Multiple Tuner/Network Tuner questions

[PaulModz]

Hi all.

I'm about to add a second Hauppauge 250 to my system, but I have a few questions about how this will work.

I have the kind of digital cable where most of the basic and extended channels are still analog, and the premium channels are digital. Since I only have one digital box, I was planning on plugging the coax straight into the second card, meaning the new card would only have access to the analog channels.

When I add a second source, will I be able to set the channels for each source independantly, so Sage will know that the digital channels are only available on one source? If not, would putting the second tuner in one of my Sage clients give me more options?

Also, in general, would most people recommend putting a second tuner in the server? Or would putting the second tuner in a network client be a better solution?

[jmeeks]

Yes, when you setup your second card with the setup wizard, you will only specify the Extended Basic channel set instead of the full digital set for that tuner.

To get "more options" ie. recieve digital channels on both cards, would require you to get another digital cable box.

[bigblue]

If you add a second external cable box, how would you go about controlling it?

[dkardatzke]

bigblue,

To control a second cable box you would have to use SageRecorder to control the second box as a Network Encoder. Setting up a network encoder is explained more here: http://www.sage.tv/NetworkEncoderSetup.txt

[jmeeks]

Dan, would that require the 2nd encoder machine and cable box be in a different room than the first pair so the remote control IR signals from the Actisys transmitter(s) wouldn't be confused between the 2 different cable boxes?

[Narflex]

jmeeks,

You do need to have physical separation between the two IR transmitters so the signals don't get confused. SageRecorder as a network encoder can be running on the same PC as SageTV. The reason you need to do this (and can't just use 2 Actisys from one SageTV app) is the Actisys driver can only control one device per process, so you need to have another process to control the other capture card. This is where SageRecorder as a network encoder comes in quite handy.

[bigblue]

Wow, so SageRecorder can actually be running on the same machine, controling the second tuner card and Actisys? No need for a second pc? That's great. The steps in NetworkEncoderSetup.txt seem geared towards running SageRecorder on a second pc; are the steps to set it up on the same pc any different?

[Narflex]

Nope same steps. Just use localhost:6969 or 127.0.0.1:6969 for the address of the machine.

[Beelzebub]

I don't know if the software could do this, but I ran into the same problems years ago when I was doing video editing. Basically I had 2 of the same VCR's and they were controlled by IR blasters. All I did was put the IR blasters in Small cardboard boxs painted black on the inside. Then I tape the IR Blaster to the inside back of the box, and taped the box directly to the IR reciever on the VCR's.

It was kind of a cool setup, wish I still had it.

[StylinLP]

I'm confused now. I thought we didn't need Sage Recorder for anything.

I wanted to use SageTV and two SageTV clients on 3 machines. 2 Hauppauge 250 cards in the server machine and one Hauppauge card in each of the sattelite computers with SageTV Client.
Now I need Sage Recorder to do this?
Planning on having one Sat box per Hauppauge card

[JasonJoel]

If all of your TV encoders are in one machine, then you do not need Sage Recorder.

If you have TV encoder cards in other machines than the machine that Sage TV is running on, then you need Sage Recorder on those machines so that the the central Sage TV machine can coordinate and schedule recordings on them.

Make sense?

The only thing I don't get is why you are putting Hauppage cards in the client machines? Maybe that would clear things up. If all you want to do is watch TV on the client machines using Sage Client, then you simply need a network connection and a video card with TV-OUT capability (assuming you will be watching on TV).

If you mean you are going to put PVT-350's in the client machines in order to get hardware DEcoding, then I would argue that is a huge waste. But each to their own.

Jason

Originally posted by StylinLP
I'm confused now. I thought we didn't need Sage Recorder for anything.

I wanted to use SageTV and two SageTV clients on 3 machines. 2 Hauppauge 250 cards in the server machine and one Hauppauge card in each of the sattelite computers with SageTV Client.
Now I need Sage Recorder to do this?
Planning on having one Sat box per Hauppauge card

[StylinLP]

Lets use my house for example.
I have a living room where the server will be and a CRT projector.
Another living room with a Plasma screen for gaming, web and TV watching.
2 bedrooms that need to watch differant channels of TV

So basically, I need 3 separate channels for viewing and at least one extra channel for recording while watching the other 3 channels.

So im asuming I need 4 TV tuner PCI cards, One SageTV and 3 clients?
Problem is. The server computer only has enough PCI slots for 2 tuner cards.

Radeon9600 pro uses AGP slot and the PCI slot next to it. Its too big
Revolution AudioCard
HOLO3D card
HDTV tunercard

[JasonJoel]

Correct. You would need 4 PVR cards total.

If you can not put tham all in one machine, then you will have to put them in some of the other machines and then use Sage TV + Sage Recorder (configured as a Network Encoder - directions for this in the support section). Then all of the machines that are not the main machine running Sage TV will connect to the Sage TV 'server' machine (your projector in this case) with Sage TV Client.

Keep in mind though that you will probably not be able to do this with a wireless nework, there is not enough bandwith for this scenario. Think about it, you could have 2 tuners recording remotely, that is say 20mbit. Then if you want to watch anything on the clients, that would add another 10mbit per stream. So if you are using a high bitrate recording setting you could potentially use ~50 Mbit of bandwith (probably a little less, 10Mbit per stream is a high estimate).

This is easy for 100Mbit ethernet, but too much for any wireless. Realistic throughput on 54G wireless is only 20-30 Mbit with encryption. I usually get closer to 20, with perfect signal strength.

Jason

Originally posted by StylinLP
Lets use my house for example.
I have a living room where the server will be and a CRT projector.
Another living room with a Plasma screen for gaming, web and TV watching.
2 bedrooms that need to watch differant channels of TV

So basically, I need 3 separate channels for viewing and at least one extra channel for recording while watching the other 3 channels.

So im asuming I need 4 TV tuner PCI cards, One SageTV and 3 clients?
Problem is. The server computer only has enough PCI slots for 2 tuner cards.

Radeon9600 pro uses AGP slot and the PCI slot next to it. Its too big
Revolution AudioCard
HOLO3D card
HDTV tunercard

[Narflex]

FYI - The streams are 4.4Mbps for Great quality. So you might want to use 5Mbps per stream instead of 10Mbps in your calculations.

[JasonJoel]

Good point.

Originally posted by Narflex
FYI - The streams are 4.4Mbps for Great quality. So you might want to use 5Mbps per stream instead of 10Mbps in your calculations.

[fidget]

Originally posted by Narflex
FYI - The streams are 4.4Mbps for Great quality. So you might want to use 5Mbps per stream instead of 10Mbps in your calculations.

Also, be aware that 802.11 speeds are not what you will normally get. For the 11Mbps (802.11a?), you will get about 3-5 Mbpsm for the 54Mbps version you should expect about 10-20 Mbps (these are off the top of my head, use Goolge to find the real numbers). This is due to collisions, the fact that they are half-duplex, etc., etc. I would strongly recommend using a wired network if you can.