Moving to dish, What do I need?

[xxilikedirtxx]

I am thinking about moving to Direct tv from cable and need to know what I need for Sage to make the upgrade. I have a PVR-500, would I absolutly need to get the AV daughter card or would it be ok to just use COAX? I will need two recievers correct? Can one USB-UIRT control two of the same boxes without conflict. Thanks in advance

[SprDtyF350]

I don't know how you would lock the tuners on the PVR-500 to channel 3, or 4 to allow the Sat boxes to do the tuning. The guide is bound to the tuners in the capture card and I would think you would be changing the channel on the PVR500 tuner. Someone else may know how, I never tried it. As far as tuning the sat boxes, if they have wideband, or lowspeed dataports on the back I would use serial cables to tune them. I have never had a channel change problem with serial.

[PGPfan]

Originally Posted by xxilikedirtxx

I am thinking about moving to Direct tv from cable and need to know what I need for Sage to make the upgrade. I have a PVR-500, would I absolutly need to get the AV daughter card or would it be ok to just use COAX? I will need two recievers correct? Can one USB-UIRT control two of the same boxes without conflict. Thanks in advance

You will need the daughtercard if you want to use the 2 tuners in the PVR-500 at the same time. The 'antenna' input (which is split internally so that it can technically feed the 2 tuners) relies on having "unencrypted analog" signal coming in. That is what the STB does on a satellite system, it 'decrypts' the signal and converts to analog. The problem is that the decryption also tunes to watever channel you want. Meaning that you STB will only send channel X over the coax cable. If you feed that into the antenna input of the PVR-500, there is nothing to 'tune' to. It has already been done.

This is why you have to (and should for best picture) use the S-video inputs (one on the back of the card, one on the daughter card) to accept the 'pre-tuned' analog signal.

Hope this helps.

-PGPfan

[xxilikedirtxx]

man what was I thinking I already knew it was a split signal. Sorry for that dumb question.

What about the usb-uirt question?

which boxes have serial?

[Opus4]

Well, normally you could use the TV Tuner input & set it to use a single channel w/an external STB... but that is a bit of a problem w/the 500, because of the split that was already mentioned.

The Index list of remote info has some links for the USB-UIRT. You can either use it in multi-zone mode, or see if the boxes can be set to use different IR codes, in which case you won't need to worry about USB-UIRT zones.

If you can get serial control, that is probably a better way to go, though.

- Andy

[SHS]

xxilikedirtxx what box's are you plan for from DirecTV?.
Far I know of andy only disk box's can use diff remote address.
Persan I think Dishnetwork is better then DirecTV becuases when I had DirecTV it was pron to drop out then Dish when we had bad weather.
Keep in mind that if you go to Dishnetwork some there box's like 322, 522, 625 and 942 are junk becuase one of Remote is UHF only and can not be control USB-UIRT or anything far I know of.
Now as for the 500 and one Tuner input the best way is loop Tuner Output in Tuner Input on Sat box with short coax and take Tuner output to PVR 500 and set each box on a diff channel channel output like one on 3 the other on 4 but I think the next best to go is S/Video with one box and other with Tuner output or all the way S/Video which really the best way to go depend on werther you have PCI A/V bracket.

[PGPfan]

SHS, Could you elaborate on the 'tuner loop through' method you posted about? I'm not sure that I understand what is going on with what you describe.

Thanks!

-PGPfan

[xxilikedirtxx]

Well after looking at all the options I have decided to stay with basic cable for now. The main reason is that I would not gain any channels that I would actually watch. I will probably have to go this route some day but for now it is just not worth spending the money on the hardware plus it would end up costing more then my current setup then add in the price hike that the cable company would impose to keep my cable internet.

[SHS]

It really eazy PGPfan by taking 1st Receiver make sure the switch on the back receiver is set to channel 3 the than take TV Output and conn to the 2nd Receiver TV Input and at the same time make sure the 2nd Receiver on the back of the receiver the switch is set to channel 4 then take the TVout on the 2nd Receiver and runing to PVR 500.
Now just a matter of setup the 1st encoder to use channel 3 and 2nd encoder to use channel 4 and and setup USB-UIRT.

[SprDtyF350]

Originally Posted by xxilikedirtxx

Well after looking at all the options I have decided to stay with basic cable for now. The main reason is that I would not gain any channels that I would actually watch. I will probably have to go this route some day but for now it is just not worth spending the money on the hardware plus it would end up costing more then my current setup then add in the price hike that the cable company would impose to keep my cable internet.

I understand exactly. I don't understand why the cable company can't just sell me the internet alone. I think it ends up costing me a dollar more to not have cable with the internet than if I add basic cable to the internet. Really seems crooked to me. I have Directv also because the cable company recently changed the lineup for my basic from having the channels I watch, ESPN, Speed, Networks, etc. to having nothing but networks, and PBS. I don't want a cable box. Whoever made those things was tasked to make them have the dumbest layout, and the least amount of features. I mean, the serial port is on the back of the box.. They won't turn it on. Cable internet is great stuff, but I think cable companies in general stink and I won't give them one cent more than I need to for the internet....

