Direct TV

[djxkape]

not sure if this is the right place to post this but im really new to sage tv , i saw a review of it at mpc club and really caught my eye and was really impress by it to the point were im gonna be placing an order for one in the next few days. my question is how would i go about setting everything up with direct tv , i have 4 rooms in my house and we all watch different stuff at the same time plus i will be building a server come the new year , so what would i need to make everything work since i have no idea were to start. any help would be appreciated.

[PiX64]

first off welcome to the sageTV community.

you can certainly setup Sage to work with DirecTV as your input source, but you need to ask yourself a few questions.

1) Wat type of content do you want to record (HD, SD)
2) Will directv be your only video source, or do you plan on building a cheap do it yourself antenna to get your free OTA (Over-The-Air) Local broadcast channels
3) do you currently have a cable modem? if you do then you may be able to use QAM from the cable company to receive standard local cable in both HD and SD format
4) How many shows do you want to be able to record at a given time? (you need to determine this so you can decide how many tuners to buy)
5) the number of tuners you have and number of concurrent recordings you want to have going will also help determine what type of hardware to buy for your server

i would strongly recommend using HD300's found on the sagetv website for the STB's which will be located at each of your TV's for viewing. The HD300 is smple, works perfectly, and just plain works. If you go with the clientPC route, then you will have to mess around with drivers/codecs/etc. I use to use pc clients, and qhickly switched with the introduction of the HD200 a few years ago.

Also I am sure i left some things out above, but wanted to get the conversation rolling so that everyone on the forum can help figure out what is the best way for you to go. Also if you do a quick search on the forums i am positive that many of these types of posts will pop up, and several of them I'm sure have to do with directv as well.

Welcome once again

~PiX64

[fidget]

I would recommend a standard, modern, PC (with SATA drives). One small capacity drive for your OS and applications, and probably 3 500+GB drives for recordings. If you will be recording in hi definition, these programs will eat drive space like it was going out of style (3.6 GB per half hour per program).

If you will be ripping DVDs to watch, count the number of DVDs that you have and multiply that by 9 GB (4.4 GB for a compressed DVD and the rest for growth). I currently have 7.4 TB for DVD storage.

For the TVs that will be viewing programs, I would recommend getting HD-300s for each. They do hardware decoding and the picture is very good.

The tuners depend on how many live programs you will want to view and record at the same time, as each will need its own encoder. In my house, I have two Dish Network boxes connected to my SageTV system. Each box has a Hauppauge HD-PVR that is used for recording programs. This means that I can only tune two Dish programs at once (either watching live or recording). I also use HD HomeRuns for recording programs from Over-The-Air.

[fidget]

I forgot to add, you will want a GigE (1000baseT) network with a good switch to drive everything. Although none of the connections will be more than 17 Mbps, when you have four or more connections, you will saturate a 100baseT network.

[djxkape]

Originally Posted by PiX64

first off welcome to the sageTV community.

you can certainly setup Sage to work with DirecTV as your input source, but you need to ask yourself a few questions.

1) Wat type of content do you want to record (HD, SD)
2) Will directv be your only video source, or do you plan on building a cheap do it yourself antenna to get your free OTA (Over-The-Air) Local broadcast channels
3) do you currently have a cable modem? if you do then you may be able to use QAM from the cable company to receive standard local cable in both HD and SD format
4) How many shows do you want to be able to record at a given time? (you need to determine this so you can decide how many tuners to buy)
5) the number of tuners you have and number of concurrent recordings you want to have going will also help determine what type of hardware to buy for your server

i would strongly recommend using HD300's found on the sagetv website for the STB's which will be located at each of your TV's for viewing. The HD300 is smple, works perfectly, and just plain works. If you go with the clientPC route, then you will have to mess around with drivers/codecs/etc. I use to use pc clients, and qhickly switched with the introduction of the HD200 a few years ago.

Also I am sure i left some things out above, but wanted to get the conversation rolling so that everyone on the forum can help figure out what is the best way for you to go. Also if you do a quick search on the forums i am positive that many of these types of posts will pop up, and several of them I'm sure have to do with directv as well.

Welcome once again

~PiX64

thanks guys for welcoming me to the community glad to be here.
to answer some of the questions you pointed out:
1)Would be recording mostly hd content and watching live tv
2)It will be using Direct Tv as my main source
3)Dont have cable modem i use verizon fios internet
4)Usually it will be only be 2 shows recording on any given time
5)Currently i have 4 rooms in my house ( well actually 3 plus the family room) 2 are your sd tuners on the kids room, one hd dvr in the family and one hd receiver in the master room.
Also to answer some of fidget questions or recommendations i already have a gigabit network and the server i will be building i was thinking of using whs or unraid with at least 8 tb of storageto store all my media content and also for bittorrent. I was also gonna order the hd300 bundle for the family room and gradually add one to each room .

