Is Sage TV right for me?

[kbod123]

I want to understand if a sage TV system is right for me and if so, I need help deciding what I need. What I want:
• Living room TV and bedroom TV need to be able to play shows we record on one central DVR “server”
• The UI and remote needs to be chimp easy to understand and use (like Tivo). Examples of our common tasks which need to be easy:
o Skipping commercials
o Looking through recorded shows and playing them
o Recording shows and setting up season passes from “the guide”
• I’m assuming I will need some kind of “box” near each TV. I would like for these boxes to have a small footprint and be quiet
• I’m assuming I will need a Sage TV “server” – this will be in basement and it can be noisy and big
• My content provider is Direct TV
• We don’t watch or record any “premium” channels - not sure if this is a factor
• The TV’s are analog CRT – therefore HDTV and digital recordings are not a concern right now. If I can build the system to support digital recordings or easily upgrade to that in the future that would be a bonus
• Majority of network communication needs to be wireless – currently have the Linksys WRT54G as my router in living room. There is a LAN cable from it down to the basement where I can put the server

I need help understanding if Sage TV can meet these requirements and if so recommendations on what hardware and software I need. The initial setup, installation and configuration can be complex, but daily use needs to be simple. The system also needs to be reliable. I don’t want the wife yelling at me because American Idol didn’t record or the sound on it is messed up.
Would I use the SageTV HD Theater 300 as the two set top boxes? I can build a tower computer for the server no problem. I have a spare case lying around. I’m comfortable with windows 7 or linux. Please help me decide!

[pjpjpjpj]

It sounds like you have some technical knowledge (you can build a server), so I'd say you'll be fine. You will need a fairly large upfront investment.

You'll need HD300's for each TV. Small footprint, no noise whatsoever (no moving parts), and can handle just about any type of video you throw at them. You'll be futureproofed for HD, but they can easily do SD output (composite or component) for now.

You'll need an HD-PVR or Colossus for each DirecTV tuner that you want - i.e., how many things you want to be able to record simultaneously. I'll let you read up on those devices on this forum (or the SageTV shopping area) rather than explain here. You'll need a DirecTV box with each one, all in that central location (contradicts the "cable box at every TV" concept). The HD-PVRs are USB and the Colossus is internal, so plan ports/bays accordingly on your server. Remember, if you are "watching live", that counts as "recording", so try to gauge your family's requirements. Some here get by with two tuners as with an old Tivo, but realize that once you have multiple TVs hooked to the same server, you can run up those numbers... in other words, if someone's watching something "live" on one TV, another on another TV, and you have two other shows that you want recorded that night, suddenly you need FOUR tuners. Seems like most here are in the 4-6 range, as far as tuners, but many will only have one or two from their cable/sat, and then mix in others from other sources (i.e., an OTA tuner or three to pick up local channels with an antenna). You can save a lot of $ (and monthly fees) that way. So start making note of the shows that you watch in the house and whether they need to be from DirecTV or whether they could be gotten via antenna for free, and also which of those shows overlap timewise. If you are interested in OTA, just ask around here, people will help.

Comskip is a plugin and not native to Sage. You'll have to install the plugin and configure it, and you'll need a "decent" server processor (multi core) to run it. Otherwise, if you only ever watch content on your extenders (not on the server itself), your server won't need much processing power, just hard drive space (which could also be networked). The users (your family) won't be "comskipping", it will happen automatically if you have it installed and activated for a show. But Sage extenders do have three options for FF'ing - scroll-type (as you are used to), and two programmable buttons for "jumping", where you can program how many seconds each button will jump. For example, my family does not use comskip, but has one button set for 2 minute jumps and another for 10 second jumps - between those, we can get through a commercial break in a heartbeat.

As for wireless, the HD300's can work wirelessly. USB dongles are available. I can't speak to how well this works with HD (for future) but you should be fine with SD for now. Maybe when you upgrade someday to HD, you can fish some wires.

The remote for Sage extenders is fairly simple, though it does have a LOT of buttons. Like most remotes (every time you buy a new gadget), you just have to get used to it. We can use it without even looking now - and almost everything can be done simply using the directional pad and "enter" button in the middle, although that sometimes requires a few more button presses than moving your thumb to another part of the remote to push the direct-jump button.

