Sage, decoders, FFDSHow

[Mike]

When looking to setup my second HTPC, I was looking at Sage and was trying to see if it needed a decoder. On that front it seems to assume a decoder comes with the Tuner card. From prior experiences (using a Hauppauge 150MCE) I needed to get the nVidia decoder for MCE.

Now I was also looking at getting TheaterTek, which seems to come with modified versions of the nVidia decoders.

I then came across FFDSHOW which seems to be a open source decoder, with special post processing functionality. Now I am assuming it will not work with MCE, but will it work with Sage? Also, any thoughts on the post processing piece?

Now I believe I will be getting TheaterTek and playing with CQC, so (since I will have a decoder already) part of this is understanding where the open source decoder can be used, and will the post processing pieces be something I want to look at further (which might be limited by the above).

Any experience out there with this?

 

[Mike]

Ok in case anyone is interested:

1. The decoder in TheaterTek works fine for MCE
2. The decoder in TheaterTek works fine for Sage
3. To disable MCE, shut down the media center services, and kill eh* tasks.
4. If you are using two tuners, in MCE, they both must be configured identically. I was trying to use one s-video input from a hd box and one coax input, and it is not supported.
5. There seems to be some problems with guides for MCE for certain channels. I missed this originally as I had most of the programs record from their hd equivalent.

I'm demoing sage right now. We will see if it passes inspection and makes it past the wife. The dual tuner is real nice.

Trying to see how I can link in the media now. Did the pictures so far, looking at the other stuff.

 

[IVB]

Sorry, didn't even notice this post. Must have been the heat, we're melting out west.

FYI: I did the following in SageStudio in about 60 minutes including the time to learn the bare essentials of SageStudio needed[changed the menu to how I think, changed the color to mimic the rest of my skins, changed the top bar].

If she doesn't like the look&feel, that's easily changeable.

Of course, I'm eagerly anticipating the day I can throw away that skin and use CQC natively, but that day is still many days away.

 

[Mike]

Hmm, that is right. I forgot about the skinning. There are even skins to make it look like MCE, so if I get a lot of negative feedback perhaps I will look at that.

This whole exercise is in preparation for the same thing (CQC) and my eventual immersion into that. Still need to spend more time on the IR bit but I did get the new HTPC up, with sage and theatertek so that is a start.

 

[Treetop]

Regarding FFDShow and Sage...

http://www.htpcnews.com/forums/index.php?s...2115&hl=ffdshow

If you are interested in setting it up for DVD playback, here is a great guide to help get you started... http://www.htpcnews.com/index.php?option=c...d=132&Itemid=48

 

[Mike]

Thank you. This is quite helpful.