Trying to wrap my head around it

[graywolf]

Trying to figure out this whole server/extender setup.

For a 3 room/3 STB setup, do you have all your STBs located at the Server or 1 in each room?

If all at the server, how do you handle live tv viewing in the rooms? Restrict yourself to doing it from SageTV only?

How would you control/change the channel from the different rooms?

I know my questions are vague but just don't quite understand the setup/configuration enough. The more I read, the more I get confused. I also get more interested in the possibilities though. Just trying to understand the setup and how everything would work together.

[GKusnick]

The simplest setup is to put all your STBs at the server and let it control them. Watch TV in different rooms using extenders or PC clients. Live or recorded doesn't make a difference to Sage; it still goes through the server either way. Some people find channel surfing through Sage to be frustratingly slow, but most of us find we don't do much channel surfing anymore. It can be done, but you don't do it by changing channels on the STB directly. You do it by telling Sage which channel or program you want to watch, and letting Sage find a free STB to serve that request.

If it's not convenient to put all the STBs on one PC, you can distribute them over several PCs configured as network encoders. But that's just a trick for remoting the capture functions to another PC; it doesn't change the basic client/server architecture. All the STBs are still controlled (locally or remotely) by the central Sage server, and assigned to recording tasks as needed, regardless of where they physically reside.

What you definitely do not want to do is allow users to manually change channels on STBs controlled by Sage. That will only confuse the software and lead to missed recordings when Sage thinks the box is tuned to channel X but someone has manually changed it to watch live TV on channel Y. If you must watch live TV, either do it through Sage, or get a separate STB just for that purpose and leave that STB out of your Sage setup.

[mayamaniac]

Regarding changing channels on the STB, SageTV does it through several methods. The best way is either by serial cable or firewire cable connected from the server computer to the STB. The other method is to use IR Blasters like a USB-UIRT, while not as fast as the cable method, it works well enough.

Find out what your needs are and what TV service you have and people here can better help you out.

[graywolf]

I have:
DirecTV (SD only), no antenna
3 old STBs (2 Sony B-50 & 1 Sony B-55)
3 TVs (Sony XBR9, and 2 old Tube TVs)
Currently have PC with SageTV with the XBR9 and VCRs with the other 2 TVs. STBs are in same rooms as the TVs.

Currently controlling STBs manually (or their own timed channel changing)

Looking for solutions/options to get rid of VCRs in other rooms.
Originally was thinking of PC with Sage in each room but before I expend that expense was looking at other alternatives.

Main thing is to keep User Interface SIMPLE (wife factor who doesn't like massive changes)

All 3 TVs should be able to tune to all channels.

Thoughts/Ideas/Suggestions?

[brainbone]

Place all 3 STBs and the SageTV server in a closet/basement.
Make sure you have 3 analog capture ports for the SageTV server for the 3 STBs.

The Sony B-50 and Sony B-55 seem to support serial tuning, but I'm not an expert on serial tuning or the requirements -- it's probably the best thing to look into. This will allow the SageTV server to change the channels on the STBs. I belivew you'll need 3 serial (rs-232, not USB) ports. Some motherboards have 1 or 2 built in.

Get an HD-200 for each TV (3).

Run CAT-5e/CAT-6 cable from each TV to your SageTV server, or, you could try wireless -- though wireless can be finicky. If you can't run CAT-5e/CAT-6, you can look into some Ethernet over Power options.

[graywolf]

Thanks for all the info.

1 last question. For setting up recordings, would that happen via the HD-200 or would you have to go to where you have the SageTV Server located?

[GKusnick]

You can control all server functions from any client. It's the same UI everywhere.

[davephan]

I agree that channel surfing is way to slow to watch Live TV with SageTV. I have two main TVs that are used most of the time. I have separate HD cable boxes at those two main TVs. If someone wants to channel surf or not use SageTV, then they use the HD cable boxes. Otherwise, they use SageTV. If you have a problem with your SageTV server, or you need to work on it for some reason, then other people in your household do not have a total TV outage if you have the additional set top boxes. The downside is an additional monthly cost of the extra set top boxes.

Dave

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by graywolf

For setting up recordings, would that happen via the HD-200 or would you have to go to where you have the SageTV Server located?

You schedule recordings from any of your three HD-200s. Any recording scheduled from one HD-200 will be available on the others. You will seldom touch your server directly, unless you need to update software, etc.

For "channel surfing", if you intend to do that, you'll either need to get used to slower channel changing, use the Program Guide on the HD-200 to find what you'd like to watch rather than surfing for it, or complicate things by adding another STB on each TV you'll want to "surf" on -- I simply, and easily, got out of the habit of channel surfing, much to the delight of my wife. We have a well rounded library (of good ol' books) available to entertain guests that can't seem figure out SageTV.