N00b Needs Help

[enkil76]

I have searched through the forums and still can not find the answer to some basic questions. This is my first attempt at this so I do not understand everything yet. Currently I have (1) A180 card.

1. I am getting OTA HD channels but can not get regular analog. Do I need a seperate analog card?

2. If I do need another card where can I find one? It doesnt look like sage is selling any.

3. I am going to purchase another A180 so I can record two HD channels at a time. Where is the dual driver located for them?

4. I upgraded my video card to a Geforce 6600, is the best codec for it the nvidia Pure Codecs? I am having some sound quality issues.

5. Besides this forum where can I read up on settings and such for SageTV. I recently reinstalled everything, but before I was having serious issues with the Video/Audio settings and how and what to set them to. In some cases my mistakes would falt out crash Sage.

6. I have seen a few people talking about JAVA versions. Is there a version that works the best?

Thanks to anyone who can answer these questions. I have removed our cable and I am now using just this as our TV solution, but recently ran into some issues that made me reinstall. I would like to do it right this time.

[blade]

Originally Posted by enkil76

4. I upgraded my video card to a Geforce 6600, is the best codec for it the nvidia Pure Codecs? I am having some sound quality issues.

Yes, the Pure video codec is the best. It is the only decoder that can take full advantage of all of your card's features. You can always use a different decoder for the audio.

6. I have seen a few people talking about JAVA versions. Is there a version that works the best?

The version that comes with Sage is the best to use IMO. Some newer versions have a memory leak and cause a lot of problems. Some people are having good luck with the very latest betas, but personally I'd stick with what is known to work especially when trying to setup a system for the first time.

[GbrNole]

Originally Posted by enkil76

1. I am getting OTA HD channels but can not get regular analog. Do I need a seperate analog card?

2. If I do need another card where can I find one? It doesnt look like sage is selling any.

3. I am going to purchase another A180 so I can record two HD channels at a time. Where is the dual driver located for them?

1. you can get analog OTA - actually let me restate that - you can get digital SD channels OTA through the a180 too but if you want to tune analog cable channles then you will need a hauppauge pvr150 or pvr500 (dual tuner) or something similar to those 2.

2. newegg, mwave, pcalchemy

3. not sure they have a driver capable for dual a180's yet? there are 4 or 5 other HD cards you could choose from though and have it sit beside the a180.

[enkil76]

Can you think of any reason why I am not getting all the OTA channels and just the HD ones? I have the guide set as Local Broadcast, but when I am switching channels it sticks on the HD channel until I get to another HD channel. If I use the guide and go directly to the non HD channel, it sometimes is stuck on whatever was the last HD channel or I have from time to time gotten no signal. Maybe an atenna issue?

Just to clarify, with the A180, I can get all broadcast channels including HD and regular? So if I can find a dual driver, I can have two A180s and get all broadcast channels for my area?

[lobosrul]

1. I am getting OTA HD channels but can not get regular analog. Do I need a seperate analog card?

Maybe. Some cards do both, but you will usualy see two seperate coax connectors.

Also you dont need a "dual driver" for multiple cards. Simply install each one on your pc. If theyre identical I think all you need to do is completely exit sage after its installed and then bam u can record on 2 diff chans.

4. I upgraded my video card to a Geforce 6600, is the best codec for it the nvidia Pure Codecs? I am having some sound quality issues.

Best for video, yes. However, they did some sort of backhanded deal with Micro$oft and it only decodes 5.1 sound properly with Windows MP. It took me FOREVER to figure that out. If your only having issues with DVDs that have 5.1 sound i highly suggest trying out the Sonic decoder (for audio only). I think its like $15 .
http://www.sonic.com/products/Consum...quicklook.aspx

Java: Ive let the java utility automaticaly update itself, and have had no problems.

[GbrNole]

let me just put it this way - with my A180 i get 5 HD channels and 8 SD channels.

5 of those 8 HD channels are the digital SD simultaneous broadcast. the other 3 are additinal pbs stations, WB and a christian channel.

all my cable tv channels com in through a different tuner. (a pair of pvr 500's)

[enkil76]

I found the driver for dual A180s. Go figure it was at Avermedia's site. I wil mess with my antenna tonight and see if I can get it figured out.

