350 users, help me with how you use a remote and usage w/o computer monitor

[longshort]

I bought a 350 because of the video out. The picture is nice and better than my ati rage pro but how do you control the usage without a computer monitor?

I wanted to build a stand alone box with this PVR. I have not figured out how to do this alone with using the 350 and not using a monitor.

I have BTV 3.4, Sage 1.4 and WinTV at my disposal

Any ideas?
Will the hauppage remote be enough assuming that I get a direct IR contact?
Any other remotes?
Software suggestions?
Or do I scrap the 350, get a 250 and find a TV out card?

Thanks
LS

[pcuoco]

You can do this with SageTV Version 2, which supports the GUI/OSD on the output of the 350. You'll still need a monitor or a TVout on another input to your TV to see the windows desktop, for web surfing, games, etc.

The remote control that came with the 350 will give you complete remote control over Sage's functions (but a recommend a wireless keyboard and mouse as well).

[fidget]

My TV has two sets of AV inputs. I attached the output of the PVR-350 to one of them and the output from the computer to the other (my motherboard has built-in S-Video out). I would keep a monitor handy, for when SageTV locks up or when you have to relaunch the application (it does happen). I also run a VNC server on that PC so I can control it from any other PC in the house (unless SageTV requires a hard reset, but then having a monitor connected wouldn't help). You may want to have a cheap keybaord and mouse connected for when you need to hook up a monitor.

[krutaw]

Originally posted by longshort
I bought a 350 because of the video out. The picture is nice and better than my ati rage pro but how do you control the usage without a computer monitor?

I wanted to build a stand alone box with this PVR. I have not figured out how to do this alone with using the 350 and not using a monitor.

I have BTV 3.4, Sage 1.4 and WinTV at my disposal

Any ideas?
Will the hauppage remote be enough assuming that I get a direct IR contact?
Any other remotes?
Software suggestions?
Or do I scrap the 350, get a 250 and find a TV out card?

Thanks
LS

I use the PVR-350 with SAGETV 2.0.15 BETA. I have found that there are indeed times when you have to have a monitor connected just so that you can fix the OSD on the PVR-350. There are still lockups here and there, and to be quite honest, I don't expect that will change until the drivers and sagetv are out of beta.

[Vex]

On my setup, I'm using the Hauppauge 350 to encode video coming in from my cable box, and an ATI card wtih TV out to display on the TV. It displays my Windows desktop (setting Windows to a high-contrast, large display theme helps a little bit). When SageTV runs in full screen mode it hides all of the desktop. When I need to use Windows on the machine I can sleep SageTV or just make the taskbar visible using the Window key on the keyboard.

At 640x480 resolution small text is close to unreadable but overall the display is good enough to get done what I need to get done. I the entire install of the system from the OS up, using just my TV for a display, and that includes configuring it for networking and an Internet connection.

However, I'm not happy with the ATI's TV out display. It leaves a black band at the bottom of the screen, and video from SageTV is good but could be better. I'd like to try the 350's video out, and it occurs to me that I might be able to continue to utilize the ATI card. My VCR has multiple inputs, so if I hook the 350 to one at the ATI to the other, I should be able to configure SageTV to output to the 350. Then, I could just flip inputs on my VCR when I need to see the Windows desktop.