Help for a newbie!

[stevetx7]

Maybe I'm too late discovering Sage TV, but I'll describe my problem and perhaps some enlightened soul will help me and set me straigth.

I want to disconnect the satellite dish and just use the regular over the air antenna to view the TV programs however, I would like to record shows and watch them on my own time. That's when I discoverd Windows media center and Sage Tv (among others).

I thought that I could record the programs on my computer with a newly acquired tuner card for my PC and then play the shows wirelessly through my Sony Blue Ray player hooked up my TV in another room. This sort of works with Windows media center, however the recording quality and play back is poor. I would like to get the original HD quality played on my TV.

That's when I took a look at Sage TV and I think they have better recording quality. The problem is my Sony doesn't seem to find the Sage TV recordings even though I have them saved to the same folder as Windows media center. Is there a better extender beside my sony blue ray or perhaps I should just bite the bullet and wire my PC directly to the TV. Any suggestions would help.
Thanks,
Steve in Shutesbury, MA

[darcilicious]

I'm going to guess that the recording quality is fine and it's the playback to your Blueray player that is the issue -- more than likely it's being "transcoded" and the quality is suffering. As far as the Sony not being able to see the SageTV recordings, they're probably not in a file format (.ts?) that the Sony recognizes and can deal with.

Also, SageTV will playback Windows Media Center files but you won't be able to fastforward/rewind well or at all (not really supported since the file format is closed/proprietary).

Last but not least, SageTV software licenses are no longer for sale by the original company so while it's possible to purchase licenses her in the forums from current/former SageTV owners, it might not be the best way to go.

So if it's just you and your TV recordings you need to deal with, I would recommend using WMC and purchasing a small PC that would be connected directly to your TV that can do the recording and playback.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by darcilicious

So if it's just you and your TV recordings you need to deal with, I would recommend using WMC and purchasing a small PC that would be connected directly to your TV that can do the recording and playback.

Or you can do the playback on an Xbox360 in extender mode.