HDHomeRun and DIRECTV?

[szirger]

I currently have an HD100 networked to a HDHomeRun Dual Digital TV Tuner. My current cable company, Comcast comes into the house and I use a splitter on the coax cable to send the signal to both the HDHomerun and TV. The distance from the splitter to the TV is about 8 ft and the distance to the HDHomeRun and SageTV Computer is about 25 ft. I use a splitter on the coax cable prior to going into the HDHomerun. I have CAT6 cable for the network. I'm looking at DIRECTV as a new provider. I will just be using the the basic receiver from DIRECTV. Will I be able to split the decoded TV signals from the DIRECTV receiver to the HDHomeRun without much trouble?

Thanks for your help. Before I make this move, I want to make sure it will work.

Thanks, Scott

[Fuzzy]

the HDHomeRun is not usable with DirecTV. It can only work with unencrypted Digital Cable (ClearQAM), or Digital Broadcast (ATSC). The output of the SD DirecTV Receiver is either Analog Cable (NTSC) if using the RF output, Composite Video, S-Video. The HD Receiver would also have Analog HD (Component), or Digital HD (HDMI). In order to get signals from the DirecTV box into sage, you'd have to have a capture device that could get one of those formats in. Most common here would be the Hauppague HD-PVR. It can capture from the HD DirecTV Box's Component output, and connected to the sage server via USB. Another options, if HD is not a requirement, would be one of the plethora of analog SD capture cards with a hardware MPEG-2 encoder, and S-Video input.

[davenlr]

This brings up a question...Why are there not any ATSC or QAM modulators out there yet?

[fidget]

Originally Posted by davenlr

This brings up a question...Why are there not any ATSC or QAM modulators out there yet?

My guess is that it would only open the "analog hole" even larger and make it easier to record HD content. We'll ignore the fact that it would make it easier to watch HD content in your home.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by davenlr

This brings up a question...Why are there not any ATSC or QAM modulators out there yet?

There are, the problem is there is VERY little demand for them, therefore no competition, driving the price up considerably.

http://www.zeevee.com/compare-products

besides, it's pretty irrelevant to this discussion anyways. Even if they were a quarter of their current price, they'd still be of no practical use in a sage system. Your much better off distributing around the home via Sage and extenders/clients than via QAM modulation. In the end, I hope that the recent cablecard developments will bring them a little more to the forefront of mainstream use, and in turn, result in DTV and Dish doing the same (with PC based receivers).

[szirger]

Thanks for all of your help, I really appreciate it!

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

besides, it's pretty irrelevant to this discussion anyways. Even if they were a quarter of their current price, they'd still be of no practical use in a sage system.

To put it, or look at it another way, even if you did use a modulator, you'd still need a Tuner in your PC, IR blaster (or other means of box control). Basically you'd replace something like the HD PVR with two devices, a tuner and a modulator, it wouldn't save or simplify anything for you, it would just make things more complicated.

As for why sat boxes don't output ATSC or QAM signals, long ago the Dish 6000 receiver had an ATSC/8VSB modulator that would do exactly that, output ATSC signal on the RF out, but that's been long discontinued.

I was about to say I don't know why, but I did think of one very real reason: Almost all HD on satellite these days uses H.264 compression, ATSC/QAM "tuners" (in TVs) don't understand that codec, so the vast, vast majority of their customers would be unable to use such a feature.

As far as converting to MPEG-2, that would greatly increase the cost of their hardware.