Supports 2 TV capture cards?

[evebill8]

Hi folks,

I am very new to SageTV. I am wondering if I can put 2 TV capture cards to a PC to run SageTV, thanks!

Billy

[Opus4]

Yes, SageTV supports using multiple tuners. There's a whole topic in the General forum currently asking people how many tuners they are using.

In a few cases, it depends on what the tuners are, so you may want to mention the tuenrs you want to use, if you already have them.

- Andy

[evebill8]

Cool! Would anyone please suggest me which SageTV and turner cards I should buy to build my own DVR. My PC is running WinXP and I am planning to put a second hard drive to store the TV shows, will it work?

Any input will help, thanks in advance!

Billy

[korben_dallas]

I have had good results with the Hauppauge cards. 150 and now a 1600. The setup is a little tricky, but once you get the blaster working, it all falls into place.

[Djc208]

What types of video do you want to capture? If all you have/want is standard definition (SD) then look into a dual tuner card like the Hauppage 500 to save space. They will capture well from cable or cable/sat tuner boxes.

If you want HD then things get complicated but the basics are over the air digital (OTA), and clearQAM (unscrambled HD cable). In which case the Hauppage 1600/1800 and HD Home Run are good options. The 1600/1800 would give you one analog tuner and one digital on the same card. The HDHR offers two digital but you'd still need an analog capture card too.

[evebill8]

I am currently a Tivo and Comcast user. The Tivo Series 3 will allow me to put the cable card to receive HD channels. Sounds like 1600 is my choice since everything will move to HD, right? So far, I have been recording only SD content because I don't have Camcast HD service. I don't know how SageTv works with the Comcaset's cable card or set top box.

BTW, I know the 1600 comes with the Remote Control. I assume it will work like the Tivo remote, isn't it true? What about the TV guide? Can I do like keyword recording or season pass recording with SageTV?

I am so sick of paying the monthly fee for Tivo because its storage space and other services are very limited. I want to use SageTv to replace my Tivo sicne I have a PC attached to my TV.

[CollinR]

You want a PVR 500 and a USBUIRT for now, you might consider HVR16(8)00 but the digital tuner is ATSC and QAM. You should research what exactly you will get.

PVR500 and USBUIRT will support SD from 2 comcast boxes and control them independently.

I would consider waiting for the new component HD capture device from Hauppauge for HD content. The HVR16(8) are cool but not as cool as straight component.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by evebill8

I am currently a Tivo and Comcast user. The Tivo Series 3 will allow me to put the cable card to receive HD channels. Sounds like 1600 is my choice since everything will move to HD, right? So far, I have been recording only SD content because I don't have Camcast HD service. I don't know how SageTv works with the Comcaset's cable card or set top box.

BTW, I know the 1600 comes with the Remote Control. I assume it will work like the Tivo remote, isn't it true? What about the TV guide? Can I do like keyword recording or season pass recording with SageTV?

I am so sick of paying the monthly fee for Tivo because its storage space and other services are very limited. I want to use SageTv to replace my Tivo sicne I have a PC attached to my TV.

Actually, HD is more complicated than you may think. The newer TiVo's that use Cable Cards and support HD will be able to record every single channel that you pay for from Comcast. It will be able to record them in the format that Comcast broadcasts them (HD shows will record in HD, SD shows will record in SD). You will not be able to use any interactive Cable features with the TiVo (i.e. OnDemand channels or ordering Pay Per View events). This is because the cable cards are one-way only - they let you get info from the cable company, but not send anything back.

If you use an HD tuner like the PVR1600, PVR1800, or HDHomeRun, you will be able to tune and record digital TV from either an OTA (over the air) source like a rooftop antenna or rabbit ears, or clearQAM content from the cable provider. Like the TiVo it will be recorded in the same format as it was broadcast. However, unlike TiVo, these tuners will not receive and decode encrypted content. This means that even if you pay Comcast for HBO, they will not be able to receive HBO directly and record it in HD using the digital tuner. The channels that are available unencrypted in clearQAM format will very from one city to the next and Comcast can change its lineup at any time. You should get any local channels (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS, etc.) plus probably a few others in clear QAM. Some people also get standard cable channels like TBS, TNT, Discovery, etc.

With the PVR1600 and PVR1800, you also get a second analog tuner which can be used at the same time as the digital tuner if you want. The HDHomerun has two digital tuners, but no analog. The analog tuner can record analog OTA signals with an antenna (which will be phased out by 2009) or anything that you can get from cableTV without a converter box on a regular old analog TV. This second analog tuner has 3 separate connections (1) coax for Cable or antenna, (2) SVideo, and (3) RCA Composite. You can only use one of these 3 analog connections at a time, but any of them could be hooked up to a cable or satellite box and record whatever the box is showing. However, the recording will be analog, SD only even if your box is tuned to an HD channel.

There have been many posts to this forum by others indicating that for QAM tuning, the HDHomerun has a much better tuner (able to get good reception even with weak signals) than the PVR1600 and PVR1800. The 1600 and 1800 appear to be identical except for the 1600 uses a PCI slot and the 1800 is PCIe.

By connecting an IR blaster (included with the PVR tuners), Sage can mimic a remote control and send signals to the cable box to change the channels. Sage has no set limit on the number of tuners you can have, so while TiVo limits you to 2 tuners per box, there are many Sage Users with 4, 5, even 10 tuners.

Sage has a nice TV Guide screen (it downloads data over the internet from Zap2It daily). You can look ahead about 2 weeks and schedule recordings by clicking on a program. You can also check for future airings of a particular show by clicking it.

Sage has the ability to setup a "Favorite" which is similar to Season Pass. You can have very detailed control over the favorite and tell it whether to record new episodes, reruns, or both. You can limit to certain times or channels, you can specify how many episodes to record and whether to save all episodes until you manually delete them or to let it record over old episodes.