How many HD-PVRs at once and a few related questions.

[jason531]

I gave up on recording HD in Sage a few years ago and bought two TivoHD boxes which I use for TV content and use Sage + two extenders (one HD100 and one HD200) for weather, DVD ISOs, VIDEO_TS folders, various video formats, etc.

I didn't like the TiVo at first, but really like the "appliance" aspect of them. Once I got the CableCARDs working, they have worked perfectly -- no drivers, installation, reboots, tuner issues, etc. I don't ever worry about missed recordings or recording the wrong channel. I can also transfer recordings to my PC for archiving, albeit slowly, so I've lost very little in terms of functionality.

I am thinking about switching back to 100% Sage. I started thinking about this when news of SageMCTuner broke on the prospect that I could have four tuners in Sage with only one CableCARD and no transcoding or encoding necessary. This is still an option, although I have yet to read about anyone doing this successfully. It was also mean sticking with Comcast, which I'd rather not do.

My other option is two switch to DirecTV using multiple HD-PVR boxes. I am reluctant because my old standard definition setup had a number of issues. Here are my questions/concerns:

1. How many HD-PVR boxes can be used simultaneously in SageTV (Windows 7). I am sorry if this information is in a FAQ somewhere, but I gave up on searching after 15 minutes. I would really like to have at least 2-3 tuners.

2. How stable is this setup with multiple tuners? With my two TiVoHD boxes I can record four channels at the same time without any issues.

3. Are there any strange artifacts or other encoding issues from recompressing the uncompressed analog signal? It seems as though the PVR250/DirecTV combo created a weird effect on the color red, but I may be having a flashback to my Panasonic Showstopper/ReplayTV days.

4. What about channel changes? In my old standard definition Sage/DirecTV setup I was very careful to use only STBs which supported serial port tuning in order to avoid IR issues. Are there and STBs which can be tuned over USB?

Thanks for the help -- I appreciate it.

[paulbeers]

1. Some users have 4 HDPVR's on one system
2. I'm using two with no issues. Only using analog audio (stereo), but more out of laziness on my part and it works fine. Mine are rock solid with two.
3. No. Some say it is a little softer, but seriously it looks dang good to me and I have mine set to 720P only (not 1080i).
4. Not sure about USB tuning, but I know serial tuning on directv is still supported and some cable STB's use firewire tuning. I use a USBUIRT (ir blaster) and rarely miss a recording (plus I only record Cable channels with my Dish Network Boxes, so on the very rare occassion it does miss, I just record a later playing).

[jason531]

Thanks for the quick response. Four HD-PVRs is the number I had in my head, but I couldn't find anything to confirm it. The quality should be fine. It seems that all of the content providers try to brag about their number of channels so they overcompress things to fit the bandwidth. Quality suffers, so I don't any loss induced by the re-encode will be minimal in comparison.

I might actually own a USB-UIRT -- I've been at this game for a long time and have a lot of equipment that I've never gotten around to throwing away or putting on eBay. I need to look for a list of receivers that support USB, serial, or Firewire tuning. I still feel best about that option, probably because it worked so well with my old 2xSTB+2xPVR250 setup.

Thanks again.

[toricred]

I'm using serial tuning on my 4 HD DirecTV receivers (and HD-PVRs) and it is working great 99.9% of the time. Every once in a while DirecTV sends out a firmware revision that causes a problem with it, but I've always been able to get it fixed fairly quickly by changing the baud rate of the serial port.

[jason531]

Originally Posted by toricred

I'm using serial tuning on my 4 HD DirecTV receivers (and HD-PVRs) and it is working great 99.9% of the time. Every once in a while DirecTV sends out a firmware revision that causes a problem with it, but I've always been able to get it fixed fairly quickly by changing the baud rate of the serial port.

It looks like the currently shipping HD receiver is the H24 which has a USB port. Is this the receiver you have? What type of cable is required and do you need to run a special program or DLL on your Sage server?

