Help selecting system to work with DirecTV (multiple tuners) (1 Viewer)

[Hesse]

I currently have a Hauppauge PVR-500 and analog cable TV. I'm looking to ditch cable and go with satellite TV (DirecTV). However, I have a few questions about how this would work in general and how it would work in MP.

In MP with the PVR-500, I can record two channels at one time since the card has two tuners which are run off of the split RF input signal. I like this feature so that I can watch one show while another is recording or whatever.

However, if I go with satellite, it seems I will lose this feature with the PVR-500 card. I suppose that I could go with two PVR-150s or something to get back recording two channels. So here are some of my questions:

1) How do people connect from the satellite box to the capture card? Do you guys use the standard coax, Svideo, or composite?

