OK I think I am about to make the switch from BTV!

[bennyhill]

First of all let me say this, so far the setup of sage has been very easy. It is a very polished product and offers a great deal of support. I have been able to get things running very quickly as apposed to my experience with BTV. (like having to learn girder and figuring out how to tune channels via firewire)

Couple of questions that I can't seem to find answers to.

Old recordings from btv:
I have told sage to look at both of my old recording locations for its "media import" but it doesn't find all of my files. Some of them are mpg's some are divx avi's and it doesn't see any of my .wmv files.

Program guide and tuner setup:
I have two STB's one is hd one is only sd, they are both hooked in via pvr 250's. I also have an hdhr. So this means I need three seperate lineups one for the hd stb one for the sd stb and one for the hdhr. But I only have the one choice of comcast digital. In BTV it was very easy to "hide" certain channels for each input that weren't available on that input. Like an HD channel on the SD STB. What can I do in Sage to sort this out?

External tuning.
I was able to get my HD Stb to change the channels via firewire very easily last night but that leaves my with sd stb left to do. I was using a ads tech blaster with BTV, is it impossible to use this with Sage? I really don't want to have to buy a usbirt, right now as I am already going to be out the money for the sage license and client. The war department in my house (see wife) only allows so much discretionary spending. Unless you know anyone looking to purchase some BTV licenses

One last thing,
On my main machine I have three pvr 250's, which one should I plug the hauppauge remote into to get to work with sage? Since I have turned off girder no commands are recognized in sage from that remote.

Thanks a bunch! I look forward to my new life with Sage!

[Brent]

Welcome to the SageTV forums benny!

Originally Posted by bennyhill

Old recordings from btv:
I have told sage to look at both of my old recording locations for its "media import" but it doesn't find all of my files. Some of them are mpg's some are divx avi's and it doesn't see any of my .wmv files.

I'm not sure why it isn't finding the .wmv files. Could you check the logs and see if it tells you anything in there?
By the way, if you haven't seen this already you might be interested in my "how to import BTV recordings into SageTV recorded shows" post.

Program guide and tuner setup:
I have two STB's one is hd one is only sd, they are both hooked in via pvr 250's. I also have an hdhr. So this means I need three seperate lineups one for the hd stb one for the sd stb and one for the hdhr. But I only have the one choice of comcast digital. In BTV it was very easy to "hide" certain channels for each input that weren't available on that input. Like an HD channel on the SD STB. What can I do in Sage to sort this out?

You should be able to set up a separate lineup for the different tuners if you want. Then you can hide the specific channels per lineup. In setup just choose a different lineup as you add your different tuners.

Not sure on your other questions so hopefully others will chime in.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by bennyhill

Program guide and tuner setup:
I have two STB's one is hd one is only sd, they are both hooked in via pvr 250's. I also have an hdhr. So this means I need three seperate lineups one for the hd stb one for the sd stb and one for the hdhr. But I only have the one choice of comcast digital. In BTV it was very easy to "hide" certain channels for each input that weren't available on that input. Like an HD channel on the SD STB. What can I do in Sage to sort this out?

You have to use the current v6.4.3 beta (or later versions as they arrive) to use the new feature to allow seprately configurable channels lineups frmo the same EPG provider choice.

External tuning.
I was able to get my HD Stb to change the channels via firewire very easily last night but that leaves my with sd stb left to do. I was using a ads tech blaster with BTV, is it impossible to use this with Sage?

If girder can control that IR blaster, then you could probably set up girder again & use it that way. If you don't want to use girder, then you would need something SageTV supports directly, such as the USB-UIRT.

One last thing,
On my main machine I have three pvr 250's, which one should I plug the hauppauge remote into to get to work with sage?

Which ever one works with the Hauppauge IR software... There is no telling which tuner the IR drivers/software will latch on to, and if you have other Hauppauge tuners, even those w/o an IR port, it may try to use that card instead.

- Andy

[autoboy]

If you are not using the beta software that allows different channel lineups for each source, we used to simply use a neighboring city with the same lineup to set up our HDHR.

[bennyhill]

Ok I am trying to import the BTV xml info per Brent Evans Blog. I get all the way to the import into sage from the web server and when I click submit query on my newly created xml file all it does is say "Processing imported file: ExtractedInfo_sage.xml"

Then nothing. Any Ideas?

