Dish, DirecTV, R5000, HD, etc...

[Addict]

So, I'm a Time Warner cable subscriber looking to get out from under the beast. I'm not currently a user of HD, but am looking to become one. I think it would be silly to get a QAM tuner only to receive a couple channels that are in the clear...when so many are available. From what I'm reading, Time Warner isn't a good option for HD and Sage.

So, I'm curious about Dish and DirecTV. They seem to be miles ahead of cable networks, FiOS, U-Verse, (etc, etc) when it comes to HD channels available. As well, they seem to have the most options as far as actually getting these channels into Sage.

So... I'm learning that DirecTV and Dish are moving to MPEG4 formats, and the R5000 only works on Dish. So, I'm leaning in that direction.

Accurate so far?

I guess my questions are the following:

1) With this R5000 deal...what are the chances my (very expensive) box will become a brick if Dish changes something in the future?

2) Will cable companies (and others) ever be able to catch up with the HD content that Satellite providers are serving?

3) Can anyone with Dish / R5000 comment on how it works, the overall setup of the system, quirks, gotchas, etc? How does it connect to the Sage server? Is the integration easy or difficult? How do you control channel changing? Does the R5000 essentially become your tuner for ALL channels or just HD? Which tuner/PVR would I need?

4) Will the R5000 ever work on DirecTV, or is there some kind of unsurpassable road block? Seems DirecTV has a better channel selection than Dish, but doesn't work with the R5000...

5) Any pros/cons I'm missinig?

The plan would be to use my existing server/client machine as a dedicated server, stick the homemade NAS in it, plug iin the R5000, and buy an HD extender for viewing. Am I on the right path here?

All this would be a pretty big investment, so if there are other ideas or things I'm missing, please feel free to shout out!

Thanks,

[Fluffdaddy]

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ighlight=r5000

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...ighlight=r5000

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...hlight=r5000hd

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...hlight=r5000hd

[btrcp2000]

Before you do anything, you might try to hook up your TW box with firewire. I currently have all the premium channels via sage (hd and sd), but I plan on going r5000 when they throw the 5c switch on me.