Directivo Convert Needs Help

[bjp999]

I am about to jump ship from Directv Tivo after over 15 years! I can't live with the small recorded show sizes in the DTV HD PVRs, and can get everything I need though less expensive cable hookup and my own homegrown server with tons of space.

I currently have 2 dtivos - one for my wife and one for me. She has her two tuners and controls her "now playing list" and I have mine. It's all SDTV.

For the SageTV, I have an HDHomeRun (2 QAM tuners) and a Hauppage HVR-1600 (1 QAM tuner + svideo input from cable box w/ ir blaster). My cable company broadcasts almost everything in the clear in HD. I am planning to get one SageTv license (she'll watch off the main server) and one client license (I'll watch using a HTPC box next to my TV).

My wife really likes controlling her own Tivo, and wants her recorded shows to be separate from mine. Is that possible?

She'd really like 2 dedicated tuners for her and 2 for me, just like now. I don't think that is possible. I guess I could buy 2 separate SageTV licenses and have 2 separate installs. But I only have one server, and don't want to buy another. Not sure you can run 2 instances of SageTV on the same box. I don't think this is a good idea anyway.

Suggestions? If I'm not careful I'm going to wind up sleeping on the couch!

Thanks!!!

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by bjp999

I am about to jump ship from Directv Tivo after over 15 years! I can't live with the small recorded show sizes in the DTV HD PVRs, and can get everything I need though less expensive cable hookup and my own homegrown server with tons of space.

I currently have 2 dtivos - one for my wife and one for me. She has her two tuners and controls her "now playing list" and I have mine. It's all SDTV.

For the SageTV, I have an HDHomeRun (2 QAM tuners) and a Hauppage HVR-1600 (1 QAM tuner + svideo input from cable box w/ ir blaster). My cable company broadcasts almost everything in the clear in HD. I am planning to get one SageTv license (she'll watch off the main server) and one client license (I'll watch using a HTPC box next to my TV).

My wife really likes controlling her own Tivo, and wants her recorded shows to be separate from mine. Is that possible?

She'd really like 2 dedicated tuners for her and 2 for me, just like now. I don't think that is possible. I guess I could buy 2 separate SageTV licenses and have 2 separate installs. But I only have one server, and don't want to buy another. Not sure you can run 2 instances of SageTV on the same box. I don't think this is a good idea anyway.

Suggestions? If I'm not careful I'm going to wind up sleeping on the couch!

Thanks!!!

Currently seperate recordings is not a feature wthin Sage. It is definately on the wish list, but currently not implemented. All recorded shows end up in the same directory.

Secondly, you would not be able to run two Sage server's on one box as the tuners would only be able to be used by which ever instance "fires" up first....

Should you decide to go Sage route, have you thought about an extender for your tv viewing? They are just too damn easy to use and setup. I used to use "full clients", but now I am solely media extenders.

[jphipps]

You may be able to run VMware or Virtual Box, but I am not sure if the capture devices would be availble to them, I have never tested. If that works, you could have 2 installs running on the 1 server, but it would need to be a faster server to run it...

I definately agree the HD-1000 is the way to go. If budget is not an issue, I would have the sage run on the server, and use 2 x HD1000 extenders to view the content and just let the server do the back end work...

[bjp999]

Thanks for the quick responses!!!

I had hoped there was some feature I had missed.

Guess she'll just have to get used to it. Is there a way I can (at least initially) move my shows to a different directory that she doesn't see but that I can see from my client?

I'll have to look into the extenders. Right now I have existing cabling (including IR repeaters) from my basedment "server room" to my wife's TV, and have an HTPC that mostly plays movies (using my unRAID server) right next to my HDTV. But I have 2 other TV's I'd like to enable so maybe HD extenders are the way to go for them.

First I just have to make sure I can get past the WAF and cancel Directv! Saving almost $100 a month would fund a lot of new equipment.

[jphipps]

If you have existing shows that are on your computer, you can put them under imported videos, and have a different menu option to filter on those shows.

If you cancel directv, what source are you going to use for the video content? I have directv and have 3 tuners setup on the server for capturing, and still have 3 other recievers for various TV's in the house. The big advantage to using sagetv, is that you can watch the recordings from any room in the house that has an extender, and watch any movies that are setup on the server from any of those as well.

[bjp999]

Cool - so if I am readying this right, I can take my recorded shows and move them to imported videos (at least initially) to ease my wife's transition.

I will be using cable as my video source.

[BFisher]

I think once your wife gets used to it, she won't have any issue with having yours and her shows together. If you use SageMC and use it's folders, it cleans things up (if you have 5 episodes of a show, they are in 1 folder) nicely. It would be nice to have personalized users... but it's not too big of a deal once you get used to it.

My wife transitioned from DTiVo fine. Keep it around for a while until you work out the kinks... there will be some. Personally, I'd keep her on it while you set yourself up on Sage. After you get it working reliably and easy to use... then transition her to it. Don't do it when you are getting it going initially. Any little problem and she'll want her DTivo back.

[bjp999]

That sounds like great advice! Thanks.