newbie

[sp3]

can sage stream live tv, say at home I had a hardware encoder and software encoder connected to my cable box and the usb-uirt connected to my pc to change channels on the cable box. it is possible then to have sage connect to my pc remotly and then I can use the sage program on my pc thus streaming live tv etc.

[sp3]

can sage client do this for me....

say I am travling can I watch my home tv on my laptop or on my pocket pc

[stanger89]

You got me a little lost in your explanation but here goes

Yes you can stream video from a Sage server (HW Encoder) to SageClient.
No, Sage currently does not support software encoder cards.
Yes you can stream video from home to your laptop somewhere else, but remember that you'll need >4Mbps to stream that so most internet connections aren't capable of streaming MPEG video. Actually with the Plextor Convertex in MPEG 4 mode, you might be able to stream it.

[sp3]

Basically I was asking if we can stream live tv over the internet to another computer, it seems like it can be done, how exactly would I do this and once i stream i can I change channels remotely

[stanger89]

If you want to change channels you need a copy of SageClient. SageClient gives you the full SageTV interface, only from a remote computer. It works over a network probably any network (including the internet). But consider this, most ISPs limit upstream bandwidth to about 256kbps, maybe 512kbps if you're lucky. Standard MPEG2 recordings (for really good quality) is about 8Mbps, there's no way you're going to be able to stream that over a normal broadband connection. Now I don't know much about the Plextor ConvertX other than it supports DivX encoding. It's conceivable that you could crop down the bitrate such that you could stream it but I'd guess you'd be less than happy, especially if you've got a 256k upstream cap like I do.

Short answer is yes, there's nothing in Sage stopping you from doing it, but it's probably not feasable on most broadband connections.

[sp3]

how do you convert bitrate to mbps,
and normal bitrate is between 4000 - 6000 right?

[nielm]

mbps = mega bits per second =1000 kbps (kilo bits per second)
2Gbytes/hr recording quality is 2x8x1000/3600 =4.4mbps...
or 79 times the bandwidth of a dial-up modem!

[sp3]

so 1000 is the bitrate?
or 3600

[stanger89]

Mbps is bitrate, technically GB/hour is bitrate too, but Mbps is more convenient when comparing to broadband bandwidth.

[nielm]

Originally Posted by sp3

so 1000 is the bitrate? or 3600

As Stanger89 says, both..
Bitrate = is a measure of the amount of information passed in a given unit of time (like speed = distance/time) and depending on how you are measuring the amount of information, and the time, you can have different values for the same actual bitrate...

Explaining my conversion above: Starting with 2GBytes/hr 2x1000 =2000 MBytes/hr (1 Giga = 1000 Mega's[*])
2000x8=16000 Mbits/hr (1 bytes = 8 bits)
16000/3600 = 4.4 Mbits/second (1 hr = 60x60= 3600 seconds)

[*] sometimes in computing 1 Giga = 1024 Mega, but in most of the video packages I have seen they use 1000...

[sp3]

thanks

[timbiotic]

In snapstream you can lower the bitrate to a streamable level over dsl/cable... Their low setting is video at 168kbps and audio at 8kbps... All at 320x240 resolution. Can you tweak these settings in Sagetv? I know this is done in snapstream with WMV. If not, does anyone know a program that can do this besides snapstream (their latest offering sucks major!)

[sp3]

yeah that is why i came here, but it really does not offer the same.
so I went back to BTV 3.4 and it is great
you might also want to look here http://www.8dim.com/