At a crossroad, need advice please

[najames]

First the Good News

I've been upgraded my home theater setup, last year I got fantastic/cheap Panasonic 50" & 42" 720p plasmas, a Harmony One, now replaced a 10yr old Pioneer receiver with a new Denon 2310, added a Hsu VTF-1 subwoofer. WAF has soared to record high levels, especially with action DVD movies.

My SageTV WHS server is currently only recording OTA from a HDHomerun and homebrewed antenna. This system is basically flawless, except for the rare reset of the three HD200s. I didn't dare make any changes to this setup during the NFL season for fear of upsetting the SageGod. I have Playon working now and watched a couple shows without problems, watched Monsters Inc streamed from Netflix, but it was in stereo, nothing with 5.1 yet.

Now for the bad news.

For 8 years, my HOA forced me to pay for Comcast even though it has never actually worked, causing me insurmountable grief, of course Comcast could care less. Last week when I moved some Cat6, I decided to pulled a new quad shield RG6 cable. For the first time ever, I think I can actually watch the digital stations I've paid for all these years. Seeing a working HBO station almost brought tears to my eyes.

Comcast experience has made me want to use another service that I could trust, enter Bellsouth/AT&T. I've had very reliable 3Mbps and 6Mbps DSL since 2002. During hurricanes, Comcast shut off before the storms even hit and were down for a week, but Bellsouth/AT&T was out for less than 24 hrs. They installed a U-Verse VRAD down the block in July 2008, dug holes and checked cables in my yard Dec 2008, Checked outside box wiring Jan 2009, declared it ready, and then vanished. Every call and online check always ended with "You can't get U-Verse". Mysteriously, they also always said I couldn't DSL either. Finally in the AT&T forums I contacted a tech and he checked once again. As suspected, they had no idea our local VRAD even existed. He finally reset me so I can get U-Verse. I ordered it on 2/25, only to be told I have DSL with "another company" and they can't make an installation appt until I get my DSL canceled, even though it is also with AT&T. I have 10 days to do rectify this or my installation & $300 rewards are canceled. AT&T U-Verse people won't talk to AT&T DSL people to coordinate it.

My dilema

I really want to get **something** working on SageTV with my Harmony remote. I want to be able to have it all together through SageTV, that is stream to my server, and be able to play it on my extenders. My wife will be leaving for a couple months soon, and this will be my time to work on it.

A) Would you bury 8 years of sheer total hatred for Comcast and try and fix it yourself by pulling all new RG6? Regardless, I want to return the expensive junk SA8300HD DVR and get a free(?) box that will show all my channels and hopefully pass HDMI through my Denon reciver better, now it is HDMI to the TV and optical to the Denon. I have to pay for it, might as well at least get HBO and have a "Watch HBO" activity on the Harmony.

B) Even though I have pulled three Cat6 to every room and it is tailor made for U-Verse, this lack of intercompany communication is giving me the heebie geebies, also there is evidently an audio drop problem with U-Verse. Would you follow up with them, swallow hard, cross your fingers, and do the coordination for them?

C) Would you punt and get satellite, which would also require pulling all new RG6 cables likely? Dish or DirecTV?

Is there one of these options that would work better to integrate with SageTV? Except for NFL where we record every possible game, we really don't watch much sports. I like documentary type shows, wife watches TV shows like Ghost Whisperer, movies, and game shows like Wheel of the Less Fortunate.

[Skirge01]

I think respondents are going to tell you that whatever they have is your best option. For me, that's DirecTV. My setup is in my signature and it has been rock solid for about a year now. What I can definitely tell you is that if you have a solid signal from DirecTV's satellites, the HD-PVRs work wonderfully! It did take quite a bit of effort to get to this point, however. My blog documents just about all of it.

[mr_lore]

I can tell you that in the business world the hydra that is ATT never ceases to epic fail. The only reason things ever get done with ATT is that I have the respect and personal cell number of a veteran tech whom also gets a few comp tickets every now and then, he delivers,ATT does not. I vote directv as well.

[Clift]

As much as I hate Comcast, my choice would be to go with them since you seem to already be paying for it with your HOA. And also, you can get the ClearQAM channels without a set top box. I guess you have OTA so that may nto be an incentive for you, but if you're alrewady paying for it and don;t have a choice of not paying for it, you might as well use it.

