Get QAM Content with your existing QAM capture cards!

[insomniac]

See...thats what I get for posting so early too...I always clump ATSC with digital broadcast not OTA. lazy brain syndrome...

[insomniac]

Its my understanding that "ATSC" is the signal and then whether it is modulated or not would be QAM or similar.

would that not make the following:

OTA=Terrestrial only

ATSC=cable provider transmission w/ or w/o modulation (The HD content is of course over QAM modulation).

Am i assuming incorrectly?

[Humanzee]

I see the FUSION 5 is listed, what about the Fusion 5 USB?

[Stealth1971]

Fusion 5 Gold PCI for right now. We seem to have a growing request list for Fusion 5 variants. I will try to see if we can build in this support.

[Stealth1971]

Originally Posted by insomniac

Its my understanding that "ATSC" is the signal and then whether it is modulated or not would be QAM or similar.

would that not make the following:

OTA=Terrestrial only

ATSC=cable provider transmission w/ or w/o modulation (The HD content is of course over QAM modulation).

Am i assuming incorrectly?

My bad - most people assume ATSC is OTA, but I believe you are right. So let me clarify for the support.

The system is currently only supporting QAM = Cable Provider modulation. We can add ATSC, but we wanted to focus on QAM first and build from there.

[Stealth1971]

Let me throw one more question out there - would there be any interesting in including solid firewire support also?

[insomniac]

Yeah, I already put my vote in for the Fusion 5 USB too. Im wondering if this will be complicated though. Most of these p2 300mhz boxes that we will use will not have USB 2.0 support. I would assume that the fusion would need the 2.0 support to run correctly? I guess a USB2.0 card could help this issue, etc..

This will be my last assumption for today

Originally Posted by Humanzee

I see the FUSION 5 is listed, what about the Fusion 5 USB?

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by Stealth1971

My bad - most people assume ATSC is OTA, but I believe you are right. So let me clarify for the support.

The system is currently only supporting QAM = Cable Provider modulation. We can add ATSC, but we wanted to focus on QAM first and build from there.

Thanks for clarifying. Is there a mailing list you run for announcing new features? While we're at it, I have a Fusion5 RT Gold and Fusion5 Lite. Both are being used for OTA.

B

[Stealth1971]

No mail list as of now - but I will be adding a features area to the web site.

Actually, now that I think of it - register on our website and we can email everyone that is registered with updates.

[GKusnick]

As interesting as this is technically, I'm not sure it adds up economically. Say I happen to have an old PC sitting idle. $80 (regular price) for this software, plus another $70 or so for a QAM tuner card, and I'm already close to the price of an HDHomeRun (which is smaller, quieter, and has two tuners). The only way this makes sense is if I have a spare PC and a spare tuner or two lying around. And that ignores the energy cost of operating the thing (those old P2 300s were power hogs as I recall).

[Stealth1971]

Most users have already made the investment tuner cards they are using for ATSC/OTA tuning and who does not have at least 3 odd machines that are looking to be repurposed? This is the current target market.

----------
I see the total cost:

$44.99 - current EVO price (don't wait until it goes up in price)
tuner card - $0.00 (investment already made)
old PC - $0.00 (investment already made)

Total $44.99

Watch the Superbowl in HD without drops? Priceless

----------

Also as soon as we have enabled multi-tuner support, you should be able to place 4-5 tuner cards in one system. I see a value add in that alone.

If this user community wanted everything in a nice little non-expandable box - they would be TiVo users.

[paulbeers]

I would be all over this if:
1. It supported the FusionLite 5 card
2. My cable company hadn't dropped Fox due to a fight with its owner in cost (unfortunately the only way to get Fox is OTA at this point, therefore I wouldn't be able to use my Fusionlite for QAM)

I do have a couple old boxes: 400mhz celeron, 466mhz celeron, 766mhz celeron (I hate celerons, how did I end up with 3?!?!?!)

This was/is a great idea, and if the HDHomerun hadn't been added as a solution for QAM 2 months ago, we would all be super pumped about this. I am glad to see other's developing software/hardware solutions for Sage. This can only be seen as a win!
----------------------------------
Current 466 mhz celeron sitting around not being used: $0
FusionLIte 5 (future support): $0
Avermedia A180 from pcalchemy: $69
Special Reduced cost of EVO: $45
Total: $114

Dual Tuners and the ability to add more Priceless....
-----------------------------------

In a couple months when I finally have convinced my wife that we need more than one HDTV tuner, I will have to see where this product is and make my decision.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by Stealth1971

If this user community wanted everything in a nice little non-expandable box - they would be TiVo users.

