What tuner card for this Dish HD setup

[lucasbuck]

I'm upgrading to Dish HD and will be using a Dish Dual HD receiver (so it will output 1 digital feed, 1 analog). Trying to figure out what card I will need to upgrade my Sage setup to, as the card in now is only a single analog output.

I was looking at hvr-2250 and hvr-1850, but was reading the 2250 will only do 2 digital at a time OR 2 analog. Unless I'm reading it wrong. If that's the case, could I still watch one show, and record another? Is the 2250 overkill? Any suggestions on which card to get?

I'm also confused about how the dual stuff works. Would you be watching one HD show, and it would record another (just in analog)? How do you tell sage which you want to use for what? (ie. which you want in HD, the live one your watching, or the one you are recording).

I'm confused, thanks for any help!

[fidget]

The Dish receivers do not have a digital output other than HDMI (e.g., you can't feed it into a digital tuner). I have two VIP-222Ks at home and have them connected via Hauppauge HD-PVRs. In your case, you would need one HD-PVR for the component output (HD) and a standard analog tuner for the RF output (SD) (and some way to send RF remote codes).

I would really suggest getting two single tuner receivers and connecting them via HD-PVRs. Unfortunately, this has two problems. First, while the dual tuner receive can be fed with a splitter off of a single coax, the single tuner receivers need to have their own line from the dish. I've been told that DirecTV has a way to split the feeds internally rather than at the dish. Second, the HD-PVRs are not cheap.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by fidget

I've been told that DirecTV has a way to split the feeds internally rather than at the dish.

The DirectTV system I have generates 8 signals at different frequencies at the dish so that for a single coax I can use a splitter in my basement to send those signals to the individual STBs.

[lucasbuck]

Thanks for the replies. So you can't get digital through a coax? (Sorry, new to HD) No TV tuner cards take HDMI?
So even if I gave up the dual tuner idea, and went with a single HD receiver, I would have to go through a PVR with Dish?

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by lucasbuck

Thanks for the replies. So you can't get digital through a coax? (Sorry, new to HD) No TV tuner cards take HDMI?
So even if I gave up the dual tuner idea, and went with a single HD receiver, I would have to go through a PVR with Dish?

Through some sort of HD capture device, like the hauppauge HD-PVR (external USB device), or the upcoming Hauppauge Colossus HD-DVR (internal PCIe card).

[jptheripper]

Basically to sum up:

There are no digital hd capture cards for dish (Cable card is a whole different animal). So your capture choices for HD are:

1. http://www.nextcomwireless.com/R5000/home.htm which is basically a modification of the dish hardware to use it as a network tuner.
2. A Hauppauge HD capture device which captures via component (the analog hole), either the HD PVR USB or the upcoming colossus (internal). The colossus takes either component or UNENCRYPTED HDMI. Dish's HDMI output is encrypted (As are all settops), so once again, analog only.

[lucasbuck]

But if I waited for it to come out, the Colossus would work with Dish? Which leads me to another question. If I go ahead with the HD upgrade, will the Dish network HD receivers output analog through a coax (so I can just replace my box, and use it like I'm using my old receiver now)? Just swap them out. I was wanting to go ahead and do the upgrade because they've got a deal going.

[jptheripper]

The colossus will work with dish capture analog HD over component.

Dish will output coax analog SD only.

[Fuzzy]

And if using your existing SD cards, you'l be far better off using S-Video than coax. The quality will be MUCH better. I actually ran with HD dish boxes for a year and a half running into S-Video capture cards, and the quality is actually quite passable.

[fidget]

On the dual tuner receivers, the second tuner is RF only.

[Fuzzy]

That's why it was also recommended to NOT get a dual tuner. The second tuner can also only be controlled by RF, meaning you have to get a TV2 IR converter kit from dish to even be able to control it from sage, all just to get an inferior quality signal.

[andyvr4]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

That's why it was also recommended to NOT get a dual tuner. The second tuner can also only be controlled by RF, meaning you have to get a TV2 IR converter kit from dish to even be able to control it from sage, all just to get an inferior quality signal.

The advantage to getting the dual tuner kit is when you run into a situation like I've got where the dual is included for free (if I wanted a second hd I'd half to pay 7 dollars more a month).

I've got a setup very similar to what you're looking at with the dual dish with an IR converter kit on the second output.

I've got an HD-PVR USB connected through component to the HD side of the dish box and then an HVR-2250 that is connected to the analog side of the dish box as well as an OTA so I can get local channels on the other side of the HVR-2250.

This setup gives me to the following simultaneous viewing/recording options.

1xHD from dish
1xAnalog from dish
1xDigital over the air

or

1xHD from dish
2xDigital over the air

So far this setup has been working flawlessly with sagetv 7.