Thinking about making the switch or rather adding SageTV

[wrems]

All your sources are commingled into 1 EPG seamlessly. No one would even be able to tell that you were pulling broadcasts from different sources. You'd be the only one to know because you set it up. It's all in the back-end. On top of that Sage will allow you to customize the channels too. If the broadcast comes in on say channel 803 you can easily remap that to any number you want, so you can put your lineup in any order that best suits your needs and the needs of your family.

[J.K.B.]

Originally Posted by tchapin

What do you mean by "getting a TiVo to use for the cable box"? Your best experience will be to convert everything over to Sage. That way you don't have to remember what you have recording on which system. Plus TiVo's multi-room capability requires having multiple TiVos with subscriptions in each room that you want to watch the programs. Also, as far as I know, they don't have cooperative scheduling and recording, which means that each TiVo manage's it's season passes and recordings separately.

Todd

The only reason why I mentioned the Tivo option was if it had a firewire port that worked if the one on the cable box was disabled. It would probably be cheaper than a HD cable box as well in the long run. About $600 for box with a lifetime service (figured over 5 yrs) is only $10 a month instead of the $16 with a cable box. I would still use the PVR with it and store it all on sage. I just wasn't sure if that was a legit or preferable option or not?

[J.K.B.]

Originally Posted by wrems

All your sources are commingled into 1 EPG seamlessly. No one would even be able to tell that you were pulling broadcasts from different sources. You'd be the only one to know because you set it up. It's all in the back-end. On top of that Sage will allow you to customize the channels too. If the broadcast comes in on say channel 803 you can easily remap that to any number you want, so you can put your lineup in any order that best suits your needs and the needs of your family.

That sounds pretty cool. Essentially setting up your own "favorites" in the order that you want them. That is very appealing to be able to group channels methodically.

I know sage seems to be fairly robust when it comes to scheduled recordings and priorities, but say I had 2 tv's watching over the air shows and had 2 antenna tuners, if a third tv wanted to watch one of those same channels, would sage know to get it from the cable box instead even if I only had the OTA channels listed in the TV guide? Just wondering how big of an ordeal it would be to make happen. I know there can be an endless number of hypotheticals, that just happens to be one I could see happening fairly often.

[Beefcake550]

Side note:

Lets not confuse the bitrates of the HDPVR with the bitrates of OTA or QAM.
HDPVR - H264 encoding up to 13.5Mbps
QAM/OTA - MPEG2 encoding up to 19.5Mbps

H264 takes less bits to represent the same information. This is why BluRay uses H264. So, while the HDPVR's 13.5Mbps is less than 19.5Mbps numerically, it's actually equal if not greater than OTA/QAM 19.5Mbps in QUALITY. The major (and it's VERY VERY VERY MINOR) "loss" is the D/A converter in the STB going from the digital stream to analog component outputs.

I would be seriously hard pressed to be able to tell a side by side comparison of a original image v. the HDPVR's H264 image. Do a search....some people have.

[jm9843]

Originally Posted by J.K.B.

The only reason why I mentioned the Tivo option was if it had a firewire port that worked if the one on the cable box was disabled. It would probably be cheaper than a HD cable box as well in the long run. About $600 for box with a lifetime service (figured over 5 yrs) is only $10 a month instead of the $16 with a cable box. I would still use the PVR with it and store it all on sage. I just wasn't sure if that was a legit or preferable option or not?

I'm just speculating because I've never owned one, but I seriously doubt that a Tivo allows for recording over its firewire port. That's likely just to expand its available storage with external drives.

In the days before the HD-PVR, I used a Comcast Moto stb to record in Sage (& tune channels) via the firewire port. However, only the local channels weren't 5c encrypted and so I wasn't able to record the extended lineup or premium channels.

Once the HD-PVR became available, I continued to use the same Comcast stb to allow Sage to tune the channels via the firewire port (more reliable than ir blasting) but the recording was done via the stb component/optical outputs with the HD-PVR. In this configuration, all channels you subscribe to are available because there is no encryption on the stb component outputs. Also keep in mind that the Comcast stb does not have any reason to be a DVR so you should be able to pay less than the stated $16/month.

[wrems]

Originally Posted by J.K.B.

I know sage seems to be fairly robust when it comes to scheduled recordings and priorities, but say I had 2 tv's watching over the air shows and had 2 antenna tuners, if a third tv wanted to watch one of those same channels, would sage know to get it from the cable box instead even if I only had the OTA channels listed in the TV guide? Just wondering how big of an ordeal it would be to make happen. I know there can be an endless number of hypotheticals, that just happens to be one I could see happening fairly often.

It doesn't matter how many places you are serving the content, you wont have that problem. You have to remember that even if you're watching "live" tv through Sage its not live. It's recorded and its being played back with a minimal amount of time difference than the real live broadcast. This ensures that you can pause rewind etc. So basically what this means that you're always watching pre-recorded TV and that there is 1 recording of a show and Sage serves that single copy to as many places as necessary to be watched.

You will never tie up more than 1 tuner to record the same show. It's 1 show, 1 tuner.