Best Hardware Solution for 2012

[newyankee]

I've been lurking here since 2008, a happy sage user, but now I need to ask for help from the more experienced members.

Currently my system is a couple of old DirecTV receivers fed into Hauppauge 1800 cards (with serial channel control). All would be well, but DirecTV says that they will stop supporting my receivers this year. @#$^$&!!

DirecTV, Dish, or Comcast is an option, and a plain old SVHS SD signal is all I need with reliable means to change the channel. Local OTA HD signal is fine here, and mainly just want to stay connected to the cable news outlets.

I could go with comcast and a Ceton card, but if there is a simple modern DirecTV/ Dish receiver solution with reliable channel control, I would like to know the details.

As I read this forum, I see various solutions of importing HD into sage, but with some stability issues.

So thanks for any advice for modern solutions. Mainly interested in stability and reliable channel control. HD is OK, but SD is just fine for news, cost is not an issue.

Thanks in advance.

[panteragstk]

With directv you can use an hd-pvr or colossus to capture HD video over component or HDMI. Channel changing works great through HTTP. It all depends on your equipment.

Comcast with cablecard would also be good, but I don't have any experience as far as that goes.

[newyankee]

Thanks panteragstk,
I'm familiar with the PC input options given years of lurking around here. What I need to know is more about the DirecTV receiver options and how to communicate with them to change channels. Any direction in this area would be appreciated.
Thanks

[jchiso]

Current DirecTV receivers are equipped with ethernet ports, through which you can send commands for channel changes or any other funtion you could initiate via the remote ...

[phelme]

OK, best answer is, move to Kansas city and get Google Fiber (which has just been announced *is* SageTV on steroids).

If that isn't an option ... I control two DirecTV receivers, one is directly connected to the SageTV server and I use the Paterson serial device for channel changing (but unfortunately I see they no longer make it ). Works great. The 2nd receiver is in another room and is running off a SageTV network encoder on a separate PC, controlled by a USB-UIRT blaster. It also works great. There is a gigabit Ethernet network between them and they share the same channel listings. HD-PVR's do the capturing on both.

[newyankee]

@phelme
Hey, I live a few miles away for Google's HQ, you would thing there might be fiber here, but noooooo.

Looks like there might be light at the end of the tunnel, thanks all.

I'll be back when I get a new receiver, looking toward the Ethernet port option.