I might get a couple of other HD channels with clear QAM, but Sage didn't identify them and I haven't taken the time to sort through them to try to figure out what they are yet.

Also, I just got the playon plugin working last night and I was reasonably impressed with how well it worked and the amount of content available that way, so I'm debating whether I even need the cable boxes and HDPVR's right now. I may try sticking with standard cable and my 2250 (and possibly a second 2250) and Hulu through playon and see how that goes for a while. If I can't find all of our shows that way then I can always get an HDPVR or two later. Or maybe there will be a cablecard tuner available when I'm ready to upgrade (but I'm not holding my breath).

Originally Posted by wayner

Except that BrettS appears to already have firewire channel changing working for him.

That's correct... at least that part worked for me. If I do wind up using the cable box with an HDPVR then I'll definitely do the firewire channel changing.

Thanks for your suggestions,
Brett

[Kroc]

Brett:

Thanks for posting. I live in Central Florida as well and use Brighthouse. Currently I use an HDHomeRun tuner which receives about 45 channels. I just picked up a SMT-H3050 cable box and will try configuring Sage to change channels and record using firewire. I would imagine the Brighthouse channel blocks are not box specific, but I will let you know if I get a full range of channels or just 1-20. If I only get 1-20 then I will have to buy an HD PVR.

Great question regarding the range of channels available via firewire from an STB.

[BrettS]

Originally Posted by Kroc

I just picked up a SMT-H3050 cable box and will try configuring Sage to change channels and record using firewire. I would imagine the Brighthouse channel blocks are not box specific, but I will let you know if I get a full range of channels or just 1-20. If I only get 1-20 then I will have to buy an HD PVR.

Definitely let me know what you'd find as I would love to get this working. I suspect that you're right, though and you'll probably just wind up with channels 1-20 as well.

Right now I'm still trying to decide if I want to spend the $400 on two HD-PVR's or if I'll be happy enough with the PlayOn plugin and Hulu type content.