Newbie please help

[jerome8283]

I wish to be able to centrally store movies, videos, photos in one central area. I came across SageTV and it appears to offer what I want however I have a few questions.

With SageTV..

1. To playback HD content via an internal PC based blu-ray player, do I need a graphic card capable of HD playback installed in this PC? Can I control this playback with SageTV? Can my second TV (LCD) watch DVD’s via this drive as well?
2. Does this second LCD need to be connected to a PC or is this function handled by the wired or wireless Media Extender?
3. Can I record two programs at once with SageTV?
4. Do I still require a SetTop box? If yes, does it still need to have DVR capabilities?
5. Does the HD Media Extender work with the Scientific-Atlanta 8300HD?
6. How do I connect the HD Media Extender with a SetTop box? Is there a diagram available somewhere?
7. Can I take advantage of OTA HD with SageTV?
8. Can a Cable Card be used with SageTV?


This is my current PC configuration. Would this be enough to use with the HD Media Extender?

Dell Dimension 8400 Pentium 4 CPU 3Ghz
2 GB Ram
XP Pro SP2
DVD/CDROM (to be upgraded to HD drive)
ATI RADEON X300 (to be upgraded)
Maxtor local IDE 160GB
Western Digital USB 160GB

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by jerome8283

1. To playback HD content via an internal PC based blu-ray player, do I need a graphic card capable of HD playback installed in this PC? Can I control this playback with SageTV? Can my second TV (LCD) watch DVD’s via this drive as well?

To play back blu-ray discs on your PC you need a pretty powerful video card. You also need to use software like PowerDVD Ultra. Sage will not play back blu-ray discs. If you have a TV hooked up as a secondary monitor, you should be able to play back a video on that screen if you use Vista. I don't think it works under XP because I could never get hardware accelerated video on the secondary monitor.

Actually, I think blu-ray playback in Sage is sort of possible. It involves ripping the disc to the drive and remuxing it. Its a moderately complicated procedure and I'm not sure how well it works. It is discussed at other places on the forums.

2. Does this second LCD need to be connected to a PC or is this function handled by the wired or wireless Media Extender?

If you want to play back unmodified blu-ray discs you'll have to connect the TV up to your PC and use PowerDVD for playback. I don't even think people have had great luck ripping and remuxing blu-ray discs and getting them to play back via the HD extender.

Now, if you just want to use normal DVDs, it works great to rip them to your hard drive, and play them back on a TV hooked up to an extender.

3. Can I record two programs at once with SageTV?

You can record as many programs as you have tuners (up to a point). So, if you have a PVR-500 card with 2 tuners, you can record 2 programs at once. If you have a HVR-1600 card, you can record one digital TV program and one analog TV program at once.

But, your digital TV options are pretty limited. You can hook it up to an antenna and get over-the-air HD programs, or you can hook it up to your cable line and get some QAM channels. Either way you'll probably only get the major network channels (NBC, CBS, ABC, etc).

4. Do I still require a SetTop box? If yes, does it still need to have DVR capabilities?

It depends what you want to do. There's really no good way to record HD channels. As I said, you can get local network channels a couple different ways, but there's no good way to get channels like TNT, ESPN, etc. If you only want to record local HD channels and analog cable, then you don't need a set top box. But, you probably didn't need a set top box to play that stuff back on the TV in the first place.

This question gets a little complicated though. Some people can record HD channels off a set top box if the box has firewire output. Doing that is relatively advanced stuff and it doesn't work for everyone.

5. How do I connect the HD Media Extender with a SetTop box? Is there a diagram available somewhere?

Basically, the HD extender just plays back video that is stored on your PC. You hook the extender up to a your home network and your TV. Video sources, like your cable line, or possibly your set top box, get hooked up to your computer.

7. Can I take advantage of OTA HD with SageTV?

Absolutely if you have an HD tuner card.

8. Can a Cable Card be used with SageTV?

Nope, and you probably will never be able to.

This is my current PC configuration. Would this be enough to use with the HD Media Extender?

If you're just using an HD extender for playback, your computer doesn't need to be very powerful. It just needs lots of hard drive space and some TV tuner cards. Now remember, you can't play back blu-ray discs with the extender.

[jerome8283]

Will normal DVDs ripped to my hard drive and played back via the extender be upconverted?

How does the HD Media Extender accomplish playback of Live HD content? Is this where the TV Tuner (1600) comes in?

Can I record two HD programs at once?

Can I watch another program while recording any two programs or must I watch one of the programs being recorded?

Can I connect the HD Media Extender to my receiver via HDMI or does it need to be connected directly to the TV?

[reggie14]

Will normal DVDs ripped to my hard drive and played back via the extender be upconverted?

I think so. At least, it will. I'm not sure if the default setting is to convert everything to 1080i/720p, or output things at their native resolution. To be honest, I would think the TV would do a better job at upconverting than the extender.

How does the HD Media Extender accomplish playback of Live HD content? Is this where the TV Tuner (1600) comes in?

Playing back live content is basically the same as scheduling a recording. Starting to watch live TV on the extender will cause Sage to start recording that program using the TV tuner.

Can I record two HD programs at once?

Absolutely, if you have multiple HD tuner cards.

Can I watch another program while recording any two programs or must I watch one of the programs being recorded?

You can record as many programs as tuners you have. Watching live tv is the same as recording. So, watching a live program, and recording 2 other programs will use 3 tuners. Or, you could watch a previously recorded show and record 2 programs at once, which would only require 2 tuners.

Can I connect the HD Media Extender to my receiver via HDMI or does it need to be connected directly to the TV?

You can hook it up to your receiver using HDMI. Mine is hooked up to my receiver using component video.