[panteragstk]

If he doesn't want or need to record HD then couldn't he just use a cheap composite capture card instead of HD-PVR or Colossus?

[gambitpvr]

If he doesn't want or need to record HD then couldn't he just use a cheap composite capture card instead of HD-PVR or Colossus?

As long as his DirectTV box has SD outputs (which it probably does), then he could use a cheaper capture card. However, if we wants to future proof, might as well go for an HD-PVR or Colossus now so he doesn't have to upgrade the capture card later.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by gambitpvr

As long as his DirectTV box has SD outputs (which it probably does), then he could use a cheaper capture card. However, if we wants to future proof, might as well go for an HD-PVR or Colossus now so he doesn't have to upgrade the capture card later.

Yeah, I'm a believer in doing it once and doing it right. Why spend some money on a cheaper card now and then spend more money later on a complete replacement (HD-PVR or Colossus). Eventually everyone's going to go HD, and the hardware for it is available now and not really "that much more" expensive. But it's always good to give people all their options, so the cheaper SD-only option is a valid point.

[matt91]

Originally Posted by gambitpvr

As long as his DirectTV box has SD outputs (which it probably does), then he could use a cheaper capture card. However, if we wants to future proof, might as well go for an HD-PVR or Colossus now so he doesn't have to upgrade the capture card later.

But...using an old Hauppauge analog capture card also lets you capture in MPEG2, which means that you need next to no CPU horsepower to run comskip.

I ran mine a couple of years ago with a PIII (I think). It ran comskip slowly, but it did run.

Just saying that you can "get in the door" for cheap and see if you like it. Then upgrade server CPU/MB. Then upgrade to HDPVR.

(i've suggested before that it'd be interesting to have Sage make a 15 minute Youtube video of them assembling a working headless server (using an old re-purposed machine) + HD300 + one or two capture devices + Linux to demonstrate how easy and inexpensive a functioning system can be.)

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

Yeah, I'm a believer in doing it once and doing it right. Why spend some money on a cheaper card now and then spend more money later on a complete replacement (HD-PVR or Colossus). Eventually everyone's going to go HD, and the hardware for it is available now and not really "that much more" expensive. But it's always good to give people all their options, so the cheaper SD-only option is a valid point.

I'm right there with you, but I was just thinking of the initial investment. Some people may be turned off by that.

[tmiranda]

Wireless is hit or miss. It works fine for some and terrible for others.

[kbod123]

Thank you so much pjpj and everybody else for replying! This is a really big help. So while I am a big believer in doing things right, I also don’t want to fully commit to this by investing $800+ until I know for sure this will be a good fit for our family. With that being said, I know the cost of the colossus ~150. What old Hauppauge analog tuner could I use? I definitely need to be able to record two shows simultaneously and watch a third one which was previously recorded. Does that require 2 tuners or 3? I think only 2 right? Is the Hauppauge 2250 the cheapest card on new egg which would do this? If so, I think I might go for the colossus since its only 25 bucks more. Does the colossus work with the linux build? In my searching and reading I thought I saw that it isn’t supported and is having some kind of issues.

As to my old spare machine, I fired it up tonight and this is what it’s got:

AMD Athlon 1700, Abit KR7A mobo (6 PCI slots), 500 MB RAM, 300 watt PSU, some old school nvidia graphics card

Could I get by with this and the linux build of Sage? I can look at the automated comskip thing for the future build. So long as there is the onscreen FF option pj was describing that’s fine as that as what we are used to now.

The programming question and lowering my monthly provider bills is definitely something I’ve thought of. Unfortunately even thought though the majority of what we watch is normal network TV, we get no OTA channels with a clear signal where I live.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by kbod123

Thank you so much pjpj and everybody else for replying! This is a really big help. So while I am a big believer in doing things right, I also don’t want to fully commit to this by investing $800+ until I know for sure this will be a good fit for our family. With that being said, I know the cost of the colossus ~150. What old Hauppauge analog tuner could I use? I definitely need to be able to record two shows simultaneously and watch a third one which was previously recorded. Does that require 2 tuners or 3? I think only 2 right? Is the Hauppauge 2250 the cheapest card on new egg which would do this? If so, I think I might go for the colossus since its only 25 bucks more. Does the colossus work with the linux build? In my searching and reading I thought I saw that it isn’t supported and is having some kind of issues.

