ADQ [Another Dumb Question]

[G00SE]

I have Dish TV right now, with their dual tuner DVR; I can record 2 programs
and play back to either of 2 TV's, controllable from either TV.
Can I set up something similar to this with the dual tuner package, or should I go with 2 PC's ? And does the interface come up on the TV screen, or does the computer monitor have to be used ?
I have a spare 2.8GHz P4 PC w/1GB DDR2 w/a 400GB HD which should work great for this; I'm running a dual-boot w/Win XP Pro & SUSE Linux 10.0.
I don't need HD, as I don't have a HD package and my TV's are not HD; will this present a big problem in the future, as I thought everything was going HD in a few years. 'Trying to get away from almost $80/mo Dish charges and go with std cable, which is over $30 cheaper; I don't need 180 silly stations, of which I only watch about 5% of at most.
Thanks.

[JUC]

Hi GOOSE, welcome to the forums! If you are talking about the dish network box that has 2 inputs-then distributes that to 2 TV's in the house--each controllable by a different remote (one IR and one RF) then I think this will not work. I believe I asked a similar question a while back (can't find it now for some reason) and the problem you will run into is the remote controlls and how to change the channel in sage. The way I understand it-Dish uses one RF remote and one IR remote. I am not aware of any channel changing devices that would accomodate this. You would need it to be able to receive and blast both in IR and RF.

If this is not what you are talking about maybe you can clarify which dish box you have.

If you go with standard cable--your life will be much much easier. If no Box to control you can just input the cable into a single or dual tuner and sage will do the rest.

Enjoy,
JUC

[stanger89]

You don't need 2 PCs, but you will need to DN boxes (since as JUC mentioned there's no way to control the tuner that uses RF).

As for the UI, it comes up on whatever you have it connected to. If you don't plan on dedicating a PC to Sage, I'd seriously consider using an Extender (MVP Client) to drive the TV.

[dagar]

Second the MVP. It looks great rendering SDTV content on a SDTV. The only down side is, and this may suprise some, that a multi gigahertz CPU is much faster than the wee CPU in the MVP so don't go spastic with the remote (like I do) and expect it to keep up

[G00SE]

Thanks for the informative replies.
What I'm trying to do is go back to plain old cable & simulate what the Dish Dual
DVR does; yes, I understand that that system does use one IR & on RF remote,
but I was hoping there was a way around this, or to accomodate it. That's why I asked if 2 PC's might work better, as I have a computer-in-a-box [all the parts for a second PC] that I can build up with a nice AMD processor, but only 512MB memory.
BTW, is MythTV a bad word around here, or is it possible it would handle such a system, or, is this all going to be a hardware problem ?
Thanks again, I'm getting there.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by G00SE

Thanks for the informative replies.
What I'm trying to do is go back to plain old cable & simulate what the Dish Dual
DVR does; yes, I understand that that system does use one IR & on RF remote,
but I was hoping there was a way around this, or to accomodate it.

Well if you're not using Dish then the box doesn't matter. Just get a PVR500 or nVidia PureVideo DualTV and plug the cable directly into that. Both allow you to record two shows simultaneously.

That's why I asked if 2 PC's might work better, as I have a computer-in-a-box [all the parts for a second PC] that I can build up with a nice AMD processor, but only 512MB memory.

If by 2PCs you mean one for Sage and one for normal work, I would highly recommend it. However you don't need two PCs just for SageTV.

BTW, is MythTV a bad word around here, or is it possible it would handle such a system, or, is this all going to be a hardware problem ?

Not a bad word, but I'd say there's an obvious lack of MythTV expertise here. That said, I don't see a reason why Myth couldn't do what you want (though it can't control an RF box either).

[G00SE]

The control of the unit from a remote location is what I guess I'm getting at; like right now, I can pull up a menu with Dish & see what's recorded from either TV & play it on either TV. I understand that it's simple enough to just record from 2 sources, but the control from both TV's is the thing; that's the only reason I mentioned a second PC, because if it's just not possible to have a unit setup similar to what I'm running now, I could set up a PC on each TV.
Thanks again, good info.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by G00SE

The control of the unit from a remote location is what I guess I'm getting at; like right now, I can pull up a menu with Dish & see what's recorded from either TV & play it on either TV. I understand that it's simple enough to just record from 2 sources, but the control from both TV's is the thing; that's the only reason I mentioned a second PC, because if it's just not possible to have a unit setup similar to what I'm running now, I could set up a PC on each TV.

