HdHomeRun - Our Answer to QAM?!

[farscapesg1]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Most likely the answer is yes. However, if your cable company wants to be a jerk, it's possible that they would put a filter at your cable tap that would block the QAM frequencies.

edit: the above poster is correct that if you have internet chances are very low that they would do this, but it's still possible. The only way to find out for sure is to cancel your digital cable and see what happens. That's what i'm doing

Thanks!!! We originally had digital cable and RoadRunner when they originaly told us we had to have digital cable to get cable internet. After we found out that was a lie, we dropped the service back to extended basic and RoadRunner. I've had a friend of a friend come out and run a brand new coax cable from the tap to the house (helped him run it under the street and then bury it in the yard). There was no filter on the tap, so I guess I will be ordering one of these to play with.

Looking forward to getting Lost, Jericho, Heroes, etc. in HDTV!!!!!

[jbanera]

Can someone please point me in the right direction on how to get the HD HomeRun seen/working in SageTV 5.0? I have searched the Sage forum and HD HomeRun and can not find anything. I currently have a network encoder setup in the sage.properties file and I am assuming I have to add a few lines to make Sage see this tuner? Thanks in advance.

[Keenan]

Originally Posted by jbanera

Can someone please point me in the right direction on how to get the HD HomeRun seen/working in SageTV 5.0? I have searched the Sage forum and HD HomeRun and can not find anything. I currently have a network encoder setup in the sage.properties file and I am assuming I have to add a few lines to make Sage see this tuner? Thanks in advance.

When you do to Setup Video Sources is the device listed there? Should be two of them as it's a dual tuner device.

Did you follow the instructions at the below link? You'll probably have to register(free) if you haven't been there before.

http://www.silicondust.com/forum/vie...d89fb254bbe4ad
Silicondust :: View topic - SageTV HDHomeRun Instructions - Digital Cable

[Keenan]

This morning I had 3 green lights lit up on my HDHR(not including the power led). Anyone know why, and how many lights are actually there? I've assumed that at least two of them indicate two tuners, but I'm not sure what the other(rest) of them might be.

[hemicuda]

Originally Posted by Keenan

This morning I had 3 green lights lit up on my HDHR(not including the power led). Anyone know why, and how many lights are actually there? I've assumed that at least two of them indicate two tuners, but I'm not sure what the other(rest) of them might be.

I saw them listed on the SD forums under a sticky....

took me about 10sec... http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1936

[Keenan]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

I saw them listed on the SD forums under a sticky....

took me about 10sec... http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1936

Yeah, I found it right after I posted.

[justme]

The subject pretty much says it all. I managed to get one by convincing 3 people to pool their Xmas gift for me. I've already registered and joined the SageTV group over at Silicondust. I just need for it to get here now, it's already been a hour since it was ordered. I'm looking forward to trying it out, but I'm very confident thanks to all you guy's positive posts.

However, that means if I'm dissappointed... I'm going to blame all of you for it. (joking)

PS:Thanks for the headsup on the lights. I was looking at the picture at 9th tee and noticed the slim rectangular opening in the front. Is that just for air intake so the back vents can pull air in from the front, OR is that a cablecard slot? I just thought I'd ask since it seems like such a specific shape to not use some type of card/input. I'm curious about it's use for possible expansion of the box's abilities.

Thanks for bring such a cool pruduct to my attention,
/justme

[Keenan]

Originally Posted by justme

I was looking at the picture at 9th tee and noticed the slim rectangular opening in the front. Is that just for air intake so the back vents can pull air in from the front, OR is that a cablecard slot?
/justme

That's where the lights will light up, it's not an opening, or slot.

[Goodspike]

Originally Posted by justme

However, that means if I'm dissappointed... I'm going to blame all of you for it. (joking)e

Ditto since I have one ordered too!

[evilpenguin]

I <3 my HDhomerun. I just watched the bears game in HD on my main TV, while at the same time watching the colts game in HD on my laptop.

[Berg]

Originally Posted by justme

However, that means if I'm dissappointed... I'm going to blame all of you for it. (joking)

Just so that the several of you that are feeling sorry for yourselves can get up in the morning ....

I subscribed to this post and read each update with much interest and I feel very sorry for myself ... I am in Ontario, Canada, in an area where I can't get any OTA HD and the cable provider here has the only clear QAM signal is for SD channels. As wonderful as the HDHomeRun seem and as much as I would like to use Sage for HD, I am SOL !

