Comcast changes coming using it with SageTV

[jwilson56]

Well I got a letter today from Comcast about them shutting off most analog channels above 30 which will require people to switch to a cable box or one of their digital converter boxes. As I have been using a PVR-500 with basic cable I will have to decide what to do. One thought is to use the simple converter boxes in front of the PVR-500 and have SageTV use my MCE blaster to tune in the channels.

Another would be to spend the money and upgrade to HD as I do have a 56" Samsung TV. Currently I use a HDHomerun to grab the HD local channels and from what I know this will continue to work.

I wouldn't mind hearing what other SageTV users are doing in their setups so I can be sure I have not missed anything new.

Thanks

 

[IVB]

I went to all HD a few months back. I had concurrent SD & HD for a while, but it got really depressing when my show would tape in SD just so we could have an HD version of whatever HGTV crap my wife recorded.

I only have a single HD D* tuner putting into an Hauppauge HD-PVR, but 3 HD OTA. There's almost never more than a single non-network channel I want to tape anyhow.

 

[ddennerline]

I use BeyondTV which has similar capabilities and hardware support as SageTV. Comcast has been moving SD/NTSC channels in Atlanta for over six months. In some cases, the channel was moved to a ClearQAM (digital) channel. I suspect that vast majority of analog channels have been migrated. Currently, I have a Motorola DCH3200 and pay the extra $5.95 for HD channels. I change the channels using Firewire and BTV FW plugin. I use Hauppauge HD PVR to record Encrypted QAM. I also use an ATI TheaterPro 650 card to record/watch ClearQAM channels.

The only problem I have is with the Hauppage HD-PVR hardware; it’s unreliable and requires reboots. If you google, “Hauppauge HD PVR lockup,†you will find lots of other people with similar problems. I have rev D1. They are selling rev E1 boxes now. There is a three year warranty, but this is hardly comforting when the show you wanted to watch was chopped due hang.

In order to use the Hauppage HD PVR, you will need a at least a dual core processor and a video card/GPU that has H.264 offload capabilities.

 

[jwilson56]

Well I have also contemplated going with Dish or DirecttV for HD so looking for people that have that setup with SageTV also

 

[IVB]

Sorry, D* means DirecTV, that's what i've used for 6ish years with SageTV. Works fine. My HD-PVR is also fine, no idea what rev. I need to do a reboot perhaps once every 4-6 months, but that's not too hard to do.

 

[broconne]

... you will need a at least a dual core processor and a video card/GPU that has H.264 offload capabilities.

Is that for local playback? AFAIK, the HDPVR does the encoding to H.264 itself. And if you are going the extender route the GPU shouldn't matter.

 

[Waynedb]

Well I have also contemplated going with Dish or DirecttV for HD so looking for people that have that setup with SageTV also

If you go with Dish you can get a R5000HD mod on some receivers, it lets you record the original stream without re-encoding.
http://www.nextcomwireless.com/R5000/home.htm