Compatibility with Digital Satellite

[Dileepan]

First, I am a newbie, so be gentle.

I have Dishnet Satellite service and I wanted to setup a DVR on my old PC running XP. I looked around and finally settled on the bundle product STVHBR offered by SageTV. This hardware included in this bundle is Huppauge's WinTV-HVR-1600. The description of this product given in the web site included the statement, "Our Hybrid Media Center In-a-BoxTM product gets you started with everything you'll need to begin enjoying SageTV and recording Over-the-Air HDTV and cable or satellite TV on your PC." So I was confident it is going to work with my Dishnet satellite.

However, when I received the product and opened the box today I noticed this in the Quick Installation Guide, "WinTV-HVR-1600 cannot receive digital cable or digital satellite TV".

So I am confused. I know Dishnet I receive is Digital. So, would this bundle work for me or not? I am not able to call SageTV and verify, I am unable to find a phone number for customer service.

If this product will not work for recording from Dishnet digital TV service, would anyone give me some suggestions for an alternative product.

Thank you, Dileepan

[Slipshod]

You can't plug the satellite cable directly into the card and have it work- all sat providers use special encryption on their signals. The only thing it will allow you to do with your Dish receiver is record in SD over the SVideo port. Kind of a waste since you can do that just as well with the cheaper PVR-150.

If you want to record HD off of Dish there's only two viable options at this point. The super-expensive R5000HD modification to a dish network VIP-211 receiver ($550 or so just for the mod, and you need to purchase a receiver on top of that), or the upcoming Hauppage HD-PVR product for $249, probably also hooked up to a 211. Either of those give you one tuner, so if you want multiple tuners you need to throw down some more cash. Many people will mix 1 HD tuner with multiple SD tuners to keep costs down.