SageTV HD Media Extender Info pics+price

[CollinR]

SageTV has released some more information about the new HD extenders!

Pics:
Picture thread.

Pricing:
$199 USD - Including server seat license

Pricing thread.

Target availablity date:
12/10/2007

Enjoy!

 

[IVB]

Schawing!

Now if it's similarly externally controllable (beelzerob, hint hint), this would be huge!

 

[upstatemike]

I think this is the wave of the future for me but do they really support 1080p? And any word on when there will be a reasonable solution for DirecTV and Cablecard?

 

[CollinR]

Schawing!

Now if it's similarly externally controllable (beelzerob, hint hint), this would be huge!

I assume it will be as far as I understand it will actually use a conventional license seat. As such it will appear in the API as an MVP does by MAC however the transcoding will be turned off for 99% of the AV formats in use. B) I really think Rob won't have to do anything, you get one and add it's MAC and it'll probably work.

 

[CollinR]

I think this is the wave of the future for me but do they really support 1080p? And any word on when there will be a reasonable solution for DirecTV and Cablecard?

Cablecard is probably pretty far off, that hardware/firmware/software is almost specifically designed to only operate with Windows Vista Media Center. As long as MS has the power they do thats how it will stay.

DirectTV has the R5000HD option as does Dish Network. As I understand this works well with the complex Dish streams in Beta.

You can also now buy component capture cards but they are expensive and will probably be useless soon so I wouldn't suggest getting one.

 

[beelzerob]

Schawing!

Now if it's similarly externally controllable (beelzerob, hint hint), this would be huge!

I assume it will be as far as I understand it will actually use a conventional license seat. As such it will appear in the API as an MVP does by MAC however the transcoding will be turned off for 99% of the AV formats in use. B) I really think Rob won't have to do anything, you get one and add it's MAC and it'll probably work. B)

I'd better hurry up and break my driver so it won't automatically work with this thing...otherwise IVB won't be in desperate need of my services again.

I'd be shocked if Sage would release something that didn't work like everything else they have...and so there's a good chance Collin is right, it should work immediately, as long as you use the 1.72+ driver.

Probably in the next few months (when we move into our new house) I'm going to have to revisit HD and media players. Where we moved from, I was just recording SD off a DirecTV STB and recording OTA HD. However, where we're going, I don't have great optimism that we'll be able to pick up the few OTA HD stations, and I'd rather not do DirecTV again, so that means Atlantic Broadband. So in a few months, expect me to post asking what my HD recording and playback options are, because I've been out of the loop for a while.

 

[Steve]

I think this is the wave of the future for me but do they really support 1080p? And any word on when there will be a reasonable solution for DirecTV and Cablecard?

The only thing holding me back from a Sage w/extender solution is the lack of a DirecTV tuner card. My understanding from talking to someone at Ehx who builds custom MCE boxes (albeit he was pretty toasted) is that we will see these cards in January. The thought is they are going to be locked to MCE, but hackable. I am holding out till then to see what becomes of that. Short of those I just don't think Sage is a good solution for DirecTV.

 

[CollinR]

I had heard DTV had attempted an ethernet based solution but has since scrapped it. Ethernet is better then a PCI card by far! You can have 50 of them if you wish.

 

[IVB]

Short of (cablecard stuff snipped) I just don't think Sage is a good solution for DirecTV.

Sorry, not clueing into why - is that b/c of the inability to record non-network hi-def?

I got DirecTV specifically b/c of the availability of serial-controllable tuners, and SageTV's ability to control them. Infinitely superior to IR, the only hassle is I can't record SciFi-HD/USA-HD (and hence I don't subscribe). SageTV does just fine with network HD via OTA antenna.

Of course, there is no solution for recording HD except a Tivo-HD, so it's not like Sage is worse than anyone else.

 

[Steve]

Yea, I guess it comes down to the HD thru DirecTV. If I am going to redo my whole system and spend the $ and time on Sage, I would want it to be a complete solution. Yes, I do get the major networks on OTA HD, but like you said, if I want to record other HD content (and there is alot coming) I need to be able to record it from D*. A HD DVR, like an HR20 is an option but then you get into centralization, matrix switches, etc to have it available. So I guess to make it a complete solution I need a D* tuner card that will work in Sage at least for the HD content, but still it would be nice to just have a few of them for all content and eliminate separate receivers, etc.

On a related note, there is one thing that kills me about DirectDVR/Tivo that I'm wondering about Sage. If I have a season pass for a particular show, say it records Sunday at 10PM. Many times a football game will run long and push back other programming, up to an hour sometimes. I have missed more than one show because D* guide doesn't update and I wind up recording the show previous to the one I want. So, how does the guide work in Sage? Is it updated more realtime so changes/delays in programming will be reflected? It just kills me when you are following a series and one in the middle is missed, and it is not duplicated anywhere else.

 

[IVB]

WOOHOO!

Opus of SageTV fame just confirmed that the HD-extender connects like the SD-MVP extender, which means CQC can bidirectionally monitor & control this *out of the box* with Beelzerob's driver!!!

Or, to put in other words, any price advantage any other software package had over CQC has now been more than eliminated by folks looking for multi-zone HD-video solutions as there is no need to build multiple PCs (CQC is currently the only package with a Sage TCP driver). Hell, if all you have is ripped DVDs, you don't even need a video switcher anymore, you can just get one of these for each zone.

 

[upstatemike]

This is the part that always gets me confused. I understand that there are no DirecTV cards and that you can get a super expensive hacker modified DVR that works with DirecTV and Sage, but why can't you just have an HD DirecTV receiver that is controlled serially feed 1080p into a component or HDMI input on a Sage server? It seems like this would be much simpler than waiting for DirecTV to license a TV card or adapter or whatever.

I would like this type of solution better anyway because then if I get mad at DirecTV I can swap their box for a digital cable box that puts out 1080p and everything else stays the same. I don't relly like the idea of moving proprietary stuff into the main server. Let everything talk a common HD video language of HDMI or whatever and let the proprietary part stay isolated in separate, easily replaced, isolated tuner boxes.

 

[Steve]

but why can't you just have an HD DirecTV receiver that is controlled serially feed 1080p into a component or HDMI input on a Sage server? It seems like this would be much simpler than waiting for DirecTV to license a TV card or adapter or whatever.es.

When I asked about that I was told there was not such animal (a Sage supported card that had an HDMI or even component inputs). That would also work for me if it existed and the quality was there.

 

[IVB]

This is the part that always gets me confused. I understand that there are no DirecTV cards and that you can get a super expensive hacker modified DVR that works with DirecTV and Sage, but why can't you just have an HD DirecTV receiver that is controlled serially feed 1080p into a component or HDMI input on a Sage server? It seems like this would be much simpler than waiting for DirecTV to license a TV card or adapter or whatever.

This information is admittedly 12 months old (I checked last before the last Sopranos season started), but I was led to believe that there were no component inputs possible on a PC as the PCI bus was too slow. I don't know about PCIe, and whether there are component input cards available.

I doubt HDMI cards would ever be out as they whole point is to enforce DRM, and the second it drops onto a PC you lose the ability to control that. I don't think Vista is solving this issue yet, but there's still the bandwidth issue to work out.

 

[Steve]

Hmmm, a quick Google turned this up. I guess the trick would be to get Sage to support it?

Edit: I guess its only 720p/1080i, but its a start... although 1080i would probably be fine for me.