SageMCTuner - use a cablecard in Sage!

[MitchSchaft]

You guys are assuming this will work with Sage.

[scoful]

After looking at this some more it looks like it takes a special license to use more than 4 tuners with Windows Media Center.

An article that I found indicated these would likely cost somewhere between $300 and $600. I'd be very happy to have a 4 tuner version for $300! It only uses one cablecard.

[scoful]

Originally Posted by MitchSchaft

You guys are assuming this will work with Sage.

I thought that was the whole point of this thread - the device just has to work with Windows Media Center - SageMCTuner integrates it into Sage.

The more I think about it, this method could save the guys at Sage a lot of work. They wouldn't have to worry about capture devices at all - leave that to Microsoft. They'd simply be extending Media Center's capabilities.

[disco340]

Just saw an article stating the four tuner card will be released on April 1 for $399

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...releasing.html

and this

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/05/c...er-gets-a-pri/

[MitchSchaft]

Originally Posted by scoful

I thought that was the whole point of this thread - the device just has to work with Windows Media Center - SageMCTuner integrates it into Sage.

The more I think about it, this method could save the guys at Sage a lot of work. They wouldn't have to worry about capture devices at all - leave that to Microsoft. They'd simply be extending Media Center's capabilities.

Babgvant's software has been out for a few months now if you want to try it. I haven't heard anything from anybody about it, though .

[scoful]

http://www.cetoncorp.com/buy.php

Says available by 3/31/2010 - $399 retail.

[Kirby]

But I remember back when I had my HD Tivo with cablecards, that my wonderful cable system had every digital channel set with CCI=0. I could transfer everything I wanted from the Tivo (except amazon downloads obviously). Well it seems that the CCI flags are still the same! So assuming that they stay the same, with a nice 4 tuner Ceton card and this wonderful SageMCTuner, I should have full access to all programming inside sage, correct?

[Fuzzy]

in theory, yeah. only time will tell how stable this setup is in practice. not sure anyon'e really got it up and running in production yet.

[tmiranda]

If I decide to build a Win7 machine whose only purpose is to run SageMCTuner with the Ceton card, what would be the minimum CPU requirement? Would an Atom have enough horsepower?

I would like to make the machine as small, quiet, cool and power efficient as reasonably possible.

Thanks,

Tom

[solinar]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

If I decide to build a Win7 machine whose only purpose is to run SageMCTuner with the Ceton card, what would be the minimum CPU requirement? Would an Atom have enough horsepower?

I would like to make the machine as small, quiet, cool and power efficient as reasonably possible.

Thanks,

Tom

From the Ceton Website

The recommended minimum system requirements for the Ceton Digital Cable Quad-Tuner are:

* Microsoft Windows® 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Enterprise, or Windows 7 Ultimate
* 2.0 Gigahertz or faster Dual Core Processor – either 32 bit (x86) or 64 bit (x64)
* 3 Gigabytes of RAM
* HDCP compliant on-board graphics or graphics card
* HDMI out, or DVI out with separate audio out
* Multi-Stream CableCARD™ (M-Card) – available from your local cable provider
* Digital cable subscription from a U.S. cable provider

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by solinar

From the Ceton Website

Those system requirements are for playback, not recording. Theoretically an Atom would be fine for just recording (although I wouldn't recommend it, hopefully some tiny Core i3 PC's come out for that).

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Those system requirements are for playback, not recording.

Yes, I'm not interested in playback, just recording and sending it to Sage. Those specs seem way overkill for my needs.

If not an Atom, maybe a low power Celeron will be enough....

[Clift]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

If I decide to build a Win7 machine whose only purpose is to run SageMCTuner with the Ceton card, what would be the minimum CPU requirement? Would an Atom have enough horsepower?

I would like to make the machine as small, quiet, cool and power efficient as reasonably possible.

Thanks,

Tom

You should also be able to run the SageMCTuner from the same machine you run SageTV on, if you use it as a server and if you use windows 7, of course. It may be able to work as a playback machine too, I would think. The only hard part would be to sort out accidentally launching windows 7 media center, and not to set up the other tuners in 7MC, etc... Techinically though I believe it should be possible.

[tmiranda]

Clift,

My Sage server is XP based. It's been super reliable and I don't want to migrate to another OS unless absolutely necessary.

Tom

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by Clift

The only hard part would be to sort out accidentally launching windows 7 media center, and not to set up the other tuners in 7MC, etc... Techinically though I believe it should be possible.

Not accidentally launching 7MC is easy, just need to rename ehtray.exe.

Setting up tuners may be a bigger challenge, but we should be able to get around that by physically removing them when setting up TV in MC.

[Kirby]

Can the existing ATI tuners out there operate in MC without a cable card (i.e. a QAM tuner)? I'd like to do some testing on my end (MC and Sage and this plugin) as well as verifying my coax run (whether it can carry acceptable signal) going to where my PC is located. I dont have any other QAM tuners at the moment, nor do I have a cable card (or cable tv programming). Plus I'm just anxious to try this thing out!

[MitchSchaft]

Nah, you gotta have an OEM vista box with special firmware. I dont think they came out with the update yet so everybody can use it.

[Kirby]

Oh I thought there was a hack for W7 already?

*Edit: Its not a hack, its a software tool from MS that does it. See: http://www.missingremote.com/index.p...=4361&Itemid=1

If I understand that correctly, it will turn my W7 box into a W7 box that supports the ATI Cable Card tuner. So back to my original question then, without the actual cable card, does the ATI OCUR device operate as a clear qam tuner?

[Merc1032]

If your talking about the card mentioned here, i would say yes.
http://hd.engadget.com/2009/05/12/ho...-media-center/

Just by reading the article, the author reccomends going through the qam stations before calling the tech out to install the card.

[Deacon Crusher]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

That companies office is right next to where I live, think I could get in their beta if I just stopped by and asked really nicely

Evil, they just finally started taking pre-orders and engadget now has a test unit, sounds like it's time to start asking them nicely <G>.