HDTV Support!

[mattsm]

Im just writing a message to RE-emphasize my desire for a supported HDTV card in SageTV. When will we see this? PLeeeasaee!

-Matthew

[Cayars]

The main issue now is that there aren't any cards that can capture from cable or Sat HDTV broadcasts, but only OTA.

[cassis6]

First I must say that SageTV has really made TV a whole more enjoyable. It has been very reliable and its customizability is unparalleled .

At this point, I just would like to know if there is any hope to see some HD card support in a reasonable future. MCE and MythTV have some support; BeyondTV has mentioned that they are working on it.

Several persons over on the AVS Forums mentioned that they are not using their HTPC as PVR but are using other PVRs instead such as HD-Tivos or PVRs from their cable company. Some others I still using HTPC as PVR but for HD-OTA mostly. Many of them would prefer to use their HTPC as their PVR but will not sacrifice HD recording or be content with just SD recording for shows they can watch in HD.
The point is that if SaveTV does not offer a solution (or a future roadmap), I am afraid that its appeal will diminish rapidly as more people buy HDTVs.

It is rather frustrating to experience HD live but not be able to record it with SageTV, specially for people like me that do not watch live TV except for sporting events.
At this point I would be happy with OTA support since most of the HD shows I would record would be available in OTA.

I think that the some official words would be more than welcome at this point .

[AndyS]

Originally Posted by Cayars

The main issue now is that there aren't any cards that can capture from cable or Sat HDTV broadcasts, but only OTA.

I guess this is a subjective thing. I have OTA HDTV via a MyHD card (soon to have timeshifting so it'll be a true PVR btw!) and I love it - I'd just prefer to have integration with Sage so that I can use a single front-end.

For me the main issue is not OTA, but the fact that my HD card isn't supported.

Andy.

[stanger89]

Have you voted in the poll?
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[mlbdude]

Originally Posted by AndyS

I guess this is a subjective thing. I have OTA HDTV via a MyHD card (soon to have timeshifting so it'll be a true PVR btw!) and I love it - I'd just prefer to have integration with Sage so that I can use a single front-end.

For me the main issue is not OTA, but the fact that my HD card isn't supported.

Andy.

It is not really a subjective thing as to what is better, it is a market thing. Frey has to spend dev time and hours then support the thing. When 80%+ of the market is using satellite or cable there is not that much return for them.

[cassis6]

Originally Posted by mlbdude

It is not really a subjective thing as to what is better, it is a market thing. Frey has to spend dev time and hours then support the thing. When 80%+ of the market is using satellite or cable there is not that much return for them.

But what is the feasibility/market value to support this 80%+ of the market?

• There seem to be a lot of issues with cable QAM support, even for unencrypted channels.

• Cable and satellite companies are offering PVR functionality themself.

[mlbdude]

Originally Posted by cassis6

But what is the feasibility/market value to support this 80%+ of the market?

• There seem to be a lot of issues with cable QAM support, even for unencrypted channels.

• Cable and satellite companies are offering PVR functionality themself.

I think that is why Frey is waiting .

[mattsm]

A lot of people like myself and waiting to buy an HDTV card that Sage supports. I dont want to go buy one only to find later Sage will support a different model. I do want everything integrated into one interface.

Also even if only 20% of the whole market is HDTV, I would be inclined to say people who already use Sage are much more inclined to buy an HDTV card.

Also as mentioned before and official statement is long overdue and I just want to know where everything is headed so I can switch away from Sage if HDTV won't be supported.

-Matthew

[mlbdude]

Also even if only 20% of the whole market is HDTV, I would be inclined to say people who already use Sage are much more inclined to buy an HDTV card.

20% (and falling) of the HDTV market is OTA. Not sure what % are using HDTV's yet. I know I am .

[edmc]

Cayars> The main issue now is that there aren't any cards that can capture
Cayars> from cable or Sat HDTV broadcasts, but only OTA.

While other posts in this thread point out that there is mixed success for cable tuning, suffice it to say that there definately are choices out there capable of tuning QAM-256 encoded HD-over-Cable.