[davephan]

If I was experiencing those problems with cable, I would switch to satellite. However, be careful with both Dish Network and DirecTV. I've had problems customer service with both. To setup the service, use a pre-paid VISA with a low limit. Then switch to electronic payment through your bank, not through the satellite company.

One of my DirecTV box failed a few months before the contract was about to expire. I called to make sure that a replacement box would not extend the contract. I was told that replacing a defective box would not extend the contract. The box was replaced and DirecTV extended the contract for 18 more months. I found out about the contract was extended later when I tried to switch to cable for better pricing. DirecTV charged me hundreds of dollars for early termination of contract, because they extended the contract when they said they would not. Also, just before DirecTV charged me hundreds of dollars, my credit card, which was registered to DirecTV for payment expired. I did not provide DirecTV with the new expiration date for the new card. DirecTV illegally charged the credit card with the wrong expiration date for the large termination fee. So, DirecTV committed a credit card crime.

Later, I called DirecTV many times and finally got them to agree and told me how much money they would refund to me. Each subsequent call to DirecTV after the agreement, they would not accept the fact that they told me that replacing the defective box would not extend the contract on a previous call. I then got them to agree again after many more calls that the contract should not have been extended for replacing a defective box. I got DirecTV to tell me this information and my refund amount on a recorded line.

So my main point here is do not setup your payment with Dish Network or DirecTV directly only through your bank, and record all telephone conversations with the satellite provider. When you have recorded telephone conversations, then those companies have a very different attitude. Sometimes they try to push the limit unless you can use something against them.

I also had problems with Dish Network, but they did not push the limit so far as to committing a credit card crime with my credit card.

Dave

[Skirge01]

Wow... what an ordeal. Thankfully, in my nearly 10 years with DirecTV, I've never had an issue like that. I've had both my bank account attached, as well as several credit cards, and I'm currently on the automatic payment directly from my bank account, but have never had issues like that. Also, the customer service people I've spoken to have always made it very clear to me when my contract was being extended.

I will mention that on the rare occasion when I've called with an issue, I ensured I made the customer service person repeat their name to me and say it back to them. Ensure you get them to say or even spell their last name, too. This has the effect of them believing that you're taking notes, even if you aren't.

[najames]

Eye Carumba Dave, that is butt ugly!!

My Comcast saga is not as much billing as it is complete failure to make it work, but still charging me for it. I've had countless "techs" come out, most just wanted to replace the STB and run. They'd actually say crap like "that station is too new for you to get it", and I'd reply that the age of a station has nothing to do with it, it is either on or off. None cared to make it work, and the guy who was came during the last couple years has personally cut/replaced the cable end in my TV room probably 10 times, all without improvement to no surprise. I finally made him stop doing because I was running out of cable. Last year he finally replaced an "ancient" splitter with the wrong band pass. It enhanced me 100% pixelated video, which was a huge improvment over a black screen. I've taken off work for countless no-show appointments, removed temp cables running across my lawn and reconnected myself at their box, you name it. Now that I can get HBO channels in my TV room, I'll still use their service for whatever I can get without paying the leeches any extra money beyond the forced HOA dues.

I had problems with DSL billing when I first got it "dry" because Bellsouth said I had to autopay it. However billing was really screwy and was split, didn't list "Bellsouth" on the charges. I found out they were not billing the amount we agreed on and did eventually get it resolved after several calls. They gave me about 6 months free for overbilling. I've auto billing for the wife's cell phone with T-Mobile for many years, never had a single problem with it.

Mr_Lore, we used to have some really good techs here with Bellsouth. Now we have kids who don't know diddly squat. I went to ask one kid again about U-Verse two months ago and his face turned cherry red. He had kinda hid is van in the development and was hiding there reading the DaVinchi Code. He wrote down my name and assured me his manager would check into it and call me back, silly me. It never happened.

Back to the topic....My "tier 2 guy Alex from U-Verse" said he's going to short circuit the coordination between DSL and U-Verse. He says they were supposed to stop being "different companies" in early 2009 but some people evidently don't get it. I'll give it a try.

How do I best pass U-Verse to the SageTV server? Comcast? I have been stalling, hoping for more capture options besides the HD-PVR. I don't really want the boxes (or another PC) in the main TV room, prefer them next to the SageTV server, but am not sure how the best way to do it yet. Any suggestions?

