Random Questions from a new user

[bcSteveO]

Just a few random questions here from a relatively new user.

I have recently revamped my home Media Center system from Windows Media Center with Visa and two Standard def Hauppauge PCI tuners, running on a Pentium 4 3.0 ghz system with 4GB of memory and approximately 300 GB of disk space. I was using a LinkSys DMA2100 in my living room attached to a Samsung DLP TV (hope to replace this in 2010).


My new system is still Visa, but is running on an Acer Aspire desktop computer with 4 GB of memory, two Hauppauge HD-PVRs driven by two Shaw HD Tuners (in Canada eh). I have a recently purchased Sage HD Tuner attached to the TV in the living room, and two client licenses for two computers in my home. I have installed a new Hitachi 2 TB SATA drive (formatted with 64 K cluster size as recommended). One of the HD-PVRs is using the included IR blaster, the other is using a USB-UIRT which was seemlessly configured through the Sage TV interface.

I primarily use the media center to record TV shows (5 people here of varying taste) as well as view other media available in my home network.

So far I am quite pleased with the result.

Question #1.
My media center is in the basement and shares out an OfficeJet printer and a couple of small fileshares (kept separate from the Recorded TV Drive). There is exercise equipment in the basement near the server and family members like to go down there and watch some shows or other media while working out. How can I control the media center computer's Sage TV interface? Can the Hauppauge remote be configured to allow this? I'd like to be able to navigate the menus of course and watch content, pause, skip forward and back etc.

Question #2.
I occasionally watch PPV content. Using my STB, I subscribe to the event and from what I've heard, the event must be watched on the STB box used to subscribe to the event. How can I configure a manual recording such that it will take place on a specified tuner, rather than let Sage assign one?

Question #3.
Is is possible to extend the Online Services options, and is there a published format that subscribed sites must adhere to? I notice that some of the content of the current selection is a bit dated.



Thanks in advance for any advice or guidance on the above.

My compliments to the Sage TV developers on an impressive product.

Steve Smith

[tmiranda]

Steve,

I can't help with question 1.

The answer to question 2 is Sage takes care of this automatically as long as you have your lineups created properly. For example I have several tuners but only 1 is conected to a STB (via composite cables). When creating the lineups I made sure that the channels that are only available on the STB are disabled on the lineups used by the other tuners. It's a very straight forward process.

There is a lot of info available regarding question 3. The short answer is that Sage updates the links automatically on a regular basis. There is also way to add custom links as well, search "custom online video" and you will find multiple threads. There is also a sticky that describes how to add custom links.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by bcSteveO

Question #1.
My media center is in the basement and shares out an OfficeJet printer and a couple of small fileshares (kept separate from the Recorded TV Drive). There is exercise equipment in the basement near the server and family members like to go down there and watch some shows or other media while working out. How can I control the media center computer's Sage TV interface? Can the Hauppauge remote be configured to allow this? I'd like to be able to navigate the menus of course and watch content, pause, skip forward and back etc.

If you have a Hauppauge card with the IR Receiver installed in that PC, then you should be able to use the Hauppauge remote with the Sage UI software that is running on that same PC.

Note: If you have more than one Hauppauge card installed in the PC, the Hauppauge driver only supports one IR Reciever and blaster. It doesn't allow you to choose which one, so you may have to plug your reciever into each card until you get it to work.

The IR Receiver driver should have been installed when you installed your Hauppauge card(s). If not, you will need to re-install it. Things work better if you do this before you install Sage. On the latest Hauppauge CD (4.6b) there is a folder called IR32 and inside is the IR32.exe software - just run this to install the IR Receiver. It will add an IRRemote program to your Windows Startup folder and put an icon in your system tray. This needs to be running for Sage to use the Hauppuage remote.

When you first install Sage, it asks you if you want to configure the Hauppauge remote, if you click Yes, it will put a configuration file called IRRemote.ini inside your c:\windows folder. This is what configures the buttons on the Remote so Sage knows how to respond. If you install the Hauppauge software after Sage, this file gets overwritten with a default file that won't work with Sage. So you may need to re-install Sage to get it back. Just in case, I attached a copy of my file (you will have to rename it to remove the .txt from the end before you use it).

Once everything is installed, go to Setup->Detailed Setup->Commands menu and tell it to use the Hauppauge remote.

You should be done at this point.

[nick_l]

Re. number 1. you could also use the MCE remote kit http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Cont.../dp/B00066FIO6 (this is just the first link I found, It's ridiculously expensive. You should be able to find it for less than $30)

Windows Vista, with the possible exception of Home Basic, should support it natively, as will Sage.

I mention it because the Hauppauge remote can sometimes be unergonomic. Most people seem to like the MCE remote (myself being one of them).

Welcome to the family,
Nick

[paulbeers]

Looks like most of the questions have been answered. I will add to #3. There is an option in the setup that allows you to automatically update the interface. Anytime a change is made to update the online services (due to old links that are no longer valid), then you can go there and download the newest Sage gui that should include the fixes. And as also stated, you can add others. I personally rarely use the online services (other than weather), but I know some really like it.

[bcSteveO]

Thanks all for the information.

I did figure out that he USB-UIRT I have is supported in SageTV so I have enabled it and trained it with the buttons and commands needed, so I now have a fully functional remote to use with my server in the basement.

As for the PPV issue, when I installed my STBs in SageTV I did indicate that they both have the same channel lineup. In hindsight, as suggested I could have only allowed one of the tuners to list the PPV channels, then I would know that any recording would go to one of the tuners. I purchased the page TV on my STB through liveTV this morning, and observed that I was on tuner2. I then set up a manual recording (since the guide was not listing the PPV on the correct time/channel). Once configured using the SageMC interface I went into the Scheduled recordings and noticed that the recording was set for tuner1, so what I have done is configure a 2nd manual recording for the same time and channel so that both tuners will record that channel. Once the program starts I'll verify which STB is recording correctly, then cancel the other recording.

Unless I can come up with a better way, reconfiguring my 2nd tuner and restricting the lineup to exclude the PPV stations might be the best way.

[bcSteveO]

Yes, and I have updated my STV file to the latest (december) version and have observed that the listing are much more current now. Thank you.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by bcSteveO

Unless I can come up with a better way, reconfiguring my 2nd tuner and restricting the lineup to exclude the PPV stations might be the best way.

Yep that's the ticket.