Building my 1st HTPC...

[zynergi]

Hello! So, I need a little guidance, I'm in the process of building my first HTPC.

Thus far, this is what I have:

Antec Fusion V2
Intel E4500
MSI P4M890M-L
G.Skill 2GB DDR2-PC6400
Antec NeoPower 550w PSU
Windows XP Professional
Logitech Harmony 676

& this is what I'm thinking of getting to complete this..

Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800
Sapphire Radeon HD 2600XT
SageTV 6.2

Basically, what I'm looking to do is to be able to use my Logitech Harmony 676 to record HDTV, as well as regular SD channels. Currently, my LCD has a QAM tuner, so I am able to pickup SD, as well as HD channels. With this setup, along with SageTV would I be able to do the same? Would I be able to record shows that are broadcast in HD (Ie, House, etc) along with the one's that aren't by basically just hitting Record show? I'm also looking to be able to use this to play 1080p media file's as well, I'm assuming all this would be more than feasible? Thanks for your time & input!

P.S: Any recommendations for a IR receiver to work with SageTV, as well as my Harmony 676?

[Djc208]

Should be more than enough. You didn't specify what you're looking at for hard disks. I tend to prefer giving Sage it's own HDD for recordings and a seperate one for other things. Right now I have a 160GB Raid 1 setup with a 20GB partition for windows/sage and the rest for music, pictures, personal files, etc. Then a second (non RAID) HDD for all my Sage recordings.

The HVR-1800 will let you record SD analog channels on it's analog input and HD OTA or clearQAM on the digital input. Once you have the channels all set up all you have to do is tell Sage to record it and it will work out the rest.

As for the remote, a retail HVR-1800 (not all the OEMs will do clearQAM) will come with the Hauppage remote and the IR pickup. Sate supports the Harmony remote and even sets everything up during the install. Your Harmony may not have the programming on-line but you should be able to teach it from the Hauppage (at least that's what I did with my URC), works fairly well.

Good luck, let us know how it comes out.

[zynergi]

Oh, sorry, I plan on using two Seagate 7200.10 500GB's! As for the analog & ClearQAM inputs, I'm sorta confused there. So, I would have a splitter splitting my Coaxial into 2, which would then forward into each of the inputs on the tuner? Also, the ClearQAM confuses me, basically that will be un-encrypting the HDTV at the tuner card level? Thanks!

[Djc208]

Originally Posted by zynergi

Oh, sorry, I plan on using two Seagate 7200.10 500GB's! As for the analog & ClearQAM inputs, I'm sorta confused there. So, I would have a splitter splitting my Coaxial into 2, which would then forward into each of the inputs on the tuner? Also, the ClearQAM confuses me, basically that will be un-encrypting the HDTV at the tuner card level? Thanks!

Yes, the HVR-1600/1800 have two tuners, one analog, one digital. They each have their own input, so to record analog and digital from your cable line you would split the cable and run it to both connections on the card.

QAM is the transmission method cable companies use for digitial, most of the time these channels are scrambled by the cable company. Certain channels (usually just the local channels, but some get more) may be sent unscrambled, these are clearQAM. The tuner card can't de-scramble anything, it will simply allow you to tune and store the digital signal from the cable company.

When you install Sage you would set up two tuners, one with all your analog channels and the second with the digital ones. The card will let you record one digital and one analog show at the same time. I have the 1600 and it works quite well, I'm thinking of adding a second one.

[zynergi]

If the channel's are showing up on my LCD currently, which has a "QAM tuner", then they would show up fine on this tuner card as well, right?

[Djc208]

Originally Posted by zynergi

If the channel's are showing up on my LCD currently, which has a "QAM tuner", then they would show up fine on this tuner card as well, right?

Yes (assuming you don't have a cable card installed) you should get the same HD channels through the digital tuner on the Hauppage as you currently do on your TV. You'll have to take the channel number the tuner finds and map it to the right channel in the cable lineup in order to record programs.