Adding Sage to my setup... some questions

[wyzard]

Good morning.

I'm looking at adding SageTV to my current Home Theater setup (and maybe expanding it to other rooms at some point). I have a WHS with 5TB storage.

To get going what will I need? I'm thinking running Sage for WHS on my server. Then getting a SageTV HD Theater. Also looking at getting a HD HomeRun and connecting that into the server. Anything else I need? What about to watch on PCs? What would my initial costs be for setup? I know the HD Theater is 199 and the HomeRun is 169.. what other costs would I be incurring?

I also want to use the HD Theater to stream my existing videos, music and photos to my Home Theater. Will I be able to do this? In looking over things here and researching it seems like I will but just want to be sure. How about setup... Is that a pretty straight forward process?

Thanks for the help.

[paulbeers]

If you are truly just starting out using Sage, I would recommend the 249 package of an HD200 and SageTV (I assume its still out there, haven't looked) so that adds an additional $50 to your cost since you will need to have a SageTV licence in order to use Sage! Otherwise I would highly recommend you use ethernet and not try to do wireless so if you don't have an ethernet drop by your tv, you will need to add that (if you do, then ignore this).


That is all I can think of. Of course you could do things like buy a placeshifter licence should you want to take Sage "on the road" and then there is the normal "I want it to be better" that pretty much all of us get at times so then we spend more money just to have more tuners or more extenders or whatever......these are not initial cost factors, but just something to keep in mind!

[Djc208]

Originally Posted by wyzard

I also want to use the HD Theater to stream my existing videos, music and photos to my Home Theater. Will I be able to do this? In looking over things here and researching it seems like I will but just want to be sure. How about setup... Is that a pretty straight forward process?

Thanks for the help.

Yes, during setup you tell Sage what kind of files are stored where on your network and if Sage can see the files it will catalog them and allow you to play them back (if supported).

I haven't used the HD-200 but the HD-100 will output audio through both the RCA and optical connection (and maybe even HDMI, I don't use it) so in my setup I have the RCA's going to the TV for most of my TV watching. When I want to listen to music, or watch something with surround sound, I just turn off the TV's internal speakers and turn on the receiver.

Setup is hard to quantify. In most cases the setup is pretty straight forward. The setup routine will get you functional and 98% of the way there. The other two percent is usually split between adding customizations and add-ons (comskip, SageMC, etc.) and tweaking settings and functions to smooth the rough edges. That final 2% can be as much or as little work as you desire. Naturally that assumes all your hardware and software plays nice during install.

The most cumbersome part of the setup is usually mapping channels. If you're using a HDHR then you're probably doing ClearQAM or OTA which can take some time and be kind of confusing.

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by wyzard

Anything else I need? What about to watch on PCs?

To watch Sage on your PC you'll need a SageTV Client or Placeshifter. If the PC is staying on your LAN, use the Client. They are slightly different.

[wyzard]

Will SageTV display album and DVD cover art when browsing files on my server?

Thanks.

[S_M_E]

Originally Posted by wyzard

Will SageTV display album and DVD cover art when browsing files on my server?

Yep, if it's in the right folders and named correctly. It will do channel logos too.

[wyzard]

Originally Posted by S_M_E

Yep, if it's in the right folders and named correctly. It will do channel logos too.

Some details please... how would I go about doing this?

Thanks.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by wyzard

Will SageTV display album and DVD cover art when browsing files on my server?

Originally Posted by wyzard

Some details please... how would I go about doing this?

This is covered in the downloadable PDF manual, which is also installed with SageTV.

Appendix B covers channel logos.

Album art & video thumbnails are covered in the sections of the manual for those browsers -- in the v6.5 manual, see around p. 83 for music and p. 94 for video thumbnails.

- Andy