Manual recording

[nspindel]

Question......

I have some vcr/camcorder material that I would like to transcode to mpeg. I currently run Sage with two pvr150mce capture cards being fed by two digital cable boxes via the s-video connection. I would like to disable one of the cards within Sage on a temporary basis, and connect the vcr/camcorder via composite. Is there a way to control the manual capture on a particular capture card from within Sage? Or is there other software I should be looking at for this, e.g. something direct from Hauppaugge???

Thanks for any advice.

[ruel]

You could add a composite connection in SageTV as another channel and then do a manual timed recording. I have a blank composite channel for doing that but I have to assign a channel in the EPG to this composite channel -- I remapped a leased channel with no data for the composite channel connection and that has a high number for the channel number.

[nspindel]

I would need to disable the s-video input to do this, correct? In other words, I'd still only have one tuner that would be functioning with input from the s-video/cable box, correct?

Is there a doc somewhere that describes how I would create this channel in Sage?

[ruel]

i don't think you would have to disable the s-video that you have set up. you should be able to just add it in as another connection. it's when you use it that sagetv will know that you are using the card for the composite connection and not for your s-video connection to your cable box. on one of my cards, i have the card set up for the regular tuner, for the composite, and for the s-video. normally i'm just using that TV card for the tuner, but the composite and the s-video options are always available since i would have those connected to other boxes like to the VCR etc. for whenever i want to use those - i just change the channel that i have set up for those other boxes. sagetv knows which one i'm using and of course can't do the other two when i'm using whichever i'm watching. i'm still using sagetv 2.0.19 but i'm guessing the setup is the same if you are using a later sagetv version where you go into the setup menu, go into the setup wizard, add new source, pick which one of your 150 cards, and then you should see that card's options for composite, s-video, and tv tuner, etc. if you want documentation, you may want to look in the file directories for your sagetv on your harddrive to find the PDF manual file.

ruel

[nspindel]

Ah, now I get what you're saying. Thanks so much for the advice!

[nspindel]

Started looking at hooking this up last night, but realized I still have a problem. Even if I could set up a separate input for the composite feed, I still can't hook up the sound without disconnecting the cable box. There's only one set of stereo inputs on the card. So I guess I will have to disable one of my cable boxes for the time being.

[ruel]

what i have done in the past, particularly when i had less TV cards in my system, is to use something like a Stereo Splitter Jack, or also known as a Y Adapter Jack or Double Stereo Jack, for putting more than one input into a jack for the sound input. but if you put too many (like using several of those adapters plugged into each other like a tree into one jack) then you may lose some of the sound but my experience is that may not happen (or not happen too badly) if you don't have all the boxes being used at the same time -- anyways you can try to compensate by turning up the recording (input) setting in the windows Volume Control panel. some may say that it's not elegant, i was too lazy in wanting to disconnect and reconnect the sound input in the back of the PC -- so i got a few of those adapters so i can have them all plugged in.

ruel