I'm not sure if I'm repeating what was said above, but I thought I would say that you can have a server PC do all your recording one 2 (or more) tuners. Since you say you want to switch back to cable: This is quite simple if you just have a cable coax connection directly to each tuner, or it can be a little more involved if you need to use converter boxes. The boxes can be controlled by SageTV to change channels as needed to feed the tuner the proper channel. You could connect this PC to a TV, or you could leav eit as a server somewhere else.

For each TV other than the one connected to the server, you could use a PC running SageTVClient or you could use an MVP as a media extender. In either case, you will see the same UI as what is shown on the server, with full access to all of your existing recordings and full control over scheduling new recordings. All SageTV locations would be able to watch any recording.

- Andy

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by G00SE

The control of the unit from a remote location is what I guess I'm getting at; like right now, I can pull up a menu with Dish & see what's recorded from either TV & play it on either TV. I understand that it's simple enough to just record from 2 sources, but the control from both TV's is the thing; that's the only reason I mentioned a second PC, because if it's just not possible to have a unit setup similar to what I'm running now, I could set up a PC on each TV.
Thanks again, good info.

OK I think I see what you're getting at. You want to:
1) Record up to two things simultaneously.
2) View on up to two TVs simultaneously.

To do that (with cable) you'll need a dual-tuner card (or two singles), and two "clients".

I use "clients" in quotes because one of them can actually be the SageTV server.

The easiest way would probably be:
1 PC
1 PVR 500/nVidia DualTV (the new one)
1 SageTV Extender (aka MVP Client)

The PC running SageTV would output to one TV, and you'd run ethernet and the MVP would take care of the other TV. You could also use two MVPs, one for each TV if you wanted.

[G00SE]

I really appreciate the information. I've learned more in the last 24 hours than I ever thought I'd know about setting up a DVR system.
I'm sure I'll get the PVR 500 & extender & go from there.
Great forum here, with some really knowledgable members !

[G00SE]

OK, I think I have things down pat as far as simulating the Dish Dual DVR.
I simply run one PC at what I'll call the "master", and run the extender [when it's available again] as the "slave" on the second TV.
I made a silly mistake and didn't notice that Sage sold the bundle with the PVR-500, and I ordered the card straight from Hauppauge. So, this means I'll need SageTV & the SageTV client ? Anything other software ?
Another question re the PC I'm going to use. It has XP Pro w/quite a few purchased programs. I have a copy of Windows 2000 Pro just laying around, and I'm thinking of just performing a fresh install of Win2000 & only installing minimal software [antivirus, firewall, etc...]. Does Sage seem to care which platform is used, and does it work any better with one or the other [XP or Win200] ? Also, is a Linux version in the works ?
Regarding SDTV & HDTV, I'm really glad I read one of the other posts here in particular. I was wondering how in the world I received HD programs on my TV when it's not a HDTV. I guess I should have purchased HDTV's, but it's a little late now.
Whatever, thanks again for all the information & help. 'Really appreciated.
Regarding the MythTV forum, unfortunately, I've found that to be generally true with Linux or Linux-related forums, that it's a lot more difficult to get help. I'm just going by my experience on the Smoothwall forum [which I'm certainly not knocking], which is good, and every now and then in the past, some seasoned Linux veteran would share a little knowledge, but generally on that forum, it's search & read in many cases.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by G00SE

OK, I think I have things down pat as far as simulating the Dish Dual DVR.
I simply run one PC at what I'll call the "master", and run the extender [when it's available again] as the "slave" on the second TV.

Change "master" to "server and "slave" to "client" and you've got the lingo

I made a silly mistake and didn't notice that Sage sold the bundle with the PVR-500, and I ordered the card straight from Hauppauge. So, this means I'll need SageTV & the SageTV client ?

You'll need a SageTV license, and a SageTV Media Extender license. The best (cheapest) way to get an extender is to just get the Extender (hardware and license) from the Sage store:
http://store.sagetv.com/Merchant2/me...t_Code=STVCMVP

Anything other software ?

There's some stuff you might want like Dirmon and ShowAnalyzer, but we'll save complications like that for later

Also, is a Linux version in the works ?

You mean like this:
http://www.sage.tv/linuxOEMedition.html

Regarding SDTV & HDTV, I'm really glad I read one of the other posts here in particular. I was wondering how in the world I received HD programs on my TV when it's not a HDTV. I guess I should have purchased HDTV's, but it's a little late now.

All you need is an HDTV tuner, remember recording and playing/watching are entirely separate in SageTV.

One caveat, the MVP can't deal with HD, so you wouldn't be able to watch HD recordings on that. You would be able to watch them on your PC, as it will downconvert. Also I don't think HD support is official in the Linux version yet.