cable question

[jingado]

Hi

I live in NJ and my cable supplier is cablevision. I have a set top box because I have the digital channels too (what they call io). Anyways, if I connect my tv straight to the antena it picks up the 50 something basic cable channels (broadcast + cnn, tnt, comedy central etc).

I thought about getting a pvr 250 and using my computer tivo style with sage. However, I don't want to spend the $60 on an IR Blaster.

Does anyone know if sagetv will be able to pickup the cable channels too like my tv or will it just get the basic broadcast ones?
also, how is the quality when using the pvr 250 without an external box?

p.s. if I buy a card it's gonna be the pvr 250 mce that goes for $80, and not the retail version. please let me know if that makes a difference.

thanks a lot

[stanger89]

Yup, if your TV can recieve it, then you can just plug the cable into the 250 and it will be able to record the same channels, and no MCE or not doesn't make a difference.

Quality will depend mostly on your source, the 250 (mine at least) has a very good tuner, better than the one in my TV, so PQ is actually better than direct to the TV.

[kny3twalker]

well actually if you want a pretty good DVD authiring program you should get the retail and if you want a longer warranty you should get the retail
if neither of these matter get the oem
yes you can watch TV from the cable box but if you want to record TV when you are not there from the cable box you will need an ir blaster of some type

I use serial control of my DirecTV
but I do not think most cable boxes have this
usbuirt has a remote receiver and blaster so you will be able to use any remote
and it has a blaster to change channels on the cable box for recording

[justme]

The SageTV store has a bundle that includes SageTV and a "Blackbird" style PVR card. This card is functionally equivalant to a MCE. I believe the MCE lacks a infrared remote sensor jack and I know the "Blackbird" style cards do. So unless you already have a retail style PVR250(which has a sensor and remote) you'll need some way to control SageTV, unless you only plan to use the keyboard. I use the USB-UIRT to allow me to use any remote(mostly a Tivo remote right now) to control SageTV. I also have Sage and my USB-UIRT setup to control(as needed) my digital cable box by infrared.

I have two sources defined in Sage for my one PVR250 card. One is my PVR250's coax tuner input which is hooked directly to my cable line. For this source I only selected the channels that can be tuned by the builtin tuner, no digital channels. I then have a second input source defined for Sage that points to the RCA style Audio/Video inputs on my PVR250 card. I have this one connected directly to my digital cable box's RCA audio/video outputs. For this second source I made sure to select only digital channels, not any analog.

By using the setup above Sage is able to use the builtin tuner of the PVR card for recording most of my shows/channels. It only needs to use the second RCA input when Sage wants to record a show that is only available on a digital channel. Using this setup with a single card, you can't record from both inputs at the same time. But it still allows Sage to make the most of my setup, by simple adding one extra set of cables.

Sage also sell the USB-UIRT for around $48. Like I said in my title, I don't mean to be pushy but form your description I wasn't even sure if you owned a SageTV license yet. So that's why I mentioned the bundle of a card and license. And you'll need the USB-UIRT(or some other IR reciever) to be able to control Sage, unless I'm wrong about the MCE lacking a remote and sensor.

Hope something of this was usefull.

[jingado]

thanks for the replies.

I was actually asking this question because i used to be the (not so) proud owner of a creative labs digital vcr, and it could not tune into the cable channels - not with its native software and not using sagetv. So I just wanted to verify the PVR 250 could do it.

I don't have a sage license yet - I tried the 1.4 version for the 10 days it allowed using the creative card, but I stopped since that card was amazingly bad.

as for control of the PC, I was lucky enough to get the "lola music system" from X10 a while ago for $5.90, so now I am using their excellent RF remote with girder.

I know the USBuirt works really well (my brother has one) but I will probably not record enough to make its purchase worthwhile - I'll have to live without recording 'the screen savers'. I am more interested in sagetv for the pause livetv option anyways.