Best Solution for Charter Digital?

[nicholsona]

I suppose this has been asked before, but I can't find a thread dealing with this. If you want to point me to the proper thread, that's OK -- it's just that SO MUCH of what I find is really old information.

• I have Charter, which went all digital a couple days ago
• I want Hardware encoding
• I need the PVR to talk to cable box
• It has to support HD
• It needs to support HDMI

What's my best hardware? I can go internal, external, Mac, or PC.

I had a three-tuner PVR using Hauppauge 1600s and Sage TV, so I have some experience, but I don't know where to start this time around due to all the garbage out there from the 1600 days.

One last question: Is Google actually supporting Sage TV? It seems every time they buy a company who's product I'm using they let it die on the vine.

Thanks for your help!

[FriscoJohn]

Check out this post:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61002

[sic0048]

I would suggest using a cable card tuner like the HDHomeRun Prime (http://www.silicondust.com/products/hdhomerun/prime/). This specific tuner is a three tuner box that you put one cable card into. The cable card allows the tuner to decrypt the Cable broadcasts. If the broadcast is coded as "copy freely" then you can use SageTV to record the shows. Most cable companies have their normal digital channels coded this way. Some of the premium movie channels are coded differently.

You also need to use SageDTC (a program that installs on your Sage server which runs as a service) to integrate the cable card tuners with SageTV. This probably would have been done internally if Sage hadn't been sold to Google right about the time that cable tuners were made readily available. But we are lucky enough that SageDTC was created and it does the job just fine.

You might also need a cable tuning adapter (http://www.myaccount.charter.com/Cus...px?MenuItem=79), but this should be provided by the cable company along with the card card itself.

Honestly the cable card tuners are the best solution for those people that have cable and can use them. There is no set top box to worry about tuning correctly, and with a multi-tuner box, the solution is certainly cheaper than having to rent multiple boxes from the cable company.

Good luck!

[nicholsona]

Thanks guys. That gives me a place to start.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by sic0048

The cable card allows the tuner to decrypt the Cable broadcasts. If the broadcast is coded as "copy freely" then you can use SageTV to record the shows. Most cable companies have their normal digital channels coded this way. Some of the premium movie channels are coded differently.

Whether this works well for you or not will depend on your cable company. I don't know Charter's policies. Comcast is pretty good (everything is "copy freely" except premiums like HBO and Pay Per View). Time Warner Cable (and Brighthouse) on the other hand mark everything as "Copy Once", so it won't work with Sage (Windows Media Center is the only software that can record/playback "copy once" shows from a cable card tuner).

You will want to see what things look like at Charter before making a big investment in hardware.

If cable card doesn't work for you, the only other option for capturing HD content that is known to work are the Hauppauge products (HD-PVR and Colossus) connected to a set top box from your provider. There seem to be some issues with just about every version of these products for at least some people. I think the original HD-PVR seems to be the most trouble-free, followed by Colossus. The newer HD-PVR2 and gaming editions appear to be more problematic for more people.

If you don't care about HD, you can capture SD using the older Hauppauge products (like the 1600) via a composite or S-Video connection. You will need to use an IR blaster to change channels on the cable box. The blasters that Hauppauge provides appear to be limited to controlling a single box. If you have multiple tuners and multiple cable boxes, you are better off using an alternate device like the USB-UIRT.

[nicholsona]

Thanks Tiki. I'm assuming that I need to that the Cable Card from Charter, so I figure I would talk to them at that point -- and then buy the other products

[Dargason]

I had Charter until last month and it worked fine with my HDHomerun Prime and SageDCT. I was able to tune all the channels except the premiums.

[Tiger62]

I'm having great success with the Colossus and DirecTV! My stb receiver (H20) obviously has HDCP enabled for the HDMI output but the ViewHD splitter discussed elsewhere solved that problem;-) I have the stb HDMI connected to a monitor and to the Colossus and everything is working flawlessly. I watch TV on the PC quite a bit (via SageTV) and I have no problem recording ANYTHING from the DirecTV HDMI output.

[Fuzzy]

I have and HDHRPrime with charter, and it works great. Charter provides the CableCard, and the Tuning Adapter (to support SDV). SageDCT works great as well. As mentioned earlier, Charter's current policy on CCI flagging is that everything except the 'high value' is flagged as copy freely, and as such, works flawlessly in sage. High value content is essentially paid premium channels, VoD, and PPV.

EDIT: I have noticed that their 'premium' are not just HBO/Cinemax/etc. At least HDNetMovies is also copy once, which I didn't expect, so it's worth going through and previewing all the channels when you set it up.

[KryptoNyte]

What's they best approach to get this done, and do you see any issue with using the Ceton 4-tuner PCIe device (with SageDCT) rather than the Prime device with only 3 tuners?

[KryptoNyte]

How does Ceton manage to put out a 6 tuner device with only one cablecard slot? The Prime 6 tuner device requires (2) cablecards?

Additionally, is Charter putting out anything clear QAM, like the locals?

[Fuzzy]

Charter does provide some of the locals via clear QAM (in my market at least), but i never used it - I've already got an antenna, so I've always just run an HDHR Dual for locals. I hav eno experience with any of the Ceton products, so i can't comment. I do know the HDHR software seems rock solid, and the web interface is very helpful for the installations and troubleshooting (not sure if the ceton has an equivalent).

I had it installed at home, but I certainly didn't pay >$100. I think it was like 25 or 30. If they don't have to install the cable itself, it should not cost too much (time to remove the filter at the tap, and activate the card). If they currently don't have any charter at the house, then they are going to have to roll a truck to at least remove the line-filter - no real way to totally self install, unless they've already GOT digital cable from charter (which it sounds like they do not).

[KryptoNyte]

Thanks, Fuzzy. I'll go easy on them this time around and just take what they recommend.