Please try to bear with the wait for your HDHomeRun to arrive ... while I'm depressed ...

<just kidding>

[MTuckman]

OK... I have been using the HDHR for a few days, and I have to say I love it. I can't wait until I get a second one, and once I verify that all of the channels I want are available from Comcast unecrypted QAM, that PVR-500 is out the door!

At this point, I am having a couple of issues with the HDHR, neither of which has anything to do with the HDHR itself!

1. I am running Sage as a service / client on the same PC, and whenever I am recording an HD program from the HDHR, the SageTVService starts eating up close to 100% of the CPU. It doesn't have to do with the HDHR encoder, as that is running on another PC and writing out to the shared drive on the server.
2. I am getting multiple recordings of shows, one from the PVR-500 on one channel, and another from the HDHR on another channel. I think this will solve itself once get rid of PVR-500 and get another HDHR, then all 4 tuners will be using the same channels and lineup.
   
3. While the bandwidth of the programs being sent from the HDHR to the SageTV is not that hi, it is having an impact on the Wireless router, causing it to slow down. As I typed this, I suspect that it is my fault... I have a laptop , the HDHR, and the SageTV server hooked up to the same router. I suspect that the encoder running on the laptop is receiving the transport stream from the HDHR, then writing this out to the drivers sitting on the SageTV server, again across the same router. That would double the network traffic for each of the HDHR tuners.

Anyone have any suggestions???

[Goodspike]

Originally Posted by MTuckman

1. I am running Sage as a service / client on the same PC, and whenever I am recording an HD program from the HDHR, the SageTVService starts eating up close to 100% of the CPU. It doesn't have to do with the HDHR encoder, as that is running on another PC and writing out to the shared drive on the server.

Anyone have any suggestions???

No, but I'm interest in this one. I've started a thread in the Beta and Software forums here, but I just discovered that Sage Service is more than doubling my CPU usage when recording and watching from a Fusion card. It doesn't make any sense because recording shouldn't take that much CPU time.

The numbers are CPU utilization 25-35% when watching and recording HD with just Sage, to over 80% when watching and recording HD with Sage and Sage Service running. The CPU is an Athlon 64 3000+.

[heffe2001]

Anybody happen to be using one of these for a connection with Charter cable? Just wondering what you guys were picking up. I'd be happy with all the HD stuff I have with my firewire box, but I'm betting at least some of that isn't QAM unencrypted.

[tomfisk]

I'm not using an HDHomerun (thinking about getting one though!), but do have an HDTV. In Rochester I get MN Public TV and the 4 major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox) as clear QAM signals over cable.

[AndyS]

Originally Posted by eMajor

Thanks ToxMox, I tracked it down (encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream=false). That did the trick! Now I wonder if ShowAnalyzer will have better luck with the .TS extension, though I'm doubting this will change anything. At least I can turn DirMon back on.

Just in case anyone else needs this property - you need to add "mmc/" to the front.

mmc/encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream=false

Andy.

[mickdigler]

I apologize ahead of time for this question as I am new to Sage. I am planning to switch from BTV due to the QAM support. I am planning on purchasing a HDHomeRun but I also need NTSC for my analog channels. Will I be able to add an analog tuner as well as the HDHomeRun and be able to transparently change channels within Sage without having to choose which tuner I want to use? What I need is something that is as easy to change channels on that my wife can use as easily as she can change channels on a tv.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by mickdigler

I apologize ahead of time for this question as I am new to Sage. I am planning to switch from BTV due to the QAM support. I am planning on purchasing a HDHomeRun but I also need NTSC for my analog channels. Will I be able to add an analog tuner as well as the HDHomeRun and be able to transparently change channels within Sage without having to choose which tuner I want to use? What I need is something that is as easy to change channels on that my wife can use as easily as she can change channels on a tv.

Yep, Sage is smart enough to handle all of the tuner logic on its own.

[Keenan]

Yes, it works nicely. I have an HDHomeRun for Comcast cable in SF and an R5000 modified Star Choice sat STB for Canadian TV and all the channel listings for both are in the guide. Just select the channel you want and press enter/select.

[Sam]

I know have one of these units also. For the channels which are unencrypted, it is great. Alas, I can't displace my PVR500 because too many channels are encrypted, but that isn't the device's fault.

One strange thing I found is that I could not hear any audio under Sage on recordings from my HDHR while using the NVIDIA audio decoder filter. All of my other available choices for the audio decoder do provide sound though.