Victoria BC - Digital options

[KipKasper]

HI All,

I have an analog only Sage setup, that is rock solid, but times are changing, and digital cable is here to stay. I'm wondering what options people have tried with SageTV and the various STBs that are being pushed on us consumers these days. Also anyone had any luck with in-the-clear QAM from Shaw?

The big question being, is it worth trying to move to digital cable, if my old analog setup is working just fine?

- Greg

[jorton]

I am using Shaw Digital Cable in Nanaimo. I used to use 2 hauppauge PVR500's and a PVR150 with a combo of analog cable and shaw HD motorola boxes connected to sVideo inputs on the hauppauge cards. With all the talk in the US of shutting off analog and everyone needing digital boxes I bit the bullet and went with 3 Hauppauge HDPVR's connected to the 3 Motorola HD STB's (PACE 775d, Motorola 6216's and 3416's have all worked for me with FireWire and usbuirt channel changing). HDPVR's are about your only option for getting HD 1080i 5.1DD video recorded from a digital box in HD. In Nanaimo we don't get that great OTA signals from Vancouver or Seatle so I never really looked into it.

For me the analog to digital move even without the HDPVR's was like gong from fuzzy tv to DVD quality and then going to HD it was another big quality bump, depends on what you are recording and the analog signal strength etc...

Here is a link to a forum discussing OTA signals in our area,

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/show...=68445&page=20

Best of luck!

[KipKasper]

Originally Posted by jorton

I am using Shaw Digital Cable in Nanaimo. I used to use 2 hauppauge PVR500's and a PVR150 with a combo of analog cable and shaw HD motorola boxes connected to sVideo inputs on the hauppauge cards. With all the talk in the US of shutting off analog and everyone needing digital boxes I bit the bullet and went with 3 Hauppauge HDPVR's connected to the 3 Motorola HD STB's (PACE 775d, Motorola 6216's and 3416's have all worked for me with FireWire and usbuirt channel changing). HDPVR's are about your only option for getting HD 1080i 5.1DD video recorded from a digital box in HD. In Nanaimo we don't get that great OTA signals from Vancouver or Seatle so I never really looked into it.

For me the analog to digital move even without the HDPVR's was like gong from fuzzy tv to DVD quality and then going to HD it was another big quality bump, depends on what you are recording and the analog signal strength etc...

Here is a link to a forum discussing OTA signals in our area,

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/show...=68445&page=20

Best of luck!

Thanks Jorton,

Did shaw let you pick a STB that you knew would work with Firewire? or did you get lucky?

[jorton]

All the Shaw hd boxes I have had (Pace or Motorola) all had active FireWire ports, that being said we can't be sure that shaw won't turn them off some time. I had to give up on FireWire when I went 64 bit windows 7 as the old driver was only 32 bit.

Jeremy

[Helheim]

I use a Bell 9242 with an R5000HD installed, works pretty good most of the time.

[bc_can]

"Also anyone had any luck with in-the-clear QAM from Shaw?"
No clear QAM on Shaw except for audio services.

"HD motorola boxes connected to sVideo inputs on the hauppauge cards"
The s-video standard limits the transport to 480i.

[wayner]

I have had PVRs (TiVo, Windows MCE, Sage) for about 7 years and over that time I have always used them with digital cable boxes. It can seem a little more daunting at first since you have to use IR or firewire for channel changing but once you get that working there generally aren't any additional issues.

There can be a slight issue with some boxes if the box powers itself off either due to an upgrade from your cable co or do to an overall power grid failure, and channel changing is slower so if you like to surf on your PVR then that is another disadvantage. But I never channel surf or watch live TV, I only watch PVRed shows.

[Skiier__Dude]

I live in Victoria -- don't use Shaw -- I'm a BEV aka BellTV subscriber and have been for about 12 years now. I've got 2 x 6100s connected to 2 x HDPVRs and 1 x 3200 connected to an old PVR-150 (records SD only). I use the USB-UIRT for channel changes on the STBs. This setup has been real solid for about 2 years -- I've been a Sage user for 6 (the other 4 years I was always upgrading, tinkering and playing).

For reliability -- you can't beat Windows Home Server. Once I upgraded to that from XP any grief I had with my setup has completely gone away. I used to tweak my setup weekly and honestly, I've not looked at things in probably 6-8 months. It's rock-solid -- best investment I've made in my Sage setup.

Depending on where you live (I'm in Cadboro Bay), OTA can be pretty good. I have an HDHR connected to a good long range antenna and pick up the Bellingham and Seattle HD stations. The OTA content is a step up from the Bell content in image quality. I don't have time to play with the OTA setup any longer so will likely sell it. Last time I scanned with the HDHR I pulled down about 20 channels. Not all are HD content -- they are broadcast as HD channels but are SD content. Some are crappy channels (for me) either in the wrong language (Chinese or Spanish) or the wrong content (religion, cooking or home shopping). Of the 20 channels I get, about 12 of them have watchable content (your taste may vary). BTW: When I connect the antenna directly to a TV with both ATSC and NTSC tuners it pulls down the local Victoria content so I got closer to 30 channels of both HD and SD including the Vancouver SD channels (pretty fuzzy).

I'd also add that once you go to Digital and then HD there is no going back. HD even makes the Leafs look good!!!