Rebuilding SageServer - Which HD Tuner Cards

[mike1961]

Hello - I'm going to be looking at rebuilding my SageServer soon. I'm wondering what might be good to look at in way of HD Tuner or Dual Tuner cards? I currently have NVidia Dual Tuner SD cards which have worked very well as far as video quality but I'm thinking about rebuilding the MOBO, Memory and Tuners. I'll keep the SATA hard drives though. Any thoughts on what to get?

Would you go Intel, AMD or doesn't matter these days? Does Intel still generate more heat?

I know a while back they had the R5000 HD tuner cards but they were really expensive and I think Hauppauge came out with a new HD tuner card but again, I don't know how good it is. I might keep one SD Dual tuner and set encoder merit on a new HD but if I get a few HD tuner cards I'm not sure if the hard drives can take that amount of throughput. Any thoughts or ideas as I'm new to the HD world and looking to move forward with a new Sage Server in the next month or so.

Thanks,
Mike

[Fuzzy]

Need to know what your source is. OTA or Cable/Sat.

[Djc208]

If you're looking for OTA or cable tuners then the two big choices are usually Hauppage for internal or USB tuners, or the HD Homerun for external tuners.

If you want HD channels from your cable or satelite box your only real option is the HDPVR from Hauppage. It's still not as solid as we would like but it works well enough for what it offers. Firewire is available in some areas direct from the tuner box but I wouldn't bet on that.

The R5000 isn't a card, it was a custom modified cable box that can output the tuner feed through a USB port unscrambled. It is expensive and not all boxes are compatable with it, plus since it's installed to the box you have issues if you want to move or the box goes bad.

As for the server hardware I always say to start with the MOBO and build from there. The Intel chips are faster and more efficient (less heat and power), but are more expensive than what AMD has to offer right now. If you want 3 or 4 cores on a budget AMD is your best bet. For use as only a Sage/file server then just about any CPU will work fine. Even if you do playback from the machine a better graphics card will pay more than a better CPU.

So I say find a MOBO that has all the features you want/need and then build from there. Lots of SATA, USB, and PCI/PCIe slots, gigabit ethernet (maybe even duals) etc, for the price you want and then shop for CPU and the rest.

[Fuzzy]

You don't really have to go overboard on the video card either, pretty much any video card offering from a current generation will work fine for any sagetv playback. Even the ATI HD 4200 integrated graphics (AMD 785G Chipset) on my desktop motherboard has no problem whatsoever with BluRay playabck. I'd recommend a socket-AM3 785G motherboard, with even just a low end dual core for starters. Cheap to upgrade too, but lots of upgrade path in the future.

[mike1961]

Is there any advantage to the Hauppauge or HD Homerun aside form internal or external?

Also, would anyone recommend OTA in addition to cable or satellite and if so then why?

Thanks,
Mike

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by mike1961

Also, would anyone recommend OTA in addition to cable or satellite and if so then why?

If you can get OTA, then it's the best way to get local HD channels because it's not going to be a compressed signal. It also tunes faster than going through a STB. I personally tune OTA with an internal Hauppauge card, but used to have a HDHR. I didn't have any problems with the HDHR, but wanted to get rid of the extra power plug.

[Djc208]

Originally Posted by mike1961

Is there any advantage to the Hauppauge or HD Homerun aside form internal or external?

I have heard that the tuners in the HD Homerun tend to be better (pick up weaker stations, hold signal better) but can't verify that personally. The internal cards however do not place any additional load on your network.

Also, would anyone recommend OTA in addition to cable or satellite and if so then why?

OTA/clearQAM is easier to deal with than cable boxes and their IR blasters/firewire tuning. Plus you tend to get the major networks which are still a staple of most peoples watching habits. You can also usually get some sub-stations that you won't find on cable (or are part of other tiers). I know one or two stations locally do a continuous weather feed, and PBS has like three digital channels, but I can only see two through my cable provider.

I'm using clearQAM vs OTA just because it was easier for me to get a stable signal, and I didn't notice a difference in the quality.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by mike1961

Is there any advantage to the Hauppauge or HD Homerun aside form internal or external?

Also, would anyone recommend OTA in addition to cable or satellite and if so then why?

Thanks,
Mike

Separate tuners for OTA is a good idea if you can receive OTA signals. One reason was mentioned already, better quality. Another reason is if you do not miss recording programs when there are satellite or cable outages. You ned to have enough tuners to cover all the concurrent OTA recordings, then remove the OTA channel lineups from the satellite or cable tuners.

If you are using set top boxes, a USB-UIRT will be your best option for the flexiblity to switch between different provider set top boxes. It's best if your not 'locked in' to a provider because the other provider set top boxes may not have firewire.

If your not using HD-200s, you should switch to HD-200s at each TV.

The HDHomerun is good for OTA or clearQAM, or one of each. The HVR-2250 is good for OTA, clearQAM, or analog, but both tuners have to be the same. If you use DTA boxes, one tuner is set to for channel 3, the other for channel 4. The signals are combined with a signal combiner, not a simple splitter. A simple splitter will cancel both signals. The output of the signal combiner goes into the single HVR-2250 TV RF connector. The HD-PVR is an option for HD content. There are many things you need to do to increase the HD-PVR stablity, including removing the top cover for better heat disapation.

Dave

[Fuzzy]

there's no difference between a splitter and a combiner, just where you connect them. There are some specialized combiners that include low pass and high pass filters on each input to prevent interference from one antenna cancelling the other, but they won't work for adjacent channels like the 3/4 combination you're discussing, nor are they even required, as all that will be on each feed will be just the channel 3 and just the channel 4.

[davephan]

I have two DTA boxes. One has a channel 3 output, the other with channel 4. I tried hooking them to a simple splitter, then the output of the splitter to the single HVR-2250 TV RF input connector. Both channel 3 and channel 4 signals cancelled each other out. I then hooked up the channel 3 and channel 4 DTA outputs to a cheap signal combiner. The output of the signal combiner was then hooked to the single HVR-2250 TV RF input connector. No signal cancellation occurred. Both HVR-2250 tuners worked with the signal combiner.

Dave

[Fuzzy]

That sounds more like a problem with the original splitter. Even most splitters are sold as splitter/combiner.