[Fuzzy]

best suggestion for putting the boxes next to the server is to.. put them next to the server.. not really sure what the problem is.

[najames]

Fuzzy, looking at your very nice setup diagram as an example, how are you controlling recording off the Dish boxes while sitting in your living room?

I assume you are normally using the living room SageTV extender to watch stuff off the server, but you need to schedule Dish recordings to get them onto the server. My "server room" is down the hall from the main TV room.

My sources will be OTA, Comcast for HBOs (6?) only, UVerse for the rest. OTA is no problem, just not sure how to best set up the other two remotely. If I can control recordings to the server I won't need 3 STB from U-Verse either.

The guy I'm working with at U-Verse just emailed me and said he is shooting for this weekend to install.

[Fuzzy]

With sage, you never directly interact with the STB. Sage does that. You simply tell sage what to record, via favorites, manual recordings, live watching, or Intelligent Recording. Sage then deals with changing channels on the STB to record from them. In my case, My boxes are modified with the R-5000HD addition, which puts video and control over a USB connection. Not the cheapest or easiest method, and not what I'd recommend for people to use now (I'd recommend the HD-PVR instead, as it's just cheaper - i got my first R-5000 before the HD-PVR was available). the HD-PVR will be getting the video from teh STBs over component, and Sage will control the boxes in one of a few different ways, depending on what provider/STBs you end up with. You can use an IR Blaster, like the USB-UIRT, with any STB. With DirecTV, you can use a USB/serial adapter from Patterson. With cable, you can sometimes use Firewire. Either way, you will never be pointing a remote at the STBs, but letting sage do it all.

Also, as shown in my diagram, I do not have a Sage extender in my living room. I have it conencted directly to my Sage Server via HDMI and USB. This is because I use other non-sage programs out there, such as ArcSoft TMT3, StereoPlayer, and some Stereo3D games. None of which I can do on the HD-200 extender.

[Naylia]

Have you thought about looking at it from the perspective of which service provides you with the content you want at the best long term price?

All of the systems can be setup with SageTV (all probably with their own headaches along the way). For instance I have Comcast and I'm already annoyed by the price of the Digital Starter set, and even more annoyed that there is only one channel in the next tier that I want. While when I looked at Dish they had the channels I wanted all in the same tier, all at a lower price....but of course there's a tree blocking my line of sight. This kind of view can give you a better long term outlook. What are the features, functions, content that matter to you? And what's the cost to get them?

[najames]

Naylia, yeah I made a spreadsheet of programming. Many packages get into too many sports we don't watch, NBA, baseball, hockey, etc. I considered satellite, but daily summer monsoons and hurricane weather have concerns, plus I'd still need DSL. I ended up with U-Verse because they are my DSL provider and it has been almost flawless since 2002.

Thanks Fuzzy. If I understand you'd choose the HD-PVR because it is supported under Sage. I could locate the STB in the computer room, plug in the component from the STB into the inputs on the HD-PVR, USB out to the Sage server, use the USB-UIRT (or firewire) for changing channels. Makes sense I guess. Sage would only see the HD-PVR? Optical in/out for sound. Hmm, there are Avermedia options but it looks to be unsupported with Sage.

[Fuzzy]

For HD, the Hauppague HD-PVR is pretty much all that's available currently. Avermedia is coming out with something comparable (though I think it lacks Digital Audio). Not sure on sage support on it yet, as i don't think it's hit the streets.

[najames]

Fuzzy, this is some info on the Avermedia PC card that is already out now.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...ight=avermedia

I went to order a USB-UIRT and they are on back order from Sage, WAAAHHHHH.

I think I have an old blaster from a RatShack remote, wonder if it will work?

[Fuzzy]

you can probably buy a usb-uirt direct from www.USBUirt.com. That said, if you are going with the Hauppague HD-PVR, it DOES include a blaster.. but you can only use one Hauppague blaster per system. (limitation with hauppague's crappy drivers)

[najames]

I'd like to provide an update, and have questions. I got an E1 model Happauge HD-PVR while on a business trip to Atlanta. Microcenter had a very large discount on them at the time. I have no idea if this is a good model, but it is what I have.

I actually tried to get AT&T Uverse installed, ordered it when there was a $300 rebate, they said they'd try to install it the weekend I returned from Atlanta, but I never heard back from them again despite emailing them. No AT&T love for me.