As to my old spare machine, I fired it up tonight and this is what it’s got:

AMD Athlon 1700, Abit KR7A mobo (6 PCI slots), 500 MB RAM, 300 watt PSU, some old school nvidia graphics card

Could I get by with this and the linux build of Sage? I can look at the automated comskip thing for the future build. So long as there is the onscreen FF option pj was describing that’s fine as that as what we are used to now.

The programming question and lowering my monthly provider bills is definitely something I’ve thought of. Unfortunately even thought though the majority of what we watch is normal network TV, we get no OTA channels with a clear signal where I live.

I'll answer what I know about and leave the rest for others:
You are correct that you only need two tuners if your third program being watched is something pre-recorded. As long as you remember that watching "live" TV counts as a recording, then you only need as many tuners as you need shows to be "recorded" simultaneously.

As for tuner cards, I believe there are older, cheaper analog-only cards that you might find on eBay or such, but the 2250 should work. I'm not an expert on this so I'll leave this to others.

As for your PC, it's on the low end of what you would want, but should work, especially since you are SD-only. Not having multiple cores, you probably shouldn't mess with comskip right now, as you really want a separate core to handle that work. You also don't have the specs for the PlayOn plugin, if you wanted that (which adds a bunch of streamed internet content, I don't know if you read about that yet). But for basic Sage usage, it should work. It's also going to depend on what tuner you decide to go with, and whether that tuner requires processor to transcode on the fly. You'd probably see some small glitches and slowness because of your RAM (I'd recommend at least 1 Gb, probably 2), and you might have to do the occasional reboot because of things hanging, which is not good for FAF (Family acceptance factor). I originally had a server that was slower than yours (on Sage v6), and did all HD video, and it worked "okay" as long as I never tried to watch HD video on the server itself (spectacular crashes). Of course, I was recording OTA only and had no video encoding/transcoding to do - it recorded raw streams and played them through the extenders and required no processor. So if you are itching to get started "on the cheap", you could get by with that PC as your server, but as you get into it and want to expand capabilities, you'll need to upgrade.

Hope that helps...

[matt91]

What old Hauppauge analog tuner could I use?

There are a bunch of Hauppauge cards out there, you'd just need to confirm that the one you're looking at accepts S-video and/or composite. Most will have an onboard tuner which you won't be using.

Most folks (like me) have a few of these stuffed in a drawer as they've become obsolete in the move to HD. Therefore, you might get lucky on ebay or a swap-meet or some such and get a few for cheap. (I see new ones on Newegg for ~ $45, and also ones on Ebay for $5)

I don't know if there are driver issues using 2 cards and Linux. you'd have to poke around and see (Hauppauge cards are known (in XP, at least) to be challenging to set up when you use > 1 at a time).

HTH

Matt

[panteragstk]

I started out with a server not much more powerful than what you have. I had a single tuner 1600 card and ota. I had one hard drive with some videos on it and went from there. What is your primary usage for sage? If it is just tv (sd at that) then your server you have will be fine, but with more memory. As for linux, I just used XP and everything was easy. I'd ask in the linux sections what minimum requirements you would need because those guys will know what will and won't work.

[kbod123]

Couple more questions before I head over to the linux forum.
Do I need a tuner and a STB from DirecTV for each simultaneous show I want to record? I’m thinking yes the more and more I read. Our current DirecTV DVR can records 2 shows simultaneously. Does that matter at all?

Does each tuner need a dedicated hard drive to write shows to? I’m guessing no.

Besides S video / component inputs, what else am I looking for in these older tuners? I’m guessing I’m recording in NTSC? Is that how it works, the signal through component or s video is always NTSC while HDMI is ATSC (or something else)? From what I understand DirecTV does continue to support the older format, otherwise how would my old TV’s still work right?

Lastly, in the first post you guys told me how easy the UI is once you get used to it, but nobody said anything about the reliability factor. I understand that it will take a while to get this working right, which is why I’m taking baby steps and keeping the DirecTV DVR around until I’m happy. However, once it is working right, will it pretty much always just work? Or are most of you always messing around with things once a day/week and having to fix stuff all the time? I can’t be bothered with that if that is the case and will stick with the DirecTV DVR until they finally release the Tivo one.

[panteragstk]

As far as reliability there is a steep learning curve depending on what you want to do. For a beginner I'd start with the most basic UI you can: the stock one. There are many mods to make it look better and add functionality, but you shouldn't worry about any of that for now.

