Another Newbie Question on TV feeds and cable boxes

[crimkid]

Here is the setup again, i have 3 tv's in the house, and a fairly beefy server set aside strictly for Sage. If 2 of the TV's will 99% of the time be using basic cable, ie no cable box needed-just direct cable input into the video cards in my machine, and i have 1 small cable box for the higher channels, would this work. It is basically so i can reach the higher channels for the kids to watch their stuff. We tend to have my son watch his stuff on different TV's as the night goes on, so since i have yet to use and install sage, when you are watching regular TV thru it, can i tell if i am watching TV thru the regular cable input? So that when i put him on a different TV, i can make sure his TV is watching cable from the cable box input?

Not sure if i am garbling this up or not.

[GKusnick]

It's not a matter of choosing which TV controls which tuner. The server controls all the tuners centrally. From any given TV, just choose the program or channel you want to watch, and Sage will assign you a tuner that can receive that channel. If you change channels, Sage will release that tuner and assign you a new one (or possibly the same one again) depending on which channel you choose.

If you want to make sure the low-tier channels don't tie up the STB tuner unnecessarily, you can give that tuner a low merit so that it will be chosen last. So channels that can be received by more than one tuner will preferentially use a different tuner, while channels that can be received only through the STB will use it because there's no alternative.

[crimkid]

thanks, that explains a lot. I look forward to trying everything out.

[wado1971]

Gkusnick has pointed out the best approach to the issue... but be aware that SageTV has no real solution to this issue and you'll still run into problems about 5-10% of the time (depending on your viewing habits). Many members have voiced the desire to control tuners via client etc, but as of yet the feature is not available.

[CollinR]

Done this several times and never seen an issue.

Just set your encoder merits so analog is always used up first.

The best combo is 2 PVR500s, analog cable to both and 2 cable boxes with Svideo connections and a USBUIRT.

Now you can watch 4 things at once plus you have composites and Svideos left over for things like DVD player/changers, CCTV cameras, you could play with some FTA satelite stuff.