Setting up HD in Sage

[Milkman]

OK, I currently am running Sage 4 and I'm looking to add an HD card into the mix. I currently have a 350 and a Motorola cable box to watch HD on, but not through Sage. What is the easiest route to go, should I look into antennae or stick with Comcast. I'm leaning towards the antennae because I live in Chicago and have access to about 10 channels with HD content on them within 50 miles. That would save on cost at least. Also which HD card should I get for the computer. I've heard of Avermedia and the Fusion5 lite cards, but don't know the advantages/disadvantes of each.

I think that's a good start,

Thanks,

Chris

[paulbeers]

Milkman -

At this point, there is no QAM support in Sage (meaning you can't record from HD Cable). Your only option at this point is thru OTA. As far as cards go, either one should work just fine. I use a Fusion5 Lite and it works perfectly, and if Sage ever supports QAM, it will be ready to handle it. The A180 is more readily available and cheaper than Fusion5 Lite. If I hadn't needed a low profile card, I probably would have gone with the A180 (just because I like Avermedia products).

Just my 2 cents worth (or is it 4 cause it covers two topics? hehe)

[Milkman]

So an Antenna is the way to go. Any thoughts on which type to get? Is there any indoor ones worth anything or is outside the way to go?

Thanks for the thoughts on the cards.

[heffe2001]

Actually to say definitively there is no QAM support in Sage isn't entirely accurate. While Sage has no direct support for QAM, there are a couple ways to get HD via cable systems. One is the MyHD encoder (http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=13798), the other is the Firewire connection to your existing Motorola HD box (http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=9288). I'm currently using the latter option, and having very little trouble (aside from some recorded shows with AC3 audio not playing the audio in Sage). Also as a bonus it appears my cable company isn't 5c'ing any channels currently (knock on wood). BUT if you're looking for Sage core support for QAM, then you're definitely right...

[Commodore 64]

You need to go to www.antennaweb.org and see what digital channels are where. Depending on your distance from them and whether they transmit in VHF or UHF, you'll need to make your antenna choice accordingly. I use an oudoor setup on my roof, that I had to modify a fair bit to get the channels in my area.

I live in a valley and have a lot of multipath issues to deal with. I can tell you that with my setup, the Avermedia A180 is useless, it will only lock on 1 channel, while a VBox DTA 150 will lock on all of the channels I have available. Additionally, with the A180 installed, I occasionally got system errors that pointed to the Avermedia driver. Once I switched to Vbox and removed the Avermedia card form my system, I haven't looked back.

Avermedia and Fusion cards also seem to have issues with SATA drives on SI311x controllers relating to stuttering.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=597238

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=614472

[naln]

Choice of antenna depends on where u live- and what you want to spend

external antennae are supposed to be the best and highly directional- if you can mount something like that where u live..........

If it is indoor only- I would recommend the differential element length amplified indoor antenna from RS- worked well for me so far. I tried to mount an external amplified antena ( indoors- in my balcony )- but did not see a difference between the internal and the external- the indoor antenna on the contrary was better.

Something like this "Terk® HDTV Amplified Indoor Antenna"- i have it sitting atop my TV- and works great so far and does not look too shabby either! RS had a similar model for 39 a while back.

PS- Distance from tower is about 30 miles for me....