I remember how various updates would break the serial communication. At least with a PC you can update your software. My sister had an old ReplayTV unit of mine and it required a hardware (Paterson?) adapter after one particular upgrade

Update: I found a few threads on controlling the receivers, so never mind. Thanks for the help! I'm going to see what my price would be for two years, three receivers, etc. and compare it to my current $$$ going to Comcast. I should be able to get good money for my two TiVo HDs -- each has a 1 TB drive upgrade and lifetime service. That should cover the costs of my receivers, HD-PVRs, and cables. Plus, the HD-PVRs should work with anything as long as they keep the analog hole open.

[ericscottf]

I have two HDPVRs changing with a USB-UIRT and i have never missed a single channel change. Plenty of other things have gone wrong, but channel changing has always worked flawlessly. the USB UIRT box is a really good product IMO.

I do have them fortressed and in the basement, tho.

I'm coming from replay myself, and nearly a year later, i still think "damn, this is so much better". Replay was on a great track in 2004, what with units talking to eachother to record/play shows, and i'm confident they would have continued to do a great job if they hadn't gone OOB. But 5 years later, the bugs and lack of new features got really tiresome.
I used to have a tivo (series 1) and i got my parents a tivo HD or whatever, and i'd still pick sage over any of the DVRs i've ever used.

[SWKerr]

I have 2xHD-PVRs on DirecTV with an HDHR hooked to an antenna.

I have found that because extended channels seems to play things several times a day\week that I never have a problem with conflicts. I really can't ever remember the last time I did not get something on the first run of a show. I would even think I could get by with just one HD-PVR. If you can get all the major Networks with an antenna I would guess you would not need more than 2 HD-PVRs.

[jason531]

I could probably get away with two HD-PVRs and two HD receivers, which would reduce my equipment costs. Unfortunately, I will not be able to get rid of Comcast completely since they are currently my only option for high speed internet. Since I will not be a TV subscriber, they will charge me a $15/month premium which I believe includes locals in HD over ClearQAM, so a single- or double-tuner HDHomeRun will give me the ability to record two more channels. That should be plenty, since we really don't watch that much TV -- it's just that everything we want to watch seems to come on at the same time or I run into overlap issues since I habitually pad all of my recordings.

[garyc]

I'm in the process of switching to Sage, and have done a lot of testing r.e. the recording bandwidth with multiple tuners. I have 6 tuners (3 Hauppauge 2250's) and have found that if you have enough different drives and set the recording diretory optimization to "bandwidth" (instead of space) that there's no issue recording -- I can record 6 HD channels at once with no problem ... I've done this while watching a recording on the HTPC and another program on a Sage client.

The ability to set bandwidth optimization plus support for captions are the two major reasons I'm switching to Sage. Been using Beyond TV for the last few years, but now that we're watching more HD and also tend to record a few more programs, I've found that the recording bandwidth requirements sometimes overtax BTV's ability. [Plus it doesn't support captions; which our ageing eyes definitely require these days.]

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by garyc

I'm in the process of switching to Sage, and have done a lot of testing r.e. the recording bandwidth with multiple tuners. I have 6 tuners (3 Hauppauge 2250's) and have found that if you have enough different drives and set the recording diretory optimization to "bandwidth" (instead of space) that there's no issue recording -- I can record 6 HD channels at once with no problem ... I've done this while watching a recording on the HTPC and another program on a Sage client.

I've even recorded 6 simultaneous shows while watching a 7th all to a single hard drive and not had any recording glitches.
(1) HD-PVR, (2&3) HDHomerun, (4&5) HVR-2250, (6) PVR-150

All are HD, except PVR-150. I use the highest recording quality on the tuners that do encoding (HD-PVR and PVR-150). HD-PVR is locked to 720p. HDHomerun and HVR-2250 are recording QAM from cable, so they get whatever is being broadcast (720p or 1080i).

I just leave the default optimization settings which records to the drive with the most free space. Since I tend to just add a drive when space gets low, Sage ends up mostly recording to the newest drive.

[Polypro]

DirecTV channel changing:

You can go the cheap route and get 2 USB Serial adapters and a null modem adapter (search) or get Paterson devices. I have Patersons. An update sent to the receiver will break channel changing (it's actually the restart...the momentary power loss does it...put them on a battery back up). The easiest fix (hasn't failed the past 10? times) is to shut off the computer, shut off the boxes (I pull the plug)...then turn on the boxes and let them aqquire the signal (couple minutes) and then turn the computer back on...works every time.

P