[PiX64]

1)Would be recording mostly hd content and watching live tv
Recording HD content from DirecTV would require the use of a Hauppauge HDPVR. This will allow you to record 1 stream being ouput from 1 STB. If you will be recording 2 simultaneously that will require 2 STBs from DirectTV and 2 HDPVR (1 for each STB). Surf around the forum, because i know there has been much discussion regarding the use of mutliple HDPVR on 1 sage system. I think from what i remember it can be a bit tricky. U will also need something like the usb-uirt in order to change channels independently on the HDPVRs
2)It will be using Direct Tv as my main source
see above
3)Dont have cable modem i use verizon fios internet
I do not believe that QAM is available over Fios. I know it is not available over U-verse. So with that your tv sources would be OTA HD and SD/HD content from DirecTV
4)Usually it will be only be 2 shows recording on any given time
If you have 2 tuners as described in number 1 and 2 above, then this means you will only be able to a) watch 2 live streams b) wathc a live stream and record a stream c) record 2 streams. This is of course only for live TV. you can watch any recorded content from your sage system regardless of what is going on with your tuners. It may make sense in your case to have 2 HDPVR and 1 SD capture card. this way you can always have 1 tuner available for live tv. I know in my house we RARELY watch live tv and having an idle tuner ready to use isn't necessary.
5)Currently i have 4 rooms in my house ( well actually 3 plus the family room) 2 are your sd tuners on the kids room, one hd dvr in the family and one hd receiver in the master room.
if you wanted to capture all of this content you woul dneed the following:
1 HDPVR to capture tv from the HD DVR
1 HDPVR to capture tv from a source other than the HD DVR above (I beleive that you can only capture one HD stream off of a dual HDDVR, but possibly can capture 1 HD and 1 SD. We need some input here from others on the forum.
1 SD capture card (Hauppauge HVR2250 perhaps) to capture SD from the SD STB
1 SD capture card to capture SD from the 2 SD STB

[djxkape]

and all of these is gonna be plus in into my server corrrect? now as far as the server goes what software is best to use? SageTV Media Center for Windows Version 7 or the WHS version?

[PiX64]

All o fthe tuners will be plugged into your server correct.

I personally don't use WHS, but have heard good thing about it. If I were going to build from scratch i would go with

Window 7 x64
sage 7 media center for windows

[djxkape]

a quick question ? what are the differences or advantages on going with win7 x64 over WHS or Unraid if i was goin that route?

[PiX64]

that is quite the objective question :-)

if i could use windows 7 i would. it is a solid OS and has the added advantage of being 64 bit (eventhough sage is a 32bit app). I tried to use win 7 a fwe weeks ago and had nothing but headaches....you can see my post found on the forums "extender ui slow"

as for WHS i can't comment on that as i have never used it.

as for unraid, well that is a personal preference. IT is optimized for streaming media, and has the added bonus of

1) drive spin down
2) hetoreogenous sudo raid 4 type of array
3) mutliple disk failure is recoverable (see unraid product site for info)
4) its easy to setup, and easy to administrate.
5) pretty much unlimited uexp[andabilty

I use to use a seperate config for my music/dvd/bluray which was built on hardware raid (dell perc 5i) but have since decided to move to unraid for the reasons listed above. (i also have a topic on the forum regarding unraid...)

I personally don't use unraid for my recording drive, but i know that others on the forum do. I only use my unraid server for dvd/bluray/music/personal file storage.

[SprDtyF350]

I don't use most of what you want to do but I do have my Sage on a WHS server and it works fine. I use 2 Directv boxes tuned by serial cables but only in SD using a PVR-500 capture card. I also have 2 HDHR's hooked to my cable that give me the main networks in HD.

I think what you want to do is going to be very expensive. I would think about waiting for a while and see if the HDHR with the cable card in it actually ever shows up. And then if Fios will allow it use the cable card from them with the HDHR's. Likely be a heck of a lot cheaper, lots less hardware, cables, and headaches.

[djxkape]

well personally i preffer xp but i guess it wont hurt trying win7 , so as far as my server goes if i go with the unraid ( which i must say is looking like it would be my choice the more i read about ) that means i would have to set up sagetv media center on a different pc in the house correct?

[SprDtyF350]

Originally Posted by djxkape

well personally i preffer xp but i guess it wont hurt trying win7 , so as far as my server goes if i go with the unraid ( which i must say is looking like it would be my choice the more i read about ) that means i would have to set up sagetv media center on a different pc in the house correct?

XP works very well with Sage. Used it for years like that..

