Successful BTV to Sage Conversion

[deipert]

I successfully converted BTV to Sage TV on 2 PCs. The following is what I did:

My configuration is as follows

2 BTV PCs running XP Pro
One PC used as main server and the other as a secondary as needed
Each PC has a separate dedicated hard drive for TV
Each PC with 2 Hauppauge 150 cards
Each PC uses one cable box controlled with a USBUirt
Each PC uses one basic cable signal
5 Media MVPs (Was used the MVP BTV plugin)

1. Did an image backup on the secondary PC.
2. Uninstalled BTV and MVP plugin on secondary PC.
3. Installed a trial version of Sage TV 6.3 on secondary PC.
4. Tested the system with one Media MVP for about a week.
5. Was pleasantly surprised how well Sage worked, how robust it was, and liked the support/functionality of the Media Extender versus the unsupported and buggy BTV MVP plugin.
6. Purchased 2 Sage server licenses and 3 Extender licenses.
7. Copied data off the dedicated hard drives.
8. Formatted the dedicated TV hard drives for 64k as recommended.
9. Copy the data back to the 64k drives.
10. Entered the key for the Sage TV license and one Extender license on the secondary PC.
11. Did an image backup of my main TV PC.
12. Uninstalled BTV and the MVP plugin.
13. Installed Sage 6.3.
14. Copied data off the dedicated TV hard drive so I could reformat it for 64k. I only had a couple of BTV recordings to deal with so I made them part of imported video in Sage.
15. Entered the license keys for the main TV.
16. I listed off the favorites from BTV before I uninstalled it. I had 33 favorites of which several were corrupted in BTV and would not go away. Four favorites were not currently scheduled so I could not add them at this time. No big deal for me to add the new favorites in Sage. I think I read about a conversion somewhere but decided against it especially since I had garbage in BTV.

Everything is great and even the wife is happy with the new system. I should have moved over a long time ago.

I am able to get the MVPs to pick up the server I want. My newer MVP has the option to set a preferred server on main power up in the ack. My older MVPs seem to switch back and forth between servers by powered the remote on and off. Does anyone know how this works? I put the MVP in standby just in case once I got the server I want.

Possible future changes:

1. Set up for network encoding where all four tuners operate from one system. All my TVs could then work as one.

2. I could actually put all four tuners in one main PC. I am not sure if I want to mess with have two cable boxes side by side and have to deal with 2 USBUirts connected to one PC. My other fear is that this is too important to me. I like the idea of having a second backup PC and one to do the occasional 3rd or 4th recordings.

3. Look into using the Placeshifter.

4. Investigate the Sage community for lots of other customizations and ideas.


For now I am running a much better system. Looking forward to future changes.

[matt91]

> Four favorites were not currently scheduled so I could not add them at this time.

IIRC, you can setup a favorite that isn't available in the EPG by making it a keyword favorite. Just be careful to use a keyword that won't have lots of false-positive hits.

Congratulations on making the switch (apparently) hitch-free.

Matt

[jdamore]

Originally Posted by deipert

4. Investigate the Sage community for lots of other customizations and ideas.

Welcome!
Be sure you update your java if you add any customizations. Actually, I would recomend updating anyway to improve UI speed. I think the latest is 1.6_3.

[deipert]

Originally Posted by matt91

> Four favorites were not currently scheduled so I could not add them at this time.

IIRC, you can setup a favorite that isn't available in the EPG by making it a keyword favorite. Just be careful to use a keyword that won't have lots of false-positive hits.

Congratulations on making the switch (apparently) hitch-free.

Matt

Yes, the conversion went hitch-free twice for me.

[deipert]

Originally Posted by jdamore

Welcome!
Be sure you update your java if you add any customizations. Actually, I would recomend updating anyway to improve UI speed. I think the latest is 1.6_3.

The installs seemed to load Java for me anyway. I didn't even think about it.

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by deipert

The installs seemed to load Java for me anyway. I didn't even think about it.

SageTV installs Java v1.4.2. I would recommend downloading the latest version (1.6_3?) from Sun. I have been using it for quite a while. It is stable, seems quite a bit faster, and many of the plugins require it.

Aloha,
Mike

[deipert]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

SageTV installs Java v1.4.2. I would recommend downloading the latest version (1.6_3?) from Sun. I have been using it for quite a while. It is stable, seems quite a bit faster, and many of the plugins require it.

Aloha,
Mike

I noticed that Java 6 Update 3 was an update I allowed to be installed today. Is this what you are talking about?

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by deipert

I noticed that Java 6 Update 3 was an update I allowed to be installed today. Is this what you are talking about?