U-Verse...

[shodge]

I know U-verse has its own DVR for free, but I am still interested in using Sage. Has anyone successfully got Sage working with U-Verse?

-Stan

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by shodge

I know U-verse has its own DVR for free, but I am still interested in using Sage. Has anyone successfully got Sage working with U-Verse?

-Stan

Why bother? U-verse is a POS. No RF signal at all for a QAM tuner, etc... There is no way for you to be able to record ANY kind of HD from from a U-verse box.

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by mikesm

Why bother? U-verse is a POS. No RF signal at all for a QAM tuner, etc... There is no way for you to be able to record ANY kind of HD from from a U-verse box.

Jeez, Mike; who flavored your wheaties this morning? Some of us don't care about HD about this point (I know, we're a minority); even if we did, there may be other reasons he's using U-verse.

[Addict]

I actually signed up a couple months back after getting a door-to-door person come by. No risk and a killer deal, so I signed. Did my research after and learned that no HD content can be drawn from their devices, so I bailed on the install.

I will say, the prices are good, the lineups seem good, and the Internet speeds are supposed to be great. But, I eventually want to use HD w/Sage so I'll probably be going the Dish/R5000 route when I can muster up the cash.

Good luck...would be curious to see if anyone has had any luck getting HD out of it.

[FZ1]

Originally Posted by mikesm

There is no way for you to be able to record ANY kind of HD from from a U-verse box.

Do you know why one of these wouldn't work.

Have you found detailed specs for U-Verse's boxes (I've learned they offer 2 models, an HDTV receiver and a DVR)? Do they use HDCP? Even still, don't they have component outputs?

I'm not saying your wrong, just trying to learn here.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by FZ1

Do you know why one of these wouldn't work.

The blackmagic cards are pretty much unusable in Sage. They are a professional grade card designed for a professional environment. The storage requirements are insane, on the order of 50-100gigs per hour, or more. One Sage user said he got it working, but the details are slim.

However, at CES, info started coming out from hauppuage on a consumer HD capture device that should be usable in Sage with mpeg4 encoding, for decent file sizes.

[Fuzzy]

Those BlackMagic cards can hardly be used as a realistic option, even though people here continue to post links to them. They have no hardware encoder, so the data resulting from it is VERY big. They don't work with HDCP, so the digital route is not an option, forcing the use of the more expensive pro card, and the lower quality analog method.

[FZ1]

I see, sorry I didn't do more research on the card before posting.

So firewire is the only way to get HD off an STB and directly into Sage right now? I'm assuming that option has it's own issues due to the length of it's thread, but a U-Verse rep told me their boxes do have a firewire port, he just "didn't know" whether it was activated or not.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by FZ1

I see, sorry I didn't do more research on the card before posting.

So firewire is the only way to get HD off an STB and directly into Sage right now?

Either firewire or an R5000HD modded STB. And there are limitations to that as well. Must not have a firewire port, and must be moddable by nextcomm.

[mattdcknsn]

Just to let you know those HD capture cards are "supposed" to be coming out in February. Not too far away.

Originally Posted by FZ1

I see, sorry I didn't do more research on the card before posting.

So firewire is the only way to get HD off an STB and directly into Sage right now? I'm assuming that option has it's own issues due to the length of it's thread, but a U-Verse rep told me their boxes do have a firewire port, he just "didn't know" whether it was activated or not.

[valnar]

It seems everybody is beating around the bush. So I'll put it bluntly.

U-Verse and anything SageTV are mutually exclusive. Pick one.

Robert

[FZ1]

Turns out I was lied to by sales, there's no firewire port. Here's Motorola's specs for U-Verse's boxes, the VIP1200 and the VIP1216

Originally Posted by valnar

It seems everybody is beating around the bush. So I'll put it bluntly. U-Verse and anything SageTV are mutually exclusive. Pick one.

I got that from mikesm's post, but thought someone here might be experienced enough to understand the technical reason why they won't work together (maybe even me), if there is one known.

Did you guys mean U-Verse won't work with Sage becuase it has no firewire, the USB 2.0's turned off, and there's currently no R5000-HD mod; but it might have a chance when/if Hauppauge releases a component capture card?

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by FZ1

Did you guys mean U-Verse won't work with Sage becuase it has no firewire, the USB 2.0's turned off, and there's currently no R5000-HD mod; but it might have a chance when/if Hauppauge releases a component capture card?

Well, I wouldn't say that it won't work now, if there is EPG data for U-verse. You just won't be able to capture the content digitally. You would need to capture via analog vith s-video/composite or coax.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by valnar

It seems everybody is beating around the bush. So I'll put it bluntly.

U-Verse and anything SageTV are mutually exclusive. Pick one.

Robert

I thought I was even more blunt. :-)

Anyways, you certainly can capture non HD via composite or S-video. HD offerings on U-verse are limited and downrezzed from what I understand, so if you care much about HD, I can't understand why you would want U-verse. With the upcoming component capture, you should be able to capture whatever HD is available.

Because there is no RF/QAM output, most of the HD tuner cards that are designed to work with cable don't work with u-verse. And the boxes that are used do not have firewire outs to capture from like cable boxes, or have R5000-HD mods available like the DBS boxes.

Basically, there is not much in the way of outputs that are designed to enable capture with u-verse. Since the system was designed to take care of all your needs, at least all those the phone company deemed you should want, it's not designed to work with Sage, Tivo or other DVR systems. In fact, it's very proprietary, and since it's a phone company, the FCC has decided not to force them to provide such open interfaces as they mandate for cable. Without being forced to, AT&T erred on the side of closed and proprietary.

Does that help explain things a bit?

[FZ1]

That's a great explanation, thanks very much.

I wouldn't consider U-Verse except for the fact they're the only provider in San Jose, CA to offer a trio of channels every MMA fan is looking for, plus high speed internet (10mbps/1mbps). Down rezzed HD is pretty lame, but I may decide to go for content over quality.

I figured the boxes should work via their composite/S-video outputs, but it's good to know I should be able to capture HD via their component outputs (which "should" be better than their SD output) when/if Hauppauge's card is released.

zap2it.com has listings for U-Verse, so it may be just a matter of Sage requesting to grab the listings.

All in all, thanks for the facts.

[Polypro]

How many U-Verse boxes can you get installed? (Tuners).

P

[FZ1]

You can have a max of 6 receivers in one house. They can tune a max of 2 HD streams and 4 SD simultaneously (according to sales, who's been wrong before...)

[stevech]

Neighbor of mine ordered U-verse. AT&T spent 11 hours at the residence one day and 6 the next day, with one guy full time and another part time.

They wired the whole house, installed receivers, WiFi, etc.

Then they discovered that the actual length of the copper service wire from the u-verse copper-to-fiber device was 3,000 ft whereas as-the-crow-flies distance was under 2000 ft.

After all this in-the-residence work, AT&T abandoned the project. Signal too weak.

Geeze, you'd think they would have tested this as step one before spending all those hours.

Originally Posted by FZ1

You can have a max of 6 receivers in one house. They can tune a max of 2 HD streams and 4 SD simultaneously (according to sales, who's been wrong before...)

AT&T brochure I have says 1 HD + 3 SD max. That's a LOT of IP-TV on a cat 3 wire!