[Bizarroterl]

Originally Posted by djxkape

well personally i preffer xp but i guess it wont hurt trying win7 , so as far as my server goes if i go with the unraid ( which i must say is looking like it would be my choice the more i read about ) that means i would have to set up sagetv media center on a different pc in the house correct?

Yes. Unraid is a NAS and not really a server, at least as far Sage is concerned. Unraid is arguably the best media NAS out there, but you will need a separate Windows/Linux system to run the SageTV Media Center.

Note that Unraid is a linux based system, so the linux version of SageTV theoretically could be run on it. Don't even think of trying it unless you're an experienced linux hacker with many many hours to spare. AFAIK, no one has done it.

[djxkape]

Originally Posted by SprDtyF350

I don't use most of what you want to do but I do have my Sage on a WHS server and it works fine. I use 2 Directv boxes tuned by serial cables but only in SD using a PVR-500 capture card. I also have 2 HDHR's hooked to my cable that give me the main networks in HD.

I think what you want to do is going to be very expensive. I would think about waiting for a while and see if the HDHR with the cable card in it actually ever shows up. And then if Fios will allow it use the cable card from them with the HDHR's. Likely be a heck of a lot cheaper, lots less hardware, cables, and headaches.

yeah your right ii was running some numbers and it would be very expensive to do , i think i will go with one or two HDPVR for now to start off with and maybe add stuff little by little . the more i read it seems like sage runs better in xp so might just run that on the new build. but i have alittle debate as far as using WHS or UnRaid , i like some of the features of Unread but like Bizarroterl said i have no idea how to use linux plus i would much rather have everything run in one computer . what do you guys think?

[SprDtyF350]

Originally Posted by djxkape

yeah your right ii was running some numbers and it would be very expensive to do , i think i will go with one or two HDPVR for now to start off with and maybe add stuff little by little . the more i read it seems like sage runs better in xp so might just run that on the new build. but i have alittle debate as far as using WHS or UnRaid , i like some of the features of Unread but like Bizarroterl said i have no idea how to use linux plus i would much rather have everything run in one computer . what do you guys think?

I have been using WHS for over a year now and it has worked fine. I used to use XP for my Sage server, and a NASLite box for my storage. I wanted it all in one and have been happy enough with WHS. It has only broken once, and that was a hard drive that died. Fixing WHS when it dies is not the most fun thing to do but it works..

[djxkape]

i just want something thats easy to use , wwhere i can store all my media and the family can acces it with no hip cups , because the plan is to have hd3000 in each of the rooms . so can i use sage media center or do i have to use the whs version in a whs server?

[SprDtyF350]

Originally Posted by djxkape

i just want something thats easy to use , wwhere i can store all my media and the family can acces it with no hip cups , because the plan is to have hd3000 in each of the rooms . so can i use sage media center or do i have to use the whs version in a whs server?

You can use either. I don't remember if they updated the WHS version to use the WHS add-ins installer yet but it works fine with the normal one. I like WHS. It also can be used as a upnp server which lets me watch my videos, music, stuff like that from my tablet pc. You can also access it away from home with its own built in stuff. I have two daughters that watch Sage from my house at there places using the Placeshifter and it looks really pretty nice. WHS also lets you backup all your pc's to it. It's really not a bad setup and it is pretty easy to use. Mine sits in a corner with no monitor, keyboard, or anything and I can do whatever I need with it remotely from the WHS console, or just logging in to it directly.

[djxkape]

yeah thats what im looking for something where i can put in a corner with no monitor and such and that can be access from another computer. which version of WHS are you using by the way ? the older version or the new one ? whats is Placeshiffter and how does it work?

[SprDtyF350]

Originally Posted by djxkape

yeah thats what im looking for something where i can put in a corner with no monitor and such and that can be access from another computer. which version of WHS are you using by the way ? the older version or the new one ? whats is Placeshiffter and how does it work?

I use the original one. The new one called Vail is not out yet. Still in Beta. I tried it and wasn't real happy with it. It felt really bloated, and was harder for me to figure out. Intuitive I guess is the word. For me, it wasn't. Maybe they will fix it I don't know. I did read somewhere they are taking the drive extender stuff out of it. I don't want it if that is true. The part I like about WHS now is you can just fill it with all sorts of hard drives and it will show, and manage them as 1 big drive.
Placeshifter is a version of Sage that lets you take your laptop with you and anywhere you can find wifi you can watch Sage. It is really cool. The interface looks and acts just like the main Sage interface. All your shows, movies, music, everything is available. You can watch live TV with it. My girls would hate it if they couldn't use it. You can even take one of the extenders with you on a trip and if you have internet you can watch all your stuff with it that you have at your house.. Really neat stuff..