SageTV and Vista, general questions before I begin

[m666]

Well i spent a lot of money getting this computer set up to where it is now...

with the oncoming switch to digital only I'm anxious and tired of waiting for microsoft and the like to get their crap together...

so I see that sageTv has a windows client...

My questions are...

1 how well does it work? Dumb I know.. I'm using Vista MCE right now, and I'm limited to analog cable... want to switch to digital, without buying a NEW PC for cable tuners...

2 will mce standby tool work with it, just wondering because I had issues with my computer not going to sleep when needed... Probably not an issue anymore just wondering.

3 does it support changing channels, recording and live watching of TV through firewire or usb? I would like to be able to use this feature if possible, I have a vista 32bit machine

4 does it allow me to use another computer in the house as an extender? if so do I just need that placeshifter license? I think I know the answer, just wanting confirmation

5 do I need something like firestb etc... to make the firewire or usb work? or is it pretty much built into sage?

6 finally does it work in vista 32bit... xp is not an option for me?

[kevine]

Originally Posted by m666

Well i spent a lot of money getting this computer set up to where it is now...

with the oncoming switch to digital only I'm anxious and tired of waiting for microsoft and the like to get their crap together...

so I see that sageTv has a windows client...

My questions are...

1 how well does it work? Dumb I know.. I'm using Vista MCE right now, and I'm limited to analog cable... want to switch to digital, without buying a NEW PC for cable tuners...

2 will mce standby tool work with it, just wondering because I had issues with my computer not going to sleep when needed... Probably not an issue anymore just wondering.

3 does it support changing channels, recording and live watching of TV through firewire or usb? I would like to be able to use this feature if possible, I have a vista 32bit machine

4 does it allow me to use another computer in the house as an extender? if so do I just need that placeshifter license? I think I know the answer, just wanting confirmation

5 do I need something like firestb etc... to make the firewire or usb work? or is it pretty much built into sage?

6 finally does it work in vista 32bit... xp is not an option for me?

1. Works well especially with Aero. 2 problems switching from and MCE that I see.
SageTV and other PVR apps do not support cable card tuners. Cable card stbs are fine but not with HD.
Problem with the Media MVP extender but appears to be solved with Vista SP1.

2. Unknown.

3. Firewire is tricky, my bet is if you can do it on MCE you can do it with Sage as well. USB as in a USB tuner, yes. Check sys requirements for tuners.

4. Yes. You want the sagetv Client not placeshifter.

5. Not built in. There is better threads on this that can help you.

6. Yes.

[m666]

I don't plan on using cable card tuners, as they would require me to buy a new computer, for twice as much as I paid for the one I built myself with better specs... I want to use either USB or firewire to record and change channels if possible... So that I can just get a couple of STBs and connect them both to the computer and bypass the tuners all together. I heard it was possible, but just want confirmation and maybe a point in the right direction as to where I can find info on how to set it up in vista

[m666]

Originally Posted by kevine

USB as in a USB tuner, yes.

No i meant as in using the USB or Firewire to pass the video from the STB to the computers hard drive... I know that Firewire recording is possible, just not how to get it to that point.

[kevine]

Originally Posted by m666

No i meant as in using the USB or Firewire to pass the video from the STB to the computers hard drive... I know that Firewire recording is possible, just not how to get it to that point.

As far as I know this is not possible.

Here is what you need for firewire:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9288

[m666]

Originally Posted by kevine

Here is what you need for firewire:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9288

I've read through some of that, but to be totally honest, its WAY too much information scattered throughout way too many pages...
Not to mention its from 2003-2005

I'm concerned that its a little outdated...

has no one revised this for today's setups?
I don't beleive this was setup with vista, or at least not all of it... some of it is XP, and they do work differently...

[gblinckmann]

Originally Posted by m666

with the oncoming switch to digital only I'm anxious and tired of waiting for microsoft and the like to get their crap together...

Me too!!

Originally Posted by m666

2 will mce standby tool work with it, just wondering because I had issues with my computer not going to sleep when needed... Probably not an issue anymore just wondering.

I'll take this one. Yes, Sage works fine using Vista's "power saver" mode that puts the computer to sleep and wakes it up. You'll want the computer to wake on a network connection so that an extender or a placeshifter client can wake up the system. It's very easy to get that working.

That being said, I did run across one problem that's not Sage-related. When the computer wakes up, it can only access the local LAN and not the Internet. This has nothing to do with Sage, though, as Internet Explorer can't access the Internet after waking up, either. I'm guessing that this is either a driver problem with my network card or something that's fixed in SP1. The only thing that this was really affecting was the extenders getting onto YouTube or the other online features in Sage. Everything else worked flawlessly after waking up.

[mkanet]

Doing this via USB is definitely possible. Below, is the sageTV forum thread that guided me from beginning to end (using the R5000 USB 2.0 mod).

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24992

Originally Posted by m666

No i meant as in using the USB or Firewire to pass the video from the STB to the computers hard drive... I know that Firewire recording is possible, just not how to get it to that point.

[m666]

Mkanet,
so let me ask you, I see that you have a very similar setup to my own
what cable provider do you have? How well does the r5000 mod work?
how is yours set up to record? through firewire?
how painless was the whole process?
would you recommend it?
where did you buy your stbs?

[mkanet]

M666, check out the SageTV forum thread that got me started from the very beginning to the end... all thanks to a very helpful forum member..

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24992

Good luck...
-Michael

Originally Posted by m666

Mkanet,
so let me ask you, I see that you have a very similar setup to my own
what cable provider do you have? How well does the r5000 mod work?
how is yours set up to record? through firewire?
how painless was the whole process?
would you recommend it?
where did you buy your stbs?

[m666]

Wow thanks, I'm reading over it all now...

if you had to rate the entire cost of it all from 1-10 10 being well worth the cost... what would you rate it?

[m666]

also are you running sage on vista or xp?