AURGH! Preparing seakers!

[jkaisre]

Spent the better part of 24 hours setting up SageTV.

First time I set it up without incident, except the PVR-250 remote would not work!

After multiple un-installs and wiping the registry, I finally got the remote to work somewhat. I then continuted with re-installing the xmltv stuff. I even added the logos. I thought I was home free.

I took the PC off the bench and connected it to the TV. After getting the cables straightend out in the rack. I fired it up (originally I had it set not to run at startup). Still no problems.

Went in and change SageTV to start as a tooltray item. Still no problems, except the remote would not awake the program. The Haupauge remote servlet instead popuped up wanting me to choose the 2 Haupauge applicatins. No problem, just start it with the mouse. Yah, right. Everything seemed OK for a while then the remote stopped working and a little later SageTV was completely uncontrolable!

Restart.

Well I thought, that sucked, so I thought I would try start up full screen in hopes that the remote would work.

Restart,

Nope, now it dies on the line - Preparing seakers.


I also can not seem to control a modle 2 RCA DirectTV STB with the serial port.

[jmeeks]

Check your video directories for 0kb size files. If they exist delete them via a dos window. (Trying to delete via window explorer function will only hang that process.)

Let us know how it goes.

[jkaisre]

Thanks John.

That fixed the seaker problem.

System is still very unstable.

I un-installed/re-installed both the SageTV and the Haupauge PCI Drivers (no remote this time and things seem to be better). I may resort to a wireless keyboard/mouse and possible a learning remote that can learn the keyboard presses.

RCA DirectTV control turned out to be changing a setting on the STB. The port was set to home control and not slow data.

Changing channels still seems slow, but liveable.

Main complaint still is the automatic recording of what I am watching. Can this be turned off? My main reason for upgrading to SageTV from SageRecorder was for the EPG (and DirectTV STB control).

[jmeeks]

You can turn off the Intelligent Recording under Detailed Setup. Uncheck the box to disable it.

Did you turn this on before? I thought the default was off, but I could be wrong.

[mlbdude]

If you are referring to recording and adding the show you just watched to your list of recordings that is just how Sage works. It should be flaged as watched, however, and will be deleted as necessary.

[jkaisre]

"If you are referring to recording and adding the show you just watched to your list of recordings that is just how Sage works. It should be flaged as watched, however, and will be deleted as necessary."

Yes, I am refering to the fact, no matter what I watch it is being captured to the video folder. I never told it to record, but so far after 6 or so hours, I have 40 or so files!

This seems to be an awfull lot of wear and tear on the HD.

I would like it so that it only records what I tell it to record. Also, there doesn't seem to be any way of telling how big of a file to write. I use TMPGEnc's DVD Author for editing and burning. It seems to freak out if the file is more than an hour in length.

Maybe I should just go back to SageRecorder. If only you could schedule recordings via an EPG and it could control the STB...

[jmeeks]

This is just a fundamental misunderstanding of how SageTV works.

Everything is recorded to have the PVR functionality. That's what it is for. That's why it has to record everything you watch. Why everyone is worried about those files accumulating on their hard disk is beyond me. SageTV's file handling manages the file system automatically. You just specify up front what rules you want it to follow.

ie.
1. Use all the space available.
2. Leave free a certain amount.
3. Use only this much total.

SageTV does the rest automatically.

What more control could you want?

If you don't want PVR functionality, why are you trying to use SageTV?

I don't know about your editing software. Have you tried anything else? I know some others have had some great success with Womble. (I think that's the one.) I don't think it's fair to complain about SageTV because of a shortcoming of some other software,

[jkaisre]

I guess I will just continue trying the software for a week or two. Thanks for the responses.

I did't mean to ruffle feathers. I guess since SageRecorder can do the file size on record, I figured that SageTV could too. I just thought I might have missed something. I can always split the file with other software like TMPGEnc.

[jmeeks]

Sorry if I came on a little strong.

How do you use the record to file size in SageRecorder? Is the only reason you do that, is to control the file size for the editing software you mentioned? Does it automatically start an additional file when what your recording is longer than the size you specified?

[Crazedz]

Their is three ways to set recording quality in Sagetv and 2 ways to set recording length...

1. Manual recordings: if you hit the options menu (Ctrl-O) it will bring up a list of options, One of the options is to set the recording quality.

2. Favorites recordings: If you goto the favorites manager and select options on your favorites it will bring up an options menu with a list again and on the list you can select the quality of recording for that show.

3. Detailed Setup: If you go into Detailed Setup under the Multimedia tab is an option to set recording quality. This is used to set your default recording quality for all show except thoughs you have set to a different recording quality under Favorites or manual recording.

