Bought TiVo S3, trying to use "Record to VCR" feature

[litkaj]

Alright, so I've been so fed up with the newer versions of Sage not working very well (playback skipping, IR Blaster commands being sent 10 minutes into shows or having two digits sent, having the STB time out, and then the third digit fire 60 seconds later, etc.) that I went out and bought a TiVo Series 3 and had Verizon bring me a pair of CableCARDs on Monday.

That said, the S3 has TiVoToGo disabled so the only way you can get content off of the system is by using the "Record To VCR" feature where the data is played over all of the outputs and input from the remote is disabled.

How, exactly, do I setup SageTV so that it will allow me to record from the S-Video input on my Hauppauge PVR-500 without it having some kind of channel lineup. I basically want to tell it to record for 30, 60, whatever minutes and then have it give me a file. I tried deleting the existing sources and then adding a source with no channel lineup or guide data and then Sage proceeds to try and download channel data anyway. I can get out of it by pressing the Menu button on my remote but trying to go to "Live TV" just shows me a black screen, not the S-Video input as I'd expect.

Thoughts?

[mayamaniac]

I think you are better off using the hauppauge software called WinTV. SageTV is designed to record TV shows. You can set a manual recording and enter a start and stop time, that is the only way. Use WinTV, it came with your hauppauge card or you can download it at their website.

[bcjenkins]

Why should you care if it has guide data?

Set up a guide, make only one channel active, and use manual recording. Make sure you disconnect the ir-blaster, etc.

Are you trying to record HD shows? If you put a second TV on the SVideo out, does it get a picture?

B

PS - The lack of serial tuning is why I don't use FIOS TV (other than lifeline) It pushed me to DirecTV.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by litkaj

Alright, so I've been so fed up with the newer versions of Sage not working very well (playback skipping, IR Blaster commands being sent 10 minutes into shows or having two digits sent, having the STB time out, and then the third digit fire 60 seconds later, etc.) that I went out and bought a TiVo Series 3 and had Verizon bring me a pair of CableCARDs on Monday.

Thoughts?

Are you using the USB-UIRT? If so, did you try adjusting the IR file parameters? I had both a JVC 301 Dish Network and Motorola DCT-2000 cable box that both required some tweaking of the IR file to work reliably.

What type of system are you using for SageTV? What version of Java are you using? I haven't had those types of problems with the USB-UIRT even with my old Althon system.

Dave

[litkaj]

I'm not interested in discussing my problems with Sage any further. I've been going back and forth with their support for about two months now and the only answer I can get, paraphrased, is "if 6.0.19 worked for you (which it did, aside from the ridiculously slow menus) then you should revert to that and lose all of your recordings since the upgrade", which is not acceptable. I even offered to create a converter to move the wiz.bin between versions (I'm a software developer by day) but they wouldn't tell me anything about the file format used and I don't have the time (or interest) to reverse engineer it.

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

SageTV is designed to record TV shows. You can set a manual recording and enter a start and stop time, that is the only way.

This is exactly what I want to do. How can I do this without having to tell it that I am using some cable or OTA provider on my S-Video input? I just want it to work like a VCR. I want to tell it to record for xx minutes and then have it do just that.

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Why should you care if it has guide data?

Set up a guide, make only one channel active, and use manual recording. Make sure you disconnect the ir-blaster, etc.

Are you trying to record HD shows? If you put a second TV on the SVideo out, does it get a picture?

B

PS - The lack of serial tuning is why I don't use FIOS TV (other than lifeline) It pushed me to DirecTV.

Verizon activated the serial ports on the 2500 boxes a while back. If someone has one where the port isn't active then all they need to do is to call Verizon, start the automated troubleshooter, and have it reinitialize the STBs.

I don't want guide data because I don't want it associating something like "Gilmore Girls" to a recording I make. I'd rather it just give a length, date, or whatever.

I'm not interested in recording HD, that's that the S3 is for, I simply want to be able to archive the occasional show to my computer @ 720x480 using the "Save to VCR" option.

As to whether the output works, yes, it does. When Sage tests the input during the source setup the current output of the TiVo comes through loud and clear.

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by litkaj

This is exactly what I want to do. How can I do this without having to tell it that I am using some cable or OTA provider on my S-Video input? I just want it to work like a VCR. I want to tell it to record for xx minutes and then have it do just that.

You can tell it to load ANY guide data, just use what ever that works to setup your tuner properly. Manual recordings are just timed recordings, meaning it doesn't use guide data at all. But as I said before, use WinTV, from what I remember, it works like a VCR where you can choose the input source (S-Video) and it has a record button that records immediately when you press on it.

[scoful]

I agree that the easiest way to record as you are describing is to just use the WinTV application. However; it would be nice to have the ability to have an 'Auxillary Input' to record on the fly - no guide info and perhaps the ability to name it. What would be even better would be to allow the same encoder card if it has multiple inputs - Sage would ask if it was OK to change the channel of notify of a pending recording if there's a conflict in the next half hour or so. This would be very useful for encoding from a Camcorder or from old VHS or BETA (ha!) tapes or whatever.

