Posted by Smarty on 02/19/07 01:24

Looks like we are both approaching the home TV solution with similar
approaches. I never tried to do a totally "home brew" solution, and have no
real desire to write VB scripts, HTML, etc. The Sage solution has just
sorta' "grown on me" in the sense that I have gradually kept adding more
clients # $99 as each family member complained that they wanted to watch it
in the kitchen, bedrooms, exercise room, etc. I will be adding HD capture
and playback here also in the near future and am still not sure if I want to
devote a second server to HDTV or put another card in the already crowded
SDTV box and risk overheating it.


I think this way of doing home TV is totally superb, and would never be
happy with a TiVo. I especially like the fact that Sage has codecs which
directly encode into formats I can take on the road and use portable or into
formats which make beautiful DVDs without any further transcoding in just 6
or 7 minutes to burn the disk.

Smarty
"Bill's News" <billsnews@pcmagic.net> wrote in message
news:45d8aafb$1_5@newsfeed.slurp.net...
>
> "Smarty" <nobody@nobody.com> wrote in message
> news:sJWdnbvW8tsfQErYnZ2dnUVZ_r-onZ2d@adelphia.com...
>> Glad to. The PVR cards I use are PVR-150 and I have 2 installed. They
>> have released a newer version of the PVR card which is the PVR-250. The
>> playback units in some of my rooms are also Hauppauge Media Extenders.
>> They make a wired version for $99 and a wireless version for about $139/
>>
>> SageTV from FreyTechnologies is the software. The recording PVR software
>> is called SageTV Server and is around $60 or $70. The client software, if
>> you decide to use another PC as a client is Called SageTV Client for $29.
>>
>> The Hauppauge Media Extender mentioned above can be purchased directly
>> from Frey Technologies with a Sage client license for $99.
>>
>> The electronic program guide is free, and very much like the TiVo. It
>> also has current weather info for your local area. The Sage software is a
>> way better and much more comprehensive product than TiVO, and allows me
>> to view and select all of my music, photos, DVDs, and 2 terabytes (2000
>> GB) of video from any of the 6 TV's / monitors in my house.
>>
>> Hope this helps and answers your question.
>>
>
> Nice set up, Smarty! However, I felt constrained by this some years ago,
> even though SDTV was all that I could then display. I opted for PCs
> connected to TVs (most ever were three) because of all the features
> provided by the PC - superior video player software (most of it free) and
> local user functionality, of course including internet access.
>
> What I was recently pleased to discover was that, when I finally got
> around to HDTV capture, nothing else changed. The same edit software
> handles the data and the same player software handles wired/wireless
> transmission of HDTV programs with the same ease as SDTV. If the TV is
> SD, the picture is somewhat better, albeit letterbox. If the TV is HD
> then the image is exactly as transmitted originally. The 3 TVs are
> connected to their PCs via component, VGA, or DVI.
>
> So my little system is also "server" based, in that two PCs (one does HDTV
> capture, while the other does SDTV capture, separated because of software
> conflicts between the chosen vendors) provide wired playback to each other
> and the third PC receives wirelessly from either.
>
> I've not found it necessary to implement "Sage" or any other like it - I
> tried it years ago and didn't like it but can't recall why, so that's an
> unfair slur on my part.
>
> TitanTV, a customizable Guide, also interfaces to the schedulers provided
> by many PVRs - including both that I'm using. Sadly, the Hauppauge
> scheduler is not user-friendly and something like Sage is a big
> improvement over it (may have something to do with Hauppauge's catering to
> OEMs like Sage). The TitanTV site also has an OK "favorites" section but
> it only supports hits in the next 48 hours (they do support themselves
> with advertising, so it's somewhat understandable that they want to
> increase visits). It was not too difficult to write a VB program to fetch
> the favorites compilation and organize it somewhat more to my liking than
> Titan has. And, one nice thing about web based info is that HTML filters
> almost entirely eliminate the undesirable portions of such pages!
>
> Add to this "The Futon Critic" a great site for what's new in future prime
> time - worth a monthly visit to see what might be of interest in coming
> months. I've scheduled programs predicted by TFC months in advance and
> most recorded as planned (NBC is unpredictable as they try desperately and
> ineffectively to dig themselves out of their last place hole - hell they
> cancel shows at the twitch of an eyebrow of right-wing, red state,
> red-neck viewers;-0). But I digress.
>
> My system is perhaps more techie to schedule but certainly not to set up
> nor run - truly plug-n-play, if one is networking PCs anyway. Hell, using
> wireless keyboards, even female visitors can select a recording from the
> network and play it on the TV they're looking at'-0) Sorry ladies, I
> could not resist! I'm recommending three failed Marys to a four hour
> father as a penance.
>
>

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