Integrating STB with SageTV 7

[jbrandon]

I have read through much of the message board about this but it leaves me more confused…

A couple years ago I signed up with TWC (Kansas City) for a package which included digital cable, STB and internet. I’ve not had the box connected to a TV for at least a year so today I decided to take it back and get rid of the digital tier. I was told it would increase my bill by $2.50 per month and incur a $75.00 early termination fee so I brought it back home.

So now I would like to integrate the Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HDC into my Sage system. Current setup is SageTV 7, 2 – 2250’s, 1 – 1800, 1 – 150, dedicated server with Sage running as a service. The machine is used for nothing else (headless), 1 – HD200 and several client computers. I only have one TV. I have two line ups one for the QAM digital (channels 2-15) and another for the analog channels 16 - ~

Here is what I know:
1. I can only record one channel at a time – not really a problem because I have several channels via QAM.
2. I have to dedicate one input to receive the boxes signal.

Here is what I don’t know and need some suggestions:
1. How do I configure channel changing, the box has 1394 and an IR port on the back and of course the IR receiver on the front.
2. What do I use for the output, cable? I think I want to use the QAM side of the Hauppauge 1800 card for input to Sage.
3. How is the channel lineup incorporated into Sage? Currently I have 2- 2250’s, 1 – 1800 and 1 – PVR150 (used for overflow). I use the digital side of the 1800 for all QAM signals – about 12, I use the analog side of the 1800 for everything else.

Thanks…

Jim

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by jbrandon

Here is what I know:
1. I can only record one channel at a time – not really a problem because I have several channels via QAM.
2. I have to dedicate one input to receive the boxes signal.

Here is what I don’t know and need some suggestions:
1. How do I configure channel changing, the box has 1394 and an IR port on the back and of course the IR receiver on the front.

If you are running linux or a 32 bit version of Windows Firewire may be an option. If you are running a 64 bit version of Windows Firewire is off the table. If you can't do FW or try and don't have any luck you can use an IR blaster like the USB-UIRT to send IR commands to the box to change the channels.

Originally Posted by jbrandon

2. What do I use for the output, cable? I think I want to use the QAM side of the Hauppauge 1800 card for input to Sage.

I've never seen a cable box that spit out a decoded QAM signal but that doesn't mean there's not one out there. Usually to use the digital box you just hook it to a tuner that supports S-video, component, or use STD coax and an NTSC (analog) tuner.

Originally Posted by jbrandon

3. How is the channel lineup incorporated into Sage? Currently I have 2- 2250’s, 1 – 1800 and 1 – PVR150 (used for overflow). I use the digital side of the 1800 for all QAM signals – about 12, I use the analog side of the 1800 for everything else.

Once you add the cable box into the mix, it works just like any other tuner as far as the guide is concerned. You can set tuner priorities in the sage.properties file if you want to force sage to prefer one tuner over another, but that's another battle

[Fuzzy]

If you've got firewire on your server already, that would be the best bet (because it's cheap to buy a cable) for STB control. If that doens't work, the USB-UIRT will work fine.

As for capture, you can connect the STB to the S-Video in on any of your capture cards and use that (you can actually still keep using the tuner input as well. Sage knows there are on the same card, and can only use one input at a time. it'll sort it out on it's own.

You will have to create yet another line-up to attach to the S-Video input that includes the STB channels. After all that, sage should work just fine and be able to record pretty much everything.

[wayner]

If you want to get HD content into Sage then you will have to buy an HD-PVR which is about $150-$200. If you are happy with SD then you can just use the s-video output of the 8300 and attach that to one of your existing tuners. But any HD content will be downrezzed and letterboxed.