As far as your existing problem, does your Tivo provide an analog output after the tuner (so you can output to a monitor or VCR) or does it just have recorded output? If you can output from the tuner side you could set up Sage to parallel record the shows you might wish to archive. This all sounds pretty crazy to me though. Sounds like you should be looking for a Tivo solution if you don't want to use Sage.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by litkaj

Alright, so I've been so fed up with the newer versions of Sage not working very well (playback skipping, IR Blaster commands being sent 10 minutes into shows or having two digits sent, having the STB time out, and then the third digit fire 60 seconds later, etc.) that I went out and bought a TiVo Series 3 and had Verizon bring me a pair of CableCARDs on Monday.

That said, the S3 has TiVoToGo disabled so the only way you can get content off of the system is by using the "Record To VCR" feature where the data is played over all of the outputs and input from the remote is disabled.

How, exactly, do I setup SageTV so that it will allow me to record from the S-Video input on my Hauppauge PVR-500 without it having some kind of channel lineup. I basically want to tell it to record for 30, 60, whatever minutes and then have it give me a file. I tried deleting the existing sources and then adding a source with no channel lineup or guide data and then Sage proceeds to try and download channel data anyway. I can get out of it by pressing the Menu button on my remote but trying to go to "Live TV" just shows me a black screen, not the S-Video input as I'd expect.

Thoughts?

I have the Hauppauge PVR-350 setup to use S-video instead of the cable channels. The way I did it was to install the Hauppauge WinTV software. I then setup channel 1 as a S-video input. I deleted all channels other than channel 1. You could then just use the WinTV program.

After my PVR-350 worked with WinTV, I then setup SageTV with the S-video input.

SageTV does make another product without the extra features that is more like a VCR. You might try that.

Switching to Tivo sounds like a pretty extreme solution. It should be possible to analyze and resolve the problem, although it might take a working SageTV computer system, so that you can isolate and resolve the problem.

Dave

[litkaj]

Originally Posted by davephan

I have the Hauppauge PVR-350 setup to use S-video instead of the cable channels. The way I did it was to install the Hauppauge WinTV software. I then setup channel 1 as a S-video input. I deleted all channels other than channel 1. You could then just use the WinTV program.

After my PVR-350 worked with WinTV, I then setup SageTV with the S-video input.

SageTV does make another product without the extra features that is more like a VCR. You might try that.

Switching to Tivo sounds like a pretty extreme solution. It should be possible to analyze and resolve the problem, although it might take a working SageTV computer system, so that you can isolate and resolve the problem.

Dave

I just ended up configuring the tuner as it was before and disabling all but channel 1. With it setup this way I can use it the way I had wanted, although scoful's comments echo mine and what he described was what I was really looking for.

In any case, I didn't want to use WinTV because I didn't want to have to switch the running application or have to use the keyboard for system input. The Sage system is staying around but only to archive the occasional recording from the TiVo and to playback existing content. I've spent quite a bit of time ripping my DVD & CD collections so I can easily play them back through Sage and that's not something I'm willing to give up quite yet (at least not until I find another 10ft app that can playback files easily).

As to switching to the TiVo being extreme, I don't see it that way. I've been spending an hour or two per week (more recently) trying to this this system working "properly" ever since I built it (which was back in the 2.0 days). It it wasn't poor picture quality then it was the audio not working. From there we moved to poor playback performance. After that we moved to poor menu performance and the IR commands being sent 10 minutes into a recording, with large gaps between them, or not at all. I even rebuilt the system with newer parts a while back and it was still giving me problems.

I can work an extra 10 minutes a month to cover the additional cost of the TiVo and as to the $400 charge for the device itself, that's a lot less than what I would have spent to rebuild the system yet again, and even that rebuild wouldn't have let me record encrypted HD channels as I can do now.

[nielm]

Originally Posted by litkaj

I'm not interested in discussing my problems with Sage any further. I've been going back and forth with their support for about two months now and the only answer I can get, paraphrased, is "if 6.0.19 worked for you (which it did, aside from the ridiculously slow menus) then you should revert to that and lose all of your recordings since the upgrade", which is not acceptable.

It's too late for you, but my webserver now has export/import capability for TV shows...

How, exactly, do I setup SageTV so that it will allow me to record from the S-Video input on my Hauppauge PVR-500 without it having some kind of channel lineup

Its pretty easy...

• Setup
• Setup Video Sources
• Add
• (select encoder)
• Select S-Video input
• Dont configure tuning
• Dont use program guide
• Channel lineup has a single 'channel'
• Done

To record from that channel, make a 'Manual recording' starting now and lasting for however long you want.

To stop recording and keep partial files, change the recording options to set the stop time to 'now', Or use my multi-function stop plugin which has that feature built-in.