U-verse do or don't

[SteveD]

I have been using sagetv since 2004, I want more HD content than the current OTA that I am limited to. The hauppauge HD PVR just doesn't appear to be a stable HD recording solution.

Sagetv pros

Flexibilty with plugins
commercial skipping
netflix
hulu
expandable storage/unlimited recording
squeezeplayer
etc.

Cons

No good HD PVR Solution

U-verse pros
whole house dvr
HD- though questionable

Cons
See above sagetv pros can't do with u-verse

These are my opinions. I need some good testimonials on the HD PVR to make the leap to Directv HD. Limited to Directv and U-verse as providers.

[bits]

Just my thoughts:

1. I would be surprised if the HD is truely HD. It may have HD resolution and or may fill up your screen but I doubt it will have the PQ of the higher bit rates of OTA HD.
2. I personally have had nothing but problems with VoIP phone calls and therefore I suspect there will be frequent issues with streaming video.
3. Can multiple live HD shows be watched simultaneously?
4. What about being able to view your DVD/BD library? Personal family video?
5. Will the commercial skip work like it does in STV or will you have to FF through all commercials?
6. Can recorded shows be moved to your HDD for longer term time shifting?

Ideally I would like to have everything that I record/watch be high quality true HD but what is really important to me is being able to easily record TV to my HDDs so I can manipulate them as I desire. Going back to FF through commercials is not an option in our household. Being able to view my DVD/BD/Family video with sorting, thumbnails, meta data, fanart, cover art ect is a really big deal. So for our household STV is the way to go.

[PLUCKYHD]

Hey I can pipe in here

I used uverse for about 9 months after moving as I just sold my r5000 mods and didn't want to mess with hd-pvrs

after 9 months I got tired of it limitations. Uverse is by far the best dvr I have used from any provider don't get me wrong. But it has some nuances that are hard to ignore.

cons
1. When watching livetv in any client room you cannot pause it unless you first hit record and then go to the recording (stupid and very annoying)

2. It is a bit slow on the clients.

3. It is damn expensive after the cheap trial period runs out. $10 hd fee, DVR fee Client box fee etc etc

I now canceled and went back to dish and tried the hd-pvr's again and so far have been 100% happy with it and am not going back.

the biggest plus to at&t was they amazingly fast channel changing it is faster than any dish/cable box I have every used and it pretty much instant.

cheers

[RocKKer]

AT&T U-Verse is rebranded Microsoft Mediaroom. The Mediaroom system is available here thru another provider, not AT&T. It has roughly 5.2-5.8 mbps, officially 6mbps max, and that is with a fiber connection to the house (whereas some HD OTA are 19.2mbps). Doubtful that U-verse has implemented it much different, if anything they might allocate even less, because not everyone has fiber available.

Here we can only record 2 HD programs and 2 SD channels at a time, which I think is the same as U-verse.

System HDD's are not that big - only record up to 100 hours of SD programming OR up to 40 hours of HD programming with a 160GB HDD. I have heard U-verse may replace the storage with 250GB, so capacities may be a bit more.

Other than the lowered bitrate and the resulting poor PQ, I haven't heard of many streaming issues here.

No commercial skip and can't view any media other than what is on their system so if that is important stay with SageTV.

[mmanville]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Uverse is by far the best dvr I have used from any provider don't get me wrong. But it has some nuances that are hard to ignore.

cons
1. When watching livetv in any client room you cannot pause it unless you first hit record and then go to the recording (stupid and very annoying)

2. It is a bit slow on the clients.

3. It is damn expensive after the cheap trial period runs out. $10 hd fee, DVR fee Client box fee etc etc

I now canceled and went back to dish and tried the hd-pvr's again and so far have been 100% happy with it and am not going back.

the biggest plus to at&t was they amazingly fast channel changing it is faster than any dish/cable box I have every used and it pretty much instant

I used it this year from January to July (dropped it when World Cup ended). I agree with #3, expense, and would add a #4: can't write/export any recordings, it's locked inside their box (so if you ever discontinue, you lose all recordings you ever made). I know what plucky means about #1 sort of, but I think its improved maybe since he had it? While it's true you can only pause live tv on the main recorder box, and have to start recording to do it on any other, you don't "have to go to recording" you can just hit pause right away (in other words press record first, then pause without having to do anything else. and then delete the recording later of course). And I never saw any speed issue on the clients. I think AT&T came out with new boxes last year, I read somewhere, so maybe that's why I didn't have those 2 issues.

Other than the locked recording content & price (assuming you get internet, about $65/mo for 200 channels, + $7 per box after 1st, plus $10 for HD), I thought it was great. WAF was HUGE, it was very easy for her to use, it's been hard getting her to go back to PVR since we discontinued. I would have actually kept it if I actually watched a small portion of those 200 channels with any regularity. But we don't, and we need to economize, so it was cut for being an unnecessary expense. It also is perfect if you don't want to mess with stuff, it just works (or rather teh AT&T guy makes it work, as part of free installation). You can use coax to connect clients, and the client remotes have universal programmability for controlling tv volume and power, like the HD300 finally gets.

