SageTV w/Comcast Extender Box

[jaydub]

I currently have DirecTV, with one STB in my living room and one STB in my bedroom, the later of which I use in conjunction with SageTV. Works Great. I'm switching to Comcast, and instead of shipping me two STB's, I received one STB and another small box I'm supposed to use in place of a second STB. I had planned on installing the Comcast STB in the living room which would relegate the small box to my bedroom. Only problem is that the small box doesn't have an IR receiver window (at least I can't see any) and so I'm perplexed as to what I'm supposed to do with the IR blaster coming from my PC that I previously had taped to the IR window on the STB in my bedroom. I guess I could install the STB in my bedroom for purposes of IR blaster and use the extender box in the living room, which doesn't need the IR blaster. Has anyone run into this issue?

[wayner]

You likely have the Comcast Xfinity system where there is one main box and the other boxes are pretty much dumb, extenders, not unlike SageTV extenders.

What is the model number of the Comcast box? And how do you hook it up to your SageTV PC to capture video? Via component cables (red/green/blue) to a Hauppauge HD-PVR? Or are you still on low def?

I hate to say this but you might even want to consider moving to Comcast's system, especially if 4K is in your present or future.

[wayner]

By the way, it is possible that your box might use Bluetooth instead of, or in addition to, IR.

[trk2]

Comcast is really good with cable card. All channels are flagged copy free except premium channels. The first cable card is included with no rental fee. I would consider getting a HDHomeRun tuner connected to Sage with OpenDCT. It's by far the best quality and reliability you're going to get with SageTV, a huge improvement from capturing from a STB.

[KeithAbbott]

For cable card, you would need an HDHomeRun Prime. They are no longer manufactured, but I’m sure you could pick one up on eBay. Another benefit, with one cable card you would have access to three tuners.

[wayner]

Has there been any talk of getting rid of legacy cable with Comcast? I have to think that sooner or later they will want everyone on IPTV rather than on legacy cable. Is it possible that they force new customers to get IPTV? It sure sounds like the OP has Xfinity IPTV.

One additional problem with getting IPTV is that the client boxes sit on your LAN so that makes it trickier to use your own router with your own LAN config, especially if the boxes are connecting via wifi.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by wayner

Has there been any talk of getting rid of legacy cable with Comcast? I have to think that sooner or later they will want everyone on IPTV rather than on legacy cable. Is it possible that they force new customers to get IPTV? It sure sounds like the OP has Xfinity IPTV.

One additional problem with getting IPTV is that the client boxes sit on your LAN so that makes it trickier to use your own router with your own LAN config, especially if the boxes are connecting via wifi.

I haven’t heard anything about Comcast switching to iptv, and don’t think that’s what the op has. Comcast has several different types of boxes. Their simplest cheapest box is sometimes called a dta. The older ones only supported SD content and just had one output (coax). The newer ones support HD and have an hdmi output, but they still don’t let you get premium channels. They often will provide these boxes for free on your first couple TVs, or they rent them at a much lower charge than their bigger boxes.

[wayner]

That's pretty much the same as Rogers cable here in Canada, and they have licensed Comcast's Xfinity system and calling it Ignite TV. And the also had the DTA adapter that had RF mods to allow you to get digital cable onto a regular TV on channel 3. And then they had the SD and HD cable boxes of various vintages.

But I have to think that they don't want to have a mixed network of IPTV and legacy cable and they will be getting rid of the legacy cable. It must be more expensive to have to maintain multiple systems and the legacy cable uses lots of bandwidth which could be repurposed. Plus they have to maintain an inventory of several different types of boxes.

[NetworkGuy]

Originally Posted by KeithAbbott

For cable card, you would need an HDHomeRun Prime. They are no longer manufactured, but I’m sure you could pick one up on eBay.

When did that happen?

[KeithAbbott]

Originally Posted by NetworkGuy

When did that happen?

Shortly after SiliconDust announced plans to sell a six-tuner version of the HDHR Prime. Unfortunately, the six-tuner version never materialized, and probably never will.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by KeithAbbott

Shortly after SiliconDust announced plans to sell a six-tuner version of the HDHR Prime. Unfortunately, the six-tuner version never materialized, and probably never will.

Yeah, I remember hearing about a 6tuner Prime that kept getting delayed, but had no idea that the old 3tuner Prime had been discontinued. After I saw your post yesterday, I searched around and it looks like eBay is one of the only sources left (used of course). I couldn’t find anything about their discontinuation in the SD forums, but there sure was a lot of talk about the (now 2year delayed) Prime6. There are recent posts from SD staff about it still being in active development, but no other details about even a possible release date. There was something about one of the components they were planning to use having been discontinued late in the development process and having to start over with the design. I wonder if that same discontinued component was used in the older Prime3 too? It might explain why they aren’t still selling that while they work on the Prime6.

[KeithAbbott]

Originally Posted by Tiki

I couldn’t find anything about their discontinuation in the SD forums, but there sure was a lot of talk about the (now 2year delayed) Prime6. There are recent posts from SD staff about it still being in active development, but no other details about even a possible release date.

At best, SD currently has a static HDHR Prime user base. Realistically, they have probably lost Prime users over the past two years because those users have moved on to different solutions (streaming, etc.). So the thought that sometime in 2020 or 2021, they are suddenly going to be selling a 6-tuner Prime for more money than the original Prime, and that there will be a solid base of customers willing to pay the extra money for it, I guess I'm just not seeing it. I think they would need a new, compelling feature to generate enough excitement for people to go out and buy it.

[wayner]

Is CableCARD used for IPTV systems? If not then it is a dead end technology that will disappear in a few years, just like analog cable and analog OTA have pretty much disappeared.

Therefore it isn't surprising that SD killed this product.

Let's think of this another way - is there any way to capture the IPTV stream coming from system's like Comcast's Xfinity? In theory this should be possible, but there may be encryption, authentication, etc that makes this difficult. But shouldn't stuff like OpenDCT be able to capture the IPTV stream?

I believe that the way these systems work is that there is one main box that acts as the server. This box does all of the heavy lifting, initiates the stream on the head end of the cable companies' servers and then sends out IPTV network streams on your LAN to a smaller STB - or even an app on Roku/Android TV/Fire TV.

So forget about CableCARD - How can we initiate and capture those streams using SageTV?

[trk2]

Sorry, I think much of this thread is drifting into conjecture. Cable card for xfinity is the best method for using SageTV period. It's the best quality, you'll get 5.1 audio and embedded captions. It's the most reliable for channel changes, live tv etc... There is really no downside to cable card except if you also need to capture premium channels. And it's free without a monthly rental fee. Comcast has not announced plans to move away from traditional cable, so please stop with the fear mongering or speculation on what might be possible. There is a robust and workable solution presently available that also allows for the best quality capture currently possible. That's what we should be recommending.

[jaydub]

My original post should have been posted in the Hardware Support forum. Sorry about that. So, I've re-posted there. Thanks.