Thanks for the tip on using a neighbor city. I don't know if I being a newbie and all should even mess with a beta right now.

Also guess I will be in the market for a usbirt.

So far so good though, I really like all the new features in sage.

[bennyhill]

Ok the neighbor city didn't work, all it did was bring the channels up in the guide without anything at all for programs so I couldn't even tune to them. I did follow the instructions on Silicon Dusts website expcept I used a different town that has the same channels but with a different cable co.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by bennyhill

Ok I am trying to import the BTV xml info per Brent Evans Blog. I get all the way to the import into sage from the web server and when I click submit query on my newly created xml file all it does is say "Processing imported file: ExtractedInfo_sage.xml"

Then nothing. Any Ideas?

So it's not giving you the list of imported files and such in the web interface after selecting import xml file?

[bennyhill]

correct the browser just stops loading and that is the only message I get.

[bennyhill]

For grins I tried it in Internet explorer as well as firefox to make sure that didn't make any difference and of course it didn't.

[Brent]

Benny,
Can you open the xml file in notepad to be sure something is there? If it looks okay, then there must be something else wrong.

I'll check tonight and see if I can figure anything else out - haven't actually done this since December.....

Are you using the latest version of neilms web server?

[CyRex]

Originally Posted by bennyhill

Ok the neighbor city didn't work, all it did was bring the channels up in the guide without anything at all for programs so I couldn't even tune to them. I did follow the instructions on Silicon Dusts website expcept I used a different town that has the same channels but with a different cable co.

How long did you wait after you added the channel lineup? You may need to wait a while (several minutes) for the EPG (guide) data to be downloaded. I noticed this same thing when I recently added an HD-PVR to my system. After waiting a few minutes the guide data appeared and I was able to tune in the stations.

-Dan

[BobPhoenix]

I've had to wait up to an hour or more (to get guide data on a reinstall) when my cable company was having a bad connection day (couldn't get MSN to come up in less than 10 minutes either also analog TV reception was really bad). I would suggest you set it up and let it set a while checking back in the guide every 10 minutes or so.

[autoboy]

Yeah, i have the same problem sometimes when adding a new tuner. It is kinda annoying not to be able to even tune the channel without the guide data. It has taken a few minutes or over an hour before. I tend to just move on to something else for awhile.

[bennyhill]

OK so I am not so worried about the import of old BTV recordings. I will try to import just a few shows at a time next time to see if it will catch them that way.

I am still unable to see all of my video files under imported media though. I would say I am getting about 70% of them. This is pretty annoying.

I did get my HDHR working with a neighbor city lineup. I am disapointed in the HD Playback though. It is hard to put my finger on what is wrong with the picture, it is like it is dropping frames or something. It is very annoying I am running a nvidia 7300 card, which worked perfectly in BTV for HD Playback from the hdhr. Any tweaks you can suggest I try?

Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to the thread had to go out of town over the weekend.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by bennyhill

I did get my HDHR working with a neighbor city lineup. I am disapointed in the HD Playback though. It is hard to put my finger on what is wrong with the picture, it is like it is dropping frames or something. It is very annoying I am running a nvidia 7300 card, which worked perfectly in BTV for HD Playback from the hdhr. Any tweaks you can suggest I try?

.
nm

[bennyhill]

This is for playback from the HDHR not the hd pvr. Should I still change the h.264 codec?

[Brent]

Originally Posted by bennyhill

This is for playback from the HDHR not the hd pvr. Should I still change the h.264 codec?

Sorry Benny. My mind is already shot this Monday....
Disregard my earlier post.... Are you using VMR9 or Overlay?

[bennyhill]

Either one has had the same result. Overlay seems to be a little better though but the not quite smooth playback persists with both.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by bennyhill

Either one has had the same result. Overlay seems to be a little better though but the not quite smooth playback persists with both.

Okay. Stick with overlay for the moment then. What codecs are you using for video playback? Have you tried all of the ones available to see if any of them are better than others on your setup?

[bennyhill]

OK I HAVE to figure out this importing media problem now. It is definitely NOT importing any .wmv files nor any .ts files. Also it isn't importing from a second hard drive on my machine where I have even more movies stored.

I really am driving blind with this software, I guess that is how you learn though.