Please do a search here and in AVS Forum for:

DViCo FusionHDTV 3 QAM (newest version is the QAM-T I think)

Sasem OnAir HDTV USB2

The DViCo product is a PCI card and in use by a large number of HTPC folks for both OTA and Cable reception. It is one of the cards w/out a H/W Decoder instead relying upon the CPU, S/W, and your Graphics Card's efforts to display the HD stream. This is EXACTLY the model for which SageTV is targeted (i.e. H/W encode, S/W decode).

If you want an external USB2 box option, the Sasem product has the equivalent functionality to the aforementioned DViCo product (again, H/W encode, S/W decode).

Some will correct me by pointing out that the HD streams are already encoded (in MPEG-2) when they get to the card/box. True enough, but both of these products also have Analog tuners and both include the MPEG-2 encoding capability for SD/Analog stations.

Personally, I use the Sasem product as the DViCo product was less able to tune the Comcast QAM-256 broadcasts at the time I was comparing them. Things may have changed. I note the Sasem's abilities have varied over time as Comcast is "evolving" their implementation.

Re the SD/Analog capabilities of these products. I can report that SageTV already has support for at least the Sasem box. Indeed, I would love to be able to use the Analog portion of this box to give me another tuner to help avoid Conflicts on Thursday nights :-). Alas, I've found that the Analog signal on my cable proves troublesome for all my tuners (e.g. TV, VCR, ReplayTV, Hauppauge PVR-250, DViCo F3Q, Sasem OnAir) and needs to be amplified to achieve satisfactory results - particularly on Ch. 2/FOX (a station I view more than the others). Unfortunately, amplifying the cable feed causes the QAM-256/HD portion of the Sasem to not "lock onto" most of the HD stations/channels available.

So, given that I have other means to view SD/Analog, I opt'd for no amplification on the Sasem feed and enjoy 7 HD stations currently.
No FOX-HD, though :-(.

But YMMV... Many folks have no unencrypted QAM-256 stations on their Cable - though I think the FCC is about to rule in favor of us and enforce the OTA broadcasts carried on HD Cable to be unencrypted. Still others have had lots of difficulties getting either DViCo or Sasem to work. Heck, my own experience shows how hit-and-miss this can be since only the Sasem box works fully for me.

As for SageTV support, my hope is that the BDA driver model will be a boon to SageTV in that it standardizes the API to all these tuner cards -and- includes HD OTA & Cable support, not just SD. Indeed, there are BDA drivers (beta) available for the DViCo product right now. I haven't been following the DViCo threads since the base product doesn't work for me, but I suppose a hot topic is these BDA drivers and DViCo functionality in MCE 2005 (which natively supports BDA already).

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by edmc

True enough, but both of these products also have Analog tuners and both include the MPEG-2 encoding capability for SD/Analog stations.

Only the Sasem has a Hardware MPEG encoder, if the Fusion can record MPEG it does so in software.

[Cayars]

Originally Posted by mattsm

A lot of people like myself and waiting to buy an HDTV card that Sage supports. I dont want to go buy one only to find later Sage will support a different model. I do want everything integrated into one interface.

Also even if only 20% of the whole market is HDTV, I would be inclined to say people who already use Sage are much more inclined to buy an HDTV card.

Also as mentioned before and official statement is long overdue and I just want to know where everything is headed so I can switch away from Sage if HDTV won't be supported.

-Matthew

I believe Frey has already given an official statement a while ago. If not I'm sure the "Un-Official" statement is that they need a vendor to produce a capture card that supports QAM before they will take on HDTV support.

I was just reading the other day in an HDTV report/story (wish I remember where) dated July/2004 that OTA broadcast reception is only 8% of the HDTV braodcast market and is falling fast. Cable and Sat HD broadcasts make up 92% of the market.

If you think about it, it really would be crazy for Frey to add OTA recordings when the majority of the market doesn't use it. How many present customers use OTA reception for SDTV? I bet it's less then 1% of the customer user base. We use Cable and Satellite. So until a hardware manufacturer comes out with a board that can record HDTV off of Cable or Satellite there really isn't much for Frey to do at this point. It's logistics.