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by SHS

It really eazy PGPfan by taking 1st Receiver make sure the switch on the back receiver is set to channel 3 the than take TV Output and conn to the 2nd Receiver TV Input and at the same time make sure the 2nd Receiver on the back of the receiver the switch is set to channel 4 then take the TVout on the 2nd Receiver and runing to PVR 500.
Now just a matter of setup the 1st encoder to use channel 3 and 2nd encoder to use channel 4 and and setup USB-UIRT.

I'm trying to understand what your are describing. I understand that if one receiver is outputing on 3, ,and the other outputs on 4, that the PVR-500 could record both inputs.

My confusion is, how are your putting both signals into the line? IF you take the output of Recevier1 on channel 3 and then input that into receiver2, how can receiver2 tune to any other channnel? Aren't all the other channels blocked by the tuner of Receiver1.


Is it possible to hook up the outputs of 2 receivers, one on channel 3 and the other on channel 4, into a splitter/joiner and have the outputs combined?

[xxilikedirtxx]

I think what he is saying is that you plug box 1(ch3) into the tv-in port(i think this is the port that you would connect an exteranl antenna if you need to recieve you locals that way)on box 2(ch4) and then connect box 2's tv out to the pvr-500. I think????? I'm having a prob wrapping my head around this concept I don't see how this would let you record two shows.

[cmaffia]

My sagetv server has two tuners; one for Dish and one for DirecTV
DirecTV has better picture quality and without a doubt Dish Network is more prone to bad weather. At least that is my experience.

My setup is one tuner is being controlled via my Actisys IR Blaster and the other with the USB-UIRT. I suppose both boxes could be controlled by USB-IRT but since I already had the Actisys, I opted to use it as it would be a no brainer since it was already setup when I had just the one Tuner.

Originally Posted by SHS

xxilikedirtxx what box's are you plan for from DirecTV?.
Far I know of andy only disk box's can use diff remote address.
Persan I think Dishnetwork is better then DirecTV becuases when I had DirecTV it was pron to drop out then Dish when we had bad weather.
Keep in mind that if you go to Dishnetwork some there box's like 322, 522, 625 and 942 are junk becuase one of Remote is UHF only and can not be control USB-UIRT or anything far I know of.
Now as for the 500 and one Tuner input the best way is loop Tuner Output in Tuner Input on Sat box with short coax and take Tuner output to PVR 500 and set each box on a diff channel channel output like one on 3 the other on 4 but I think the next best to go is S/Video with one box and other with Tuner output or all the way S/Video which really the best way to go depend on werther you have PCI A/V bracket.

[SHS]

how can receiver2 tune to any other channnel? Aren't all the other channels blocked by the tuner of Receiver1.

I'm pettey sure that it shouldn't be block.

Is it possible to hook up the outputs of 2 receivers, one on channel 3 and the other on channel 4, into a splitter/joiner and have the outputs combined?

Yes you can do that but keep mind that you get a 3.5db drop lost on each side from the splitter by doing that vs 0db.

[SHS]

cmaffia it may depend on where you live but in my case in Missouri and Ohio it was the other way around with DirecTV more prone to bad weather in my experience.

[cmaffia]

There is always DSL which over the years has gotten a bad rap but it's really matured. I've been using DSL for almost... hmm...(stinks at math) ... (counting fingers).....a little over 7 years now and my speeds are comparable to Cable and the service is rock solid. Solid enough that I've gotten rid of my local phone company with VoIP. So I am no longer a slave to Verizon and Time Warner Something to look into.

Originally Posted by SprDtyF350

I understand exactly. I don't understand why the cable company can't just sell me the internet alone. I think it ends up costing me a dollar more to not have cable with the internet than if I add basic cable to the internet. Really seems crooked to me. I have Directv also because the cable company recently changed the lineup for my basic from having the channels I watch, ESPN, Speed, Networks, etc. to having nothing but networks, and PBS. I don't want a cable box. Whoever made those things was tasked to make them have the dumbest layout, and the least amount of features. I mean, the serial port is on the back of the box.. They won't turn it on. Cable internet is great stuff, but I think cable companies in general stink and I won't give them one cent more than I need to for the internet....

[SprDtyF350]

Originally Posted by cmaffia

There is always DSL which over the years has gotten a bad rap but it's really matured. I've been using DSL for almost... hmm...(stinks at math) ... (counting fingers).....a little over 7 years now and my speeds are comparable to Cable and the service is rock solid. Solid enough that I've gotten rid of my local phone company with VoIP. So I am no longer a slave to Verizon and Time Warner Something to look into.

I would go back to DSL. I had it when I lived in Washington state. It is not yet available where I live in Maryland. If it ever gets here I will be switching..