Soooooo, it's back to the dreaded Comcast. As I said earlier, I pulled a new quad shield RG6 to my main TV room and verified could actually get ALL my channels for the first time in 8 years. It was glorious, uhhhh for about 2 weeks until it totally died and the Comcast demonic plague return. Since I have a Hauppauge HD-PVR now, I returned my SA8300HD PVR Friday and got a "HD" Cisco RNG150 form the spiffy new Comcast office, paid for with my 8 years of contributions while getting nothing in return. The HD STB still costs an additional $8 per month, but it's less than the ~$20 DVR cost. I could get a "free" Cisco RNG100, but it only has S-Video and composite, even worse they kill many TV channels if I get the RNG100, asked them after reading about it here in AVS. They also scheduled yet another service call and another Haitian dude showed up Saturday. He deemed my connections at the outside box, attic splitter, and master bedroom jack all "good", but new main TV cable was "bad". I think his meter gizmo just says "Tell them its Good" or something, he wouldn't show it to me. He kept asking if I would fix problems myself, then finally offered to fix it, but only wanted to just hack up my new cable and put new ends on it. I asked him to leave. I basically get NO digital channels in the bedroom where he said the signal was good. I started testing the in the main TV room, next I went into the attic and swapped splitter outputs, woohoo my flawless TV room picture returned, so it looks like I have a bad splitter. There is absolutely nothing wrong with my new cable as expected.

Tonight I connected up the RNG150 and it looks great. I am leaving it in the main TV room until my wife leaves for vacation later this week, then **hopefully** I'll connect it to the SageTV server via the HD-PVR and it will magically work.

Comcast won't give me a splitter but will come out and replace it for $50, no thanks. Would you still use a "one in, four out" splitter setup and just replace the splitter, or just use a direct line to the Sage server?

Is there a preferred splitter make/model for this? Frequency range?

Is a signal amplifier needed with the splitter setup since the bedroom signal is obviously weak?

Am I reading this right, I'd have to reinstall SageTV with the HD_PVR?

[sic0048]

Splitters do go bad for some reason. Seems like they are pretty simply devices, but I've had them go bad on me too. Nothing worse than trying to troubleshoot that. It's always the last thing you think could be wrong and always a "hail mary" attempt.

It goes something like this... "Well dang it, I've checked everything but the stupid splitter, surely it cannot be that. But what the heck, I have an old splitter laying around here somewhere, let me try it out...... [changes splitter] Well what do you know, changing the splitter does make a difference.....I'm such a dumb a$$ for not trying that sooner......"

[ccsmoke]

I guess if was me the first step I would do is see what the signal strength and also if there is some interference (possible tweak of the frequency, improper ground) coming into the house is. They should do this for free since the box is outside the house. Maybe states are different in that reguard but here it is their property and they are responsible for it. My cable company has to tweak these due to the difference in weather from winter to summer.

They may want money for entering the home, however, and I wouldn't pay $50 for a splitter lol. I'm sure monoprice has them pretty cheap. If your cable runs are over 100 feet you may need an amp. Also running cable into some surge protectors can also degrade the signal quality.

[Fuzzy]

a GOOD cable installer (about 15% of them) will actually check each activated jack in the house, and adjust the attenuator at the curb to make sure the weakest in-house jack is at proper levels. Then, attenuate the others down to match. This is actually expected procedure in a $50 install/upgrade fee... however, since no one knows that, there's little pressure for them to take it that far.

[Taddeusz]

Unless you have a nice loud signal I would try and stay away from 4-way splitters as much as possible. The more splits you put on the signal the more attenuation each device receives.

If you have a cable modem or digital set top you can see the signal level coming in. I would use those as a measurement tool to determine what signal levels you're getting. A "good" cable signal should be between +10 and -10 dbmv. If the signal drops below -10dbmv you'll probably start having problems.

I measure one leg of my signal with my Motorola cable modem by going to 192.168.100.1. The other legs I measure with my STB's, which are Scientific Atlanta. There's a way you can get into the maintenance screen and see the signal strength coming in.

You can also figure out the rough signal strength in your head if you know how strong of a signal you get with only one device. Your splitters should say how much attenuation they add. Generally -3.5db for a 2-way and -7db for a 3-way or 4-way. Just start subtracting with each splitter you have and you'll have a rough idea of the final signal strength. If it falls below -10dbmv you need to make some splitter adjustments.