[Cayars]

A couple of other replies made it in here before mine so I'll add to what I was saying. The Fusion card does not support hardware encoding.
Neither the Fusion or the Sasem OnAir support QAM for encrypted broadcasts. The Sasem only supports un-encrypted broadcasts.

With that said, a lot of areas do use un-encrypted broadcast for non-pay channels in HD on cable. So the OnAir product is probably the best card out there at the moment as far as SageTV is concerned especially since it's USB2 and sells for around $220.

I'm curious, in your cable or Sat market what HD channels ARE broadcast un-encrypted? Is it anymore then you would have OTA?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Cayars

I'm curious, in your cable or Sat market what HD channels ARE broadcast un-encrypted? Is it anymore then you would have OTA?

What's available unecrypted on sat? Basically nothing.
http://www.lyngsat.com/
On cable, it seems to vary widely, some get everything in the clear, some get nothing. It's almost certain that premium channels will be encrypted, but what remains to be seen is if the more "basic" channels will be clear or not.

[mattsm]

Would not adding support for OTA HDTV pave the way for support for added encrypted channels at a later date? I fail to see the logic in not adding HDTV support, since the market is going to switch over to HDTV eventually.

[edmc]

stanger89> Only the Sasem has a Hardware MPEG encoder, if the Fusion can record MPEG it does so in software.
Cayars> The Fusion card does not support hardware encoding.

Sorry - could of sworn... Oh, well - one more reason to choose Sasem over DViCo in my book :-)

Cayars> I'm curious, in your cable or Sat market what HD channels ARE broadcast un-encrypted?
stranger89> What's available unecrypted on sat? Basically nothing.

I think stranger89 is exactly right for Satellite - at least here in the Dish/DirecTV/Voom-dominated U.S. The situation in Europe is a bit different - plus they have support for the equivalent of CableCard to plug into an HTPC for DVB.

As for Cable, I would suggest looking on the AVS HDTV Reception and HD Recording Forums. YMMV judging by the various posts.

Here in Pleasanton, CA, I currently get:

D79.1 CBS-HD
D79.2 HDNet

D105.2 FSN-HD (when it preempts the encrypted InHD2)

D115.1 HBO-HD (obviously an oversight of Comcast)

D116.1 NBC-HD
D116.2 ESPN-HD

D117.1 ABC-HD
D117.2 PBS-HD (at times, other times I get a number of SDs replacing PBS-HD)

I think the real problem is I can't know for sure how any of these will last (particularly HBO-HD of course). There is still the outstanding FCC ruling which may (hopefully) ensure the OTA re-broadcasts will be required to be unencrypted - but that decision is still outstanding. OTA, of course, can never be encrypted (though the Broadcast Flag is allowable and "some" OTA tuners may honor it in the future).

[korben_dallas]

I don't know a single person who has a Hi Def TV, in my group of friends or my family. I know two older men who both have large plasma screen tv's, but not HD. My uncle has Dish with PVR, but I am the only one (and the youngest) with PC PVR.

The point is that there are still many people who don't have HDTV's let alone have PVR capability on their standard TV setup. I think it will be 3-5 years before HDTV is mainstream, right around the same time blue ray or HD-DVD will become prominent.

So why should Sage offer support for a very miniscule HD audience?

[mattsm]

Korben:

The person who builds a computer to use Sage TV with and hooks it upto their TV is much more likely to have an HDTV than the average person in anyones family IMHO.

[edmc]

Yeah, what mattsm said :-)

Actually, in my case, it is HD which is actually THE REASON I have an HTPC. SageTV is great, but my wife would actually prefer a less functional, more useable PVR (e.g. she's quite comfortable with the limited capabilies of my ReplayTV).

For me, I am much more interested in Video and Audio quality. Having an HTPC presents many opportunities to "process" the stream not available via other PVR alternatives. The improvement for both is dramatic over ReplayTV or just direct tuning in my TV.

And, of course, HD Cable with PVR capability is *STILL* not available to us here in Pleasanton. But the word is Comcast is rolling out their Microsoft-based/Motorola 6412 dual-tuner DVRs on Nov. 30th. My HTPC days, for other than DVD playback, may be numbered...