DirecTV may have dual tuners, but you can only output one at a time through composite/s-video/component/hdmi. The good thing about either the HD-PVR or colossus is that component and hdmi can carry sd and hd signals. If you get a cheaper dual tuner card (2250) it will have 2 s-video/composite inputs so you can have 2 tuners on one card. You will have to have an stb for each tuner you want to use in sagetv. You will also have to find a way to change the channels on those tuners. Usb UIRT for IR channel changing, or serial/ethernet changing on some directv boxes that are compatible. Ethernet would be the way to go in that area if you can. The hardware section will provide specific directions.

[Beefcake550]

I'm not tryign to put you away from SageTV, but if you have DirecTV and haven't invested into SageTV yet, you may want to consider the DirecTV whole home DVR package. You could cancel your current account and have your wife sign up for free hardware (this what I did....but use SageTV). The one feature on your list that is gone is automatic commercial detection/skipping. The ease of use, though is through the roof.

Personally, I went with Sage because I love it and it's what my family is used to. I was also heavily invested into SageTV at the time, so it was incremental cost to upgrade to HD..

That said, your machien would only be mildly sufficient for SD only. If you plan to use your old machine, you will NEED to get an analog tuner and comskipping the HD-PVR recorded shows will just be dog slow because they will be mpeg4, even if they are just SD.

To answer the big question, YES, SageTV will fit every need on that list and everyone in the forum can help you get there. There will be a sizable initial investment needed, but it should last a long time.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

As far as reliability there is a steep learning curve depending on what you want to do.

To clarify, more emphasis should be added to the "depending on what you want to do". There really isn't a steep learning curve if you use the default. The stock UI is easily navigable (my mother -in-law figured it out, and she goes with AV stuff like oil and water). As far as reliability, if you use a simple setup and the stock UI with no plugins, it should be completely reliable. Most of the issues you see posted on these boards are because, well, people like to tinker.

You will need an STB for every channel you want to be able to record at the same time (every tuner). While you probably could get the DVR to work as one of your STBs, it's not advisable - trade it out for a simple STB.

You certainly don't need dedicated hard drives per tuner. Sage will write to however many you let it - if you have one, everything will write to that. If you have several (you just add them within the setup screen), it will share amongst them. Sage does not give the ability for you to choose which tuner writes to which drive - but that shouldn't really matter, because your list of recordings are all handled as one big pool. Once things are saved, you can move files around if you want and as long as they're still on a "installed" drive within Sage, Sage will (should) still see them. As for imported media (i.e., DVDs, home movies, downloaded videos), there are many ways to filter, such as by title (all in one group, alphabetically), by genre, or by folder. The folder view is the only way to differentiate where things are within your drives. The other views will combine media from as many drives as you have added. (disclaimer: there are other UI mods/replacements that add more filtering options but I'm talking about the stock UI)

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

To clarify, more emphasis should be added to the "depending on what you want to do". There really isn't a steep learning curve if you use the default. The stock UI is easily navigable (my mother -in-law figured it out, and she goes with AV stuff like oil and water). As far as reliability, if you use a simple setup and the stock UI with no plugins, it should be completely reliable. Most of the issues you see posted on these boards are because, well, people like to tinker.

You will need an STB for every channel you want to be able to record at the same time (every tuner). While you probably could get the DVR to work as one of your STBs, it's not advisable - trade it out for a simple STB.

You certainly don't need dedicated hard drives per tuner. Sage will write to however many you let it - if you have one, everything will write to that. If you have several (you just add them within the setup screen), it will share amongst them. Sage does not give the ability for you to choose which tuner writes to which drive - but that shouldn't really matter, because your list of recordings are all handled as one big pool. Once things are saved, you can move files around if you want and as long as they're still on a "installed" drive within Sage, Sage will (should) still see them. As for imported media (i.e., DVDs, home movies, downloaded videos), there are many ways to filter, such as by title (all in one group, alphabetically), by genre, or by folder. The folder view is the only way to differentiate where things are within your drives. The other views will combine media from as many drives as you have added. (disclaimer: there are other UI mods/replacements that add more filtering options but I'm talking about the stock UI)

What he said...

Keep it simple and you'll be happy. Once you get comfortable you can start "tinkering".