Why use a network encoder?

[ldavis]

Back in the day when I had DirectTV and SageTV was sometimes not all that stable, I kept clients along with DirecTV boxes at each TV, it made sense to me to have network encoders (at that time by using SageTV Recorder). Now that SageTV is very stable, why do this. If you do not have the space in you machine then what about HD homerun. To maintain a separate computer and to purchase an additional Sage license does not make sense to me.

The reason I ask is that I have a recently deceased machine that may be resurrected someday. I could move the two existing tuners to the new machine or I could set up network encoders. What is the advantage of going the network encoder route?

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by ldavis

Back in the day when I had DirectTV and SageTV was sometimes not all that stable, I kept clients along with DirecTV boxes at each TV, it made sense to me to have network encoders (at that time by using SageTV Recorder). Now that SageTV is very stable, why do this. If you do not have the space in you machine then what about HD homerun. To maintain a separate computer and to purchase an additional Sage license does not make sense to me.

The reason I ask is that I have a recently deceased machine that may be resurrected someday. I could move the two existing tuners to the new machine or I could set up network encoders. What is the advantage of going the network encoder route?

For many, they are still using STB's next to their TV for both viewing outside of Sage and allowing Sage to record from it (much as you used to do). I think the use of a true Network Encoder has definately decreased, but remember that the HDHomerun is only good for unecrypted channels and only for digital channels so it has a very limited scope so the need for internal cards is still present. I also think the advent of the dual tuners has also reduced the amount of users using Network encoders as the amount of PCI / PCIE slots is greatly reduced. Further, many of us have given up on full clients and moved to extenders, so it would be even more difficult to setup network encoders (as most who used network encoders had the additional tuners in their full client). I myself have never used a true network encoder so I am purely speculating.