You can select recording qualities from fair 1 gb per hour to Mpeg2 max quality 5.6 gb per hour.

You can also set recording start times and end times by useing the leadin leadout settings in both manual and favorite options menues. But for the default setting under detailed setup their is no place to set the leadin/out for recordings. The leadin/out is meant for adjusting for shows that start sooner than entended and or run longer than they should have but could also work to adjust a shows length to keep it within an hour time frame. I belive that is what you have been wanting to do for TMPGEnc.

I can't recall on TMPGEnc because i moved away from it a while ago and my memory gets a bit fuzzy on some things after a while. But i have been useing other Authoring software of late to do my editing and dumping to DVD so i can put in some fancy menus on my shows. Im not quite sure what others use for editing but i use win on cd/dvd 6 to do my shows but im sure just about any of the other commercial packages will work as sage just records in mpeg2 standard format so as long as the software program supports and is properly able to handle it their shouldn't be a problem. Though I could be wrong on that as i haven't tried the others but Win on cd/dvd 6 works just fine even on shows that run 2 to 3 hours in length.

I know you weren't asking about recording quality but i thought i'd include that info anyway just in case.

[jkaisre]

"How do you use the record to file size in SageRecorder?"

In SageRecorder, if you right click on the record button, you can set the length of each individual file. During a capture, the individual files are automatically sequenced with a number.

Crazedz

Yes I know about the quality settings.

Maybe you never tried TMGEnc's DVD Author (this is a relatively new product - maybe 6 months). It is the only DVD Authoring software that I have found that does not re-encode the source material. You are however limited to standard DVD resolutions (720 and 704 by 480 for NTSC). The only re-encoding option is the audio.

It can do menus, both static and animated. It also has a rather nice editing system for taking out the commercial breaks. I have found that most of the time, I don't use menus. Unless it is a multi-episode capture of something. I usually only set chapters at timed intervals.

Once you have finished editing, it creates the required VOBs and such. You can then burn your DVD inside of DVD Author or have it create an ISO file and optionally burn that to DVD.

I have in the past tried Pinnacle's and ULead's DVD authoring software. Pinnacle's problems were mainly a lot of crashes and it only processes stereo (also capture HD with AC3). and ULead which creates far too many transition points. DVD Author creates the transitions on the fly while editing and not before like these 2 do.

[Crazedz]

Originally posted by jkaisre
Crazedz

Yes I know about the quality settings.

Maybe you never tried TMGEnc's DVD Author (this is a relatively new product - maybe 6 months). It is the only DVD Authoring software that I have found that does not re-encode the source material. You are however limited to standard DVD resolutions (720 and 704 by 480 for NTSC). The only re-encoding option is the audio.

It can do menus, both static and animated. It also has a rather nice editing system for taking out the commercial breaks. I have found that most of the time, I don't use menus. Unless it is a multi-episode capture of something. I usually only set chapters at timed intervals.

Once you have finished editing, it creates the required VOBs and such. You can then burn your DVD inside of DVD Author or have it create an ISO file and optionally burn that to DVD.

I have in the past tried Pinnacle's and ULead's DVD authoring software. Pinnacle's problems were mainly a lot of crashes and it only processes stereo (also capture HD with AC3). and ULead which creates far too many transition points. DVD Author creates the transitions on the fly while editing and not before like these 2 do.

Well i did say i included them just incase and it's good that you know about the quality settings.

I didn't intend to insult your intellegence, So if i did i apologize. I only put that in for completeness something i tend to do more often than not it's not to make you sound less intellegent but that i try to make my jumbled up mess of a mind more clear to others.

And no i haven't tried TMGEnc's DVD Author.

It sounds like a very usefull program as long as you don't have to work with something over an hour in length which i do quite often. Im sure thats something they will fix in their next patch or update however. At anyrate i like to put in menus on my DVD's with chapter point selections and such to make it look more like a commercial DVD. I just prefer to have the options to jump to chapter points and that from a menu, I think it's kinda cool.

Pinnacle has had problems with more than one product in the past and im not surprised they have carried on that fine tradition. As for ulead well I never tried it so i can't really comment on it. But their are other Authoring products out their i just thought in my last post i would mention that given the problem your's has with recordings that are more than an hour long. Like i said though im sure they will fix that problem soon enough.

[jkaisre]

Hey, no problem.

I did a test capture of "earth stood still" last night (2+hours) and had no problems with it in the latest version of DVD Author. Maybe they fixed it.

I found that if I keep SageTV in sleep mode (except when choosing programs for capture, I am getting pretty much what I was looking for.

Thanks all.