[Tiki]

I don't know about UVerse, but in addition to my Sage setup I have a Comcast DVR and it is terrible. I could write a book about all the things that Sage does better. But here are a couple of things wrong with Comcast that might also apply to UVerse:

1. All the recordings and settings are locked in the STB, so if you ever have a problem with your box and need Comcast to replace it, you lose all your recordings and all your favorite settings (they can't be transferred to the new box).
2. They are not capable of tracking your viewing history. So when you set up a favorite, you get two choices "All Episodes" or "Only New Episodes". The New markings in their guide data are not very accurate, so you miss a lot of shows unless you tell it to record "all episodes". But then, it will record the same episode over and over (if its on 10 times this week, it will record all 10 episodes and fill up your limited hard drive space, plus generate lots of conflicts).

[PLUCKYHD]

#2 uverse is actually pretty good at but it is basically wmc backend running on a box (mediaroom)

[graywolf]

Originally Posted by Tiki

2. They are not capable of tracking your viewing history. So when you set up a favorite, you get two choices "All Episodes" or "Only New Episodes". The New markings in their guide data are not very accurate, so you miss a lot of shows unless you tell it to record "all episodes". But then, it will record the same episode over and over (if its on 10 times this week, it will record all 10 episodes and fill up your limited hard drive space, plus generate lots of conflicts).

Actually, if Sage ALSO had the All Episodes option it would greatly increase the WAF at my household.

[RocKKer]

Originally Posted by graywolf

Actually, if Sage ALSO had the All Episodes option it would greatly increase the WAF at my household.

Does "FirstRuns and ReRuns" (in series settings) = "All Episodes"?

[SteveD]

I installed my HD PVR today and converted my receivers to serial tuning. I found out that the HD PVR was incompatible with the NEC USB PCI express adapter card that I installed on my server. It caused tearing in the image. Plugged into the onboard usb port and the image cleared up. It is only capturing svideo until I get my HD upgrade in October. I am hoping that its stability in svideo capture will translate into a positive HD capture experience. I placed the HD PVR on and old laptop cooler to give it a boost in ventilation. October 6th will be my day of reckoning.

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by RocKKer

Does "FirstRuns and ReRuns" (in series settings) = "All Episodes"?

That would equal all episodes that have not been marked as watched in the wiz.bin. Anything that has been watched will not be re-recorded.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by Spectrum

That would equal all episodes that have not been marked as watched in the wiz.bin. Anything that has been watched will not be re-recorded.

Sage also will not record something that it has already recorded and is currently in your Sage Recordings list (Even if you haven't watched it yet).

I point this out because many cable channels will show the same episode of the same show several times over the course of a week. As long as the guide data is accurate, Sage will only record it once, whereas Comcast might put 5 or 10 copies of that same episode on your DVR hard drive.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by RocKKer

Does "FirstRuns and ReRuns" (in series settings) = "All Episodes"?

Yes and no. If Sage believes you have already seen a particular episode, it will not record it again. This is actually the preferred functionality in my house, but if you have kids you may not care if it records the same Sponge Bob episode for the 80th time.....

[SteveD]

Install Directv Hd20 today using serial tuning using Patterson device and HD PVR. So far no glitches. Upgraded processor to Q8300 Core 2 quad last week on server. Wish me luck.

[SteveD]

Added Second Hd Pvr to setup. Experienced a lot of problems.
Driver not loading for second device even after running hwclear and re-installing drivers. Found that addin usb adapter was causing the problem. Removed and reloaded drivers. 2nd PVR was then recognized, but sage would not recognize the device. Deleted Sage properties file and setup server again. Both HD PVRs and the HVR 2250 are now working. Putting this out here, maybe it will help someone else who experiencing problems. A lot of issues can be caused by a corrupt sage.properties file and drivers.

I had change capture cards several times over the past year, and had entries from the old cards still in sage.properties. When I added the second HD Pvr things went crazy, making me think the new HD PVR was an out of the box failure. After hours of troubleshooting. I connected it to my backup sage server and found out there was nothing wrong with the hardware. It was at this point I decided to delete everything out of the sage.properties except my drive mappings and deleted the properties backup.

Restarted sageservice and launched sage and finished the source configurations. Everything worked fine.

Oct. 14 2010. Beginning documentation on my adventures with the HD PVR. My goal is never to make another entry due to years of trouble free service.

Added new version of show analyzer.It deleted my eventghost xmls. Eventghost xmls reside on a share on the server for quick editing for clients. Had to move xmls to a folder on c drive which is not scanned for recordings.

Oct. 30 2010. No significant issues with HD PVR and latest drivers and V7- Ver7.0.21.244