Trying something new with HD-300

[ChaOConnor]

I've always used my HD-300 with my primary TV in the living room, which is an HD TV. I recently built an HTPC and put my Sage Client on that, freeing up my HD-300 for the bedroom TV, which is SD. (Actually it's one of those early TVs that slight more than SD, but not HD... it has component inputs, but no HDMI, etc. I think they called it Enhanced Definition)

The questions are this:
- Will the HD-300 or the SageTV server transcode an HD signal (Live TV or file like an .mkv) down to an SD/ED signal if the TV doesn't support HD?
-- IF not, how do you keep your program lineups separate? I'm using an HDHomeRun Prime to feed my Fios channels. Works great on the HD channels, but the upstairs TV should really only show the SD channels. Don't want my WAF to decrease.
- The official Wireless adapters are no longer on sale, nor can I find any on eBay. Does anyone have any luck with any other wireless-n dongles?

Appreciate any inputs you have, thanks in advance!

- Cha

[PiX64]

Sage will handle all transcoding / up converting / down converting for u by default. No need to do anything special. Just plug in hd300 setup the audio/video in standalone mode.. If necessary ( u have to on hd200 not sure about 300). Then watch ur shows :-)

[wayner]

I have about 7 extenders currently in use, 5 on HDTVs and 2 on SD where I use the s video output from the HD 300 or 200.. There is no issue other than letter boxing but I believe that you can deal with this by playing with Sage's aspect ratio. You will lose the left and right edges but you would on an SD channel as well. And the pic quality should be better if the original source is in HD.

On wireless - I think I remember a thread on here where people got other adapters to work. Try searching these forums.

The other option is that many routers can work as a wireless bridge. Get one of these routers and configure it from a laptop in your bedroom. Test file transfers to make sure that you can sustain HD video bitrates, which is 19 Mbps for OTA. Then you can just plug the HD-300 into one of the other ports on the router. This also gives you other ethernet ports in your bedroom as most routers have 4 ports.

If you don't like that option you could try power line networking or MOCA. I bought 3 Motorola MOCA adapters several years ago for $90 on eBay and I use is method to feed two of my extenders without problems.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by ChaOConnor

The questions are this:
- Will the HD-300 or the SageTV server transcode an HD signal (Live TV or file like an .mkv) down to an SD/ED signal if the TV doesn't support HD?

There's no transcoding necessary in such a situation, transcoding is required when the playback device does not support the source, but the HD300 handles everything. In fact, SageTV does no transcoding for the HD300 (or 200 or 100, the MVP was/is the only extender that SageTV transcodes for and only because it can't handle anything but SD MPEG-2).

To your "real" question, the HD300 will play whatever you play, at whatever resolution you have selected for output.

[ChaOConnor]

Awesome, thank you all for the replies.

I'll exercise my Google-Fu and see what I can find on the wireless adapter. I seem to remember that thread as well, but I had thought it was a sticky. I'll keep poking around. I hadn't thought about the MoCA adapter. It sits right next to a Coax jack, so that may work as well.

Thanks again!