Newbie could really do with some advice

[darrenkarp]

Hi All,

As the title suggests I'm a newbie to SageTV. So new in fact that I have yet to download and install the trial version. Before I embark on this quest I have a few questions I'd like to ask.

I'm currently running MCE 2005 but am getting fed up with its instability (despite having all approved hardware in my system) and more importantly the fact that in order to watch it in other rooms I have to go and buy an expensive Xbox 360!

On to my questions in no particular order:

1. Will SageTV run on a box with MCE 2005 as its OS?
2. I have 2 x Sky STB's connected to a PVR 150 and PVR 250 tuner card, is this setup okay with SageTV?
3. Can SageTV use my MCE remote to operate and send channel changes to the STB as the currently do now?
4. As I am in the UK, how complex or tedious is it getting a EPG?

That's the short list of questions.
Looking forward to some replies.
Many thanks
Darren

[something fishy]

1. Will SageTV run on a box with MCE 2005 as its OS?

No problem, though I understand that you will have to prevent the MCE recording services starting as these will conflict with SageTV for control of the capture cards.

2. I have 2 x Sky STB's connected to a PVR 150 and PVR 250 tuner card, is this setup okay with SageTV?

Yes this hardware will be fine and yes Sage will be able to control 2 set top boxes independently (though see answer to Q3 for caveat).

3. Can SageTV use my MCE remote to operate and send channel changes to the STB as the currently do now?

You can use the MCE remote and remote receiver to control Sage more or less out of the box. But I don't think that you can use Sage to control the STB using the MCE blasters directly.

There is a program called HIP which will allow this. HIP acts as an interface layer between the MCE remote and Sage.

However when I looked into this in the forums I wasn't able to work out if people had got Sage successfully to work with HIP when it needed to control the 2 ir blasters independently (as you will if the STBs are identical).

The easiest non-free solution (HIP is free) is to buy a USB-UIRT ir transceiver. Sage controls this directly and its easy to make it send STB-specific channel change instructions. The USB-UIRT will work with any remote so you can still use the MCE remote if you like it.

4. As I am in the UK, how complex or tedious is it getting a EPG?

I think that the tvtv service that is now bundled with Sage includes the UK but I am uncertain as to its comprehensiveness. However I am sure that there is a pretty mature xmltv solution for both FTA and Sky channels and the current generation of xmltv importers (I now use the lmgestion one) are excellent and very reliable. There is loads of info here.

I use xmltv (for Singapore) and though I sometimes have problems it is more common for my router to fail to get a WAN ip address from my cable modem than for either the xmltv scraper or the Sage importer to fail. I use a web scraper called tvxb, which I notice has setup files for the UK (incl Sky) if no other solution is suitable.

If you like the MCE appearance then you will like the SageMC stv that will dramatically change Sage's TVs appearance and menu structure to make it much more MCE like.

How unstable is MCE btw, I was toying with trying it myself? (paradoxically because I would quite like the excuse to buy an xbox360)

Cheers
Eric

[darrenkarp]

Hi Eric,

Many thanks for the reply, it's really appreciated.

MCE looks very nice but does have some problems, one of which is that it appears very CPU intensive and the Intel fan screams during most of the day when its on and I have to hoover the dust out to quieten it down often!

My main reason for looking elsewhere is that SageTV can use Hauppauge MVP, of which I have 2 lying around as a media extender, although how good this is I don't know.

I'm lucky in one respect as I'm the European distributor for the USB UIRT so could play around with channel changing although how would it change channels on the correct STB as I have 2?

Cheers
Darren

[something fishy]

Hi Darren

I have an MVP for my upstairs TV and it seems to work excellently to clone SageTVs PVR functions. In fact I probably get better picture quality out of it than the main Sage box (which uses the s-video out on an nvidia graphics card).

At present however it will not play DVDs ripped to HDD (it can't handle the audio stream) or my master music library encoded in WMA lossless. I believe that Sage is planning transcoding on the fly of these formats so that these limits are lifted (but I'm not 100% sure as I'm not that bothered).

I'm lucky in one respect as I'm the European distributor for the USB UIRT so could play around with channel changing although how would it change channels on the correct STB as I have 2?

Sage stores the IR codes for the STBs in .ir files. You can manually edit the .ir files to make them specifically address one of the USB-UIRTs 3 ir blasters. This thread:
http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...=zone+usb+uirt
has the details.

BTW the .ir files hold the codes in Philips pronto format so its often easier to create the .ir files completely manually rather than have SageTV learn the codes. At least it is if, like me, you have STBs that use a wierd non-std code structure that many things have problems learning.

Cheers
Darren

[something fishy]

The USB UIRT route is likely easier but it would sound from this thread:

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...ad.php?t=18407

that Sage can pass device specific channel change codes to HIP to allow the MCE blasters to work with 2 STBs; so it might be worthwhile to try this first before committing to replacing the MCE kit with a USB-UIRT.

Eric