[lobosrul]

enkil76:

Actualy you should tell sage "digital broadcast" not local broadcast.

And even more so, you should try and let it "find channels". For some reason you cant do that with the SageMC stv. So if you use it you have to go back, temporarily, to the default stv.

Right now I get the big 4 in HD, CW (used to WB) that occasionaly does HD, MyTV (used to my UPN) thats digital but always standard def. 1 hi-def PBS channel, 4 SD def PBS chans, a spanish chan, a ton of religious stuff (blocked), a music channel and a weather channel.

Thats all OTA and digital. And im in a medium sized city, I cant imagine how much is broadcast in like NYC.

[enkil76]

While I got people looking, is there a really good remote to use with a SageTV setup. I am used to TV and comcast DVR remotes that allow me to control my TV and the device. The remote from SageTV doesn't seem to be able to do that. The big one is that it doesn't even seem to have a Program Guide button. Have to navigate windows for almost everything.

[lobosrul]

If your using the Firefly remote, theres a simple way to program the bottom 4 buttons to do whatever you want, look into that.

I just bought one the other day, and after getting girder setup with that (girder is a whole other topic), im OK with it. My ATI remote i was using had way more functionality. But it just died one day.

[enkil76]

I thought since there was 3 guides, that Digital was only HD, Analog was only SD and Local was everything. I am in Chicago and have a straight view to towers so I thought if I just chose everything I should be able to get it. I will change to digital and have it look for channels. So far I get a bunch of HD channels and they are all looking great. Just wanted a few more broadcast channels like PBS so my son can watch his cartoons.

[lobosrul]

enkil, dont confuse HD versus SD, with digital versus analog. You can have SD feeds thru digital (but not HD thru analog).

I really doubt theres any need for you to receive analog over the air in a market as big as Chicago. Every local channel other than maybe some very small independents will be broadcasting on digital.

Also note, many stations broadcast multiple digital channels. For instance PBS here broadcasts HD on 5.1, and SD on 5.2. And its not the same programming either.

In order to get sage to display in that format (channel #.# ) I had to set Major/Minor digital tuner fix (or whatever it is in the settings page) which i could only find in SageMC, then go back to the default MC, then set the tuner to search for channels (in sage), then go back to sageMC!

[enkil76]

Thanks. Yeah, I have to be more careful with how I refer to things. There are a few SD channels that we would like to get. So I am hoping they will come across when I try everyones suggestions. I have another A180 arriving today, so heres hoping.

[enkil76]

More Help Please:

I got SageTV reinstalled and set back up. Everything is working except I am still struggling with channels.

If I run Digital Lineup I get ONLY HD channels. If I Local Broadcast, I get HD and SD channels. So basically as I figured. However, a bunch of channels come up with "No Data". It seems most of them are the SD channels I want. Which is great, but I won't be able to record anything if they are all No data. PLEASE HELP ME....

[lobosrul]

"No Data" means the signal strength is too low. Try and use an external antennae, or put one in ur attic.

[enkil76]

I went to the No Data channels and they are perfect. It just isnt giving guide info for them.

[lobosrul]

ohhhhhhh you mean no data in the guide. There might be a problem with the guide service. But more likely those are sort of "special chans" like I have a channel that is nothing but music videos, and one thats nothing but weather. And the guide just says "No data".

[briands]

Originally Posted by enkil76

More Help Please:

I got SageTV reinstalled and set back up. Everything is working except I am still struggling with channels.

If I run Digital Lineup I get ONLY HD channels. If I Local Broadcast, I get HD and SD channels. So basically as I figured. However, a bunch of channels come up with "No Data". It seems most of them are the SD channels I want. Which is great, but I won't be able to record anything if they are all No data. PLEASE HELP ME....

This is a known issue that is supposed to be resolved in 5.1 (I hope)

[enkil76]

Bummer. How often do these updates come out? More specifically, do we have any idea when 5.1 will be available?

[blade]

Originally Posted by enkil76

Bummer. How often do these updates come out? More specifically, do we have any idea when 5.1 will be available?

Sage was planning to release the beta a week or two ago, but it's been delayed. No word on when, but hopefully it won't be too long.