A little confused need advice

[tharmagon]

I have read everthing I can on this site and others but still not sure what I need to buy. I have Cox HD cable box and want to record live TV on my XP PC. I'd like to record in HD if possibe. I want to buy all software and hardware from SageTV hopefully as a bundle. But I am not sure what hardware software I need to record HD programs? And how does it connect? At the moment the HDMI connection on the Cox box goes to me TV. How do I get HD programming to go to the PC and the TV?

[QueOnda]

Cannot record from HDMI. If you have clearQAM in COX, which would be limited to locals, hopefully HD locals, then you can use a ClearQAM tuners. I have only used HDHomeRun and LOVE THEM. You can also record OTA (antenna) or QAM with them. Use of CableCard if flagged Copy Freely but that's being worked out in a beta of the latest version.

If you want to record off the cable box, then you need a HDPVR or Hauppauge Colossus HD-PVR (currently in latest beta) which uses the HD analog (red, blue, green).

Then if you want to connect to TV you can either go with a computer or HD300 (which is recommended).

EDIT: Actually the Colossus is able to use unencrepted HDMI from your cablebox.

[pjpjpjpj]

Do you have interest in watching one thing and recording something else? Or are you okay with just watching what is currently on?

If you want to hook the PC straight to the TV, what are the specs on your PC? Can it handle HD video encoding? What kind of video card do you have? You need relatively-decent/newer hardware to watch HD from the PC - and a PC video card with some sort of HD-capable "out" (HDMI, Component, DVI).

Easiest solution (as mentioned above) is to buy an HD300 extender. Then your PC won't require hardly any "beef" at all. Add an HD300 and a hardware-encoding tuner device (such as the HDPVR or Colossus mentioned above for cable, or the HDHR for OTA/QAM) and all the encoding work is done by the extender, so you basically need a PC to run the software (easy) and hard drive space.

[davephan]

Welcome to the SageTV forum!

You might also need a USB-UIRT to change the cable set top box's channels if the Hauppauge IR devices do not work. Don't depend on the cable company keeping clear QAM, they might drop it, requiring you to use cable boxes.

The best way to setup SageTV is with a 'headless' SageTV computer located in an out of the way room. The SageTV computer is only used for SageTV tasks, not general web browsing or games. The case needs to be larger for additional hard drives. The system board should have enough PCI-E, PCI, USB, and SATA connections. A UPS should be used with the computer system. You can use VNC to remotely control the 'headless' SageTV computer for adminstration from another computer located in your normal living space.

Be sure to setup disk imaging. Image the computer during the SageTV build process and periodicaly after that. If you have a problem, then you will be able to easily and quickly recover your system to a 'known good' point in time.


Dave

[tharmagon]

Thanks for all your help but I am still wondering how to connect the PVR to the Cox box. The HD-PVRs I have seen have component inputs. My Cox HD box does have component out but what I am conserned about is I have the TV connected to the HDMI on the Cox box. I think when the HDMI is active on the Cox box it shuts off the other ports. So if I connect the PVR to the component out on the Cox box I don't think I will get anything.

I have not done anything like this before so I could be totally wrong.

[davephan]

Can you get a HD cablebox with component video? Maybe you could get an older one. There should be a solution for people with HD TVs that do not have an HDMI connection (if that type of TV exists). Or HD TVs with only one HDMI connection that is used by another device. Their solution might be to use a HDMI switchbox, which is not an acceptable solution.

In the end, if you can't get component HD video from the set top box, maybe you'll have to switch to Dish Network or DirecTV to get HD component video output on the set top box.

Dave

[QueOnda]

Originally Posted by tharmagon

Thanks for all your help but I am still wondering how to connect the PVR to the Cox box. The HD-PVRs I have seen have component inputs. My Cox HD box does have component out but what I am conserned about is I have the TV connected to the HDMI on the Cox box. I think when the HDMI is active on the Cox box it shuts off the other ports. So if I connect the PVR to the component out on the Cox box I don't think I will get anything.

I have not done anything like this before so I could be totally wrong.

Your not thinking of using the cablebox for sagetv and still use it for tv?
Colossus could use HDMI (unencrypted).
The computer which will be your Sagetv server, will record from different recording devices (HDhomerun, HDpvr, etc.) You would have your cable box near this computer connecting though HDPVR or Colossus. The sagetv server changes the cable box via firewire or ir changer (like usb-uirt).

