Finally got Sage working with two HD-PVRs and Dish Network

[Chriscic]

Finally got my second HD-PVR hooked up and everything working (at least as of 1:30 A.M. last night... hope it's still working when I get home!). Maybe someone else going to multiple HD-PVRs will benefit from a recap (otherwise skip my long post!)

I'd been dreading figuring everything out, but I just shut the basement door and slogged through.

The whole thing wasn't really intuitive, but I can't say anything was crazy obscure either.

Getting my WHS server to recognize the 2nd HD-PVR was surprisingly easy, just hooked it up and installed the driver (well, there was a 10 minute delay before I realized one of my two units wasn't on).

One big thing was I really had no idea how the USB-UIRT worked. There's no native software for it. When you go to their website, it says "here are the drivers and software," which is just stupid because there is no software there, only drivers. It gradually dawned on me that you program the thing within Sage itself.

Once the USB-UIRT was installed, I programmed it via the 2 Dish remotes in Sage... but I couldn't get the $!@*%& channels to change no matter what. I probably wasted an hour before I figured out the IR repeat had to be changed from 2 to 3. If my trusty old 24" Dell LCD didn't have multiple inputs and split screen functionality it probably would have taken even longer.

Other issues along the way:
Although both HD-PVRs worked right away in WHS (via TME), at first I could only get one HD-PVR to show in Sage. Updating all software and firmware (HD200) to the latest beta fixed this (or maybe it was just the reboot).

Once it showed up, whenever I would try to add the second HD-PVR tuner to Sage, my Sage Client (on Windows 7 RC) would show a garbled preview and then crash. Going upstairs and setting up with the HD200 instead worked fine.

I wasted another hour by not clearly labeling my remotes, HD-PVRs, and Dish receivers as "1" or "2," which caused me to get all the USB-UIRT codes and controls jumbled up. At first I just thought maybe the USB-UIRT wasn't lined up right with receivers. Clearly labeling and then starting again from scratch quickly cleared up the issue.

When you tell Sage you want to use the USB-UIRT, it asks you what set-top box you have. It says select from the list below. But the list is empty. This is annoying because then I'm wondering if it's a bug and I should be able to select the VIP222k from the list, or is the list not populated yet and just there for possible future use. Of course I just ended up creating a new tuner.

Finally, I admit going in with the USB-UIRT I was a little spooked by some of the previous posts in here about not getting the "0" to work or having to get a config. file from someone else to get things operational. It did work fine programming with Sage once I figured out that's what I was supposed to do.

Now everything seems to be working. It's great having two tuners instead of one for my Dish channels, and two additional local tuners via the HDHomerun. Now just need to align the antenna better upstairs so I can get CBS and ABC.

Also, later I am killing a chicken in homage to the "no HD-PVR lockup Gods." Or maybe I'll spare the chicken and sacrifice a spare USB cable instead.