I had a feeling that was coming. The difference is that a PC running SageTV does much, much more than Tivo does. Whereas a PC running EVO-SOFT (at least in this initial release) does less than an HDHR. Multiple tuner support will change the equation somewhat, but apart from that I'm not seeing a clear advantage feature-wise over the low-power, small-footprint, closed-box solution. It's still just a way of getting QAM signals into SageTV, right? Or is there something more I'm missing?

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by Stealth1971

Most users have already made the investment tuner cards they are using for ATSC/OTA tuning and who does not have at least 3 odd machines that are looking to be repurposed? This is the current target market..

GKusnick - Please reread Stealth's post above. That is the target market. So you don't see a value in it, but how many have already posted in this thread that they already have a brand/model X and this would work perfectly for them? If you don't have any QAM capable cards, then no this wouldn't make any sence. For those of us who paid 100+ for our cards (I think I paid about 120 for my FusionLite and have never been able to use it to its full glory) are intrigued by this. Please do not stunt growth and creativity by pointing out what a product is not/does not do. It clearly was not targetted at you.

[DArthur]

Support for the fusion gold light - and I'd be in...

Darryl

[insomniac]

well said...this is a perfect fit for me. Why would i buy a hdhr for almost $200 after shipping, if I already have a supported card and junker pc laying around???

If I did not, then I would probably be posting in the HDHR forum right now....

I.

Originally Posted by paulbeers

GKusnick - Please reread Stealth's post above. That is the target market. So you don't see a value in it, but how many have already posted in this thread that they already have a brand/model X and this would work perfectly for them? If you don't have any QAM capable cards, then no this wouldn't make any sence. For those of us who paid 100+ for our cards (I think I paid about 120 for my FusionLite and have never been able to use it to its full glory) are intrigued by this. Please do not stunt growth and creativity by pointing out what a product is not/does not do. It clearly was not targetted at you.

[blade]

Originally Posted by insomniac

well said...this is a perfect fit for me. Why would i buy a hdhr for almost $200 after shipping, if I already have a supported card and junker pc laying around???

Just to be a little more accurate my HDHomeRun was $176 with shipping.

GKusnick has a valid point about the product not being economical for those that don't already own the capture cards. Obviously many people do and for those people it's a great solution. For the rest of us there are more economical alternatives at the moment.

EVO obviously has it's place in the market just like the HDHomeRun and other products do. I'm just glad to see more alternatives.

[Stealth1971]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

It's still just a way of getting QAM signals into SageTV, right? Or is there something more I'm missing?

Yes that is part of the goal of the current system, but with all of the other bells & whistles too.

Features:

*Integrated EVO Console(management) application that:
- Built-in channel viewer for discovering/viewing your scanned channels (uses your current MPEG decoder)
- Manages mulitple tuner devices (PCs not tuners - yet)
- Manages channel maps
- Writes the Sage Encoder entries into the Sage properties file for you
- Control EVO Services/Sage Service startup dependency
- Manage all TCP/IP ports for Sage and the EVO Console

*Runs as a Windows Service

*Auto start encoders by passing parameters to the Console

*The EVO Device (PC) can be controlled via HTTP commands


-----


The goal was not to just push QAM (from 1 tuner or 10 in the future) but make it as easy as possible. With the cable providers NOT making this easy, it was our goal to make this as simple as possible.

Also the system was developed with other content sources in mind. We have been considering making it easy for firewire capture - since the current method seems somewhat not-straight forward.

So anyways, expect more card type support soon (Fusion 5 card lite) and multi-tuner shortly thereafter.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

Please do not stunt growth and creativity by pointing out what a product is not/does not do.

I'm not trying to stunt anyone's creativity. I'm just trying to understand what all the excitement is about. If this is in fact just a do-it-yourself HDHR equivalent, then fine, that answers my question.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

I'm not trying to stunt anyone's creativity. I'm just trying to understand what all the excitement is about. If this is in fact just a do-it-yourself HDHR equivalent, then fine, that answers my question.

I was trying to figure this out as well. It's like a do it yourself HDHomeRun, but you bring your own tuners and use an old PC. Doesn't seem very costeffective compared to the hdhomerun, but i guess if you already had the cards, this makes it easier to use them with sage I guess..

Now, if you could stick an OOB tuner in there to decode the channel maps automatically, that would be nice, but that needs new hardware...

Thanks,
mike