[tharmagon]

Yes I was hoping I could watch TV and record another program on the PVR at the same time. So I will need a separate cable box to be used exclusively for the PVR?

I know I sound dumb on this stuff. I understand computers but not AV.

[QueOnda]

Originally Posted by tharmagon

Yes I was hoping I could watch TV and record another program on the PVR at the same time. So I will need a separate cable box to be used exclusively for the PVR?

I know I sound dumb on this stuff. I understand computers but not AV.

Yes. Depends on what you want to watch and how you want to use it.

I use one cablebox for sagetv and records everything we watch (family of 4). Usually the cable channels which I can only get through the box show more than once. I have 4 clearqam tuners (2 hdhomeruns) which record PBS, fox, cbs, fox, abc shows which usually show only once. I can watch live tv from anychannel. If the cable box is being used when I want to watch live tv it will ask me do I want to force the change or continue with the recording. Some people cannot get hd clear qam or any clear qam at all. If you have a HDTV which has a qam tuner you can see if you get any.

Now the HD300 is a client. Allows to connect to the sagetv server for playback and live tv (if your going to have sagetv server in another location).

If the cablebox is going to be used exclusively for sagetv, then you wont be able to do ondemand (if you have that on the cable box)

[davephan]

Originally Posted by tharmagon

Yes I was hoping I could watch TV and record another program on the PVR at the same time. So I will need a separate cable box to be used exclusively for the PVR?

I know I sound dumb on this stuff. I understand computers but not AV.

You need enough cable boxes and capture cards for each program you record and each program different program you watch at the same time. The same thing happens if you have one cable box and one TV. Only one program can be watched at a time. Two people can't watch two different programs. You can think of the situation as SageTV is 'watching' 'recording' one channel, while you are watching a separate channel, at the same time. It requires two cable boxes.

You could have one cable box dedicated to SageTV and an independent cable box hooked to your TV. Another way would be to have two cable boxes hooked to your SageTV computer and watch everything, including Live TV through your SageTV.

Another option is to watch only previously recorded programs. You can watch a previously recorded program while a different program is being recorded, with only one cable box.

You can also partition the channels with different tuners. You could have several tuners for just over the air digital, and other tuners for cable boxes. You could then remove the local channels from the cable boxes. One advantage to setting it up that way is the video quality is higher for over the air TV. Also when there are cable TV outages, you will still have your local over the air channels.

The number of tuners needed may also be determined by the number of 'recording conflicts' you have. If you have only one tuner, and want to record two different programs at the same time, you will have a 'recording conflict'. The more tuners you have, the few recording conflicts that occur.

You should start small and build up. If you have too many 'recording conflicts' and you want to put more money into the system, you can add more tuners. If you run out of disk space, you can add more disk. If you want to watch SageTV on more TVs, you add more HD-300 media extenders. So, the system is expandable.

If you wanted to do the same thing with Tivo, you would have to pay an extra monthly fee for each TV. The recordings on one Tivo box have to be watched on a specific TV, not any TV in your house. If you try to do the same thing with cable company DVRs, its a very expensive monthly rental for each cable TV DVR. I've read post where people have four DVRs setup in the same room to record four different programs at once. They complained about the remotes interfering with each other. The recording schedules have to be manually coordinated with each other, probably on paper. Intelligent recording is probably impossible with independent DVRs. It just becomes a mess if you try to expand independent DVRs to do the same thing that SageTV can do easily.


Dave

[Mitch G]

Maybe I missed something in the thread, but nobody has mentioned the
SageDCT + Ceton Infiniti 4 + cablecard option.

This assumes Cox supports cablecard.
There are some additional caveats (e.g. it's a beta, channels need to be flagged copy-freely), but some research down this avenue might be worth it.


Mitch

[tchapin]

Originally Posted by davephan

The recordings on one Tivo box have to be watched on a specific TV, not any TV in your house. Dave

Hey Dave,

TiVo introduced that feature a while ago... http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/161

Todd

[davephan]

It's good they have that feature. Maybe Tivo is a solution for someone that want something less complicated than SageTV. But you're stuck with a monthly fee for each and every set top Tivo box.

Dave