Off-air recordings in Germany and place shifting with SageTV or others

[HellerMD98]

please forgive me -- my German is not so good -- replies in German okay

I live in the US and my in-laws live in Germany. Unfortunately our German-language television options in the US, especially children programming, are quite limited.

I would like to set up a computer with TV capture in Germany and retrieve TV recordings for viewing in the US. I would use software like Sage TV and its companion Placeshifter or a comparable Linux distro (MythTV). While my in-laws do have cable TV, I would like to use DVB technology. In SageTV's supported cards matrix I do not see Hauppauge's WinTV-NOVA-S-Plus (European DVB-S digital satellite model 790) or WinTV-NOVA-T PCI (European DVB-T digital terrestrial model 909) listed. I'm assuming the appropriate model for Germany is the DVB-T.

Any help or suggestions on off-air recording hardware and/or PVR/Placeshifting software for this newbie are welcomed. Thanks in advance!
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[owilsky]

Keep in mind that DVB-T coverage is still quite limited here in Germany, it depends where your in-laws live.
In the area I live in there are no private/independent stations aired, only some of our public "öffentlich/rechtliches Fernsehen" like ARD, ZDF, WDR, Phoenix and so on.

I use analog cable TV and have no problems...

[HellerMD98]

Thanks for your reply! My in-laws are in NRW and it's precisely those state-supported channels that we are trying to receive. There was an offering in the US, GermanTV which selected the best of D-W, and ARD, ZDF, but it was dissolved after state funding was canceled. We already receive some ProSieben/Sat.1 programming (although with the recent buyout of ProSieben, who knows how that will fair) and there's new programming called GermanKino+ but it appears to be older films, not current.

Under a separate thread I've outlined some problems with reception despite Luenen being a DVB-T enabled zone. Hopefully someone will have a good idea. I've got two friends in the US trying the SageTV place-shifter for me so that I can place shift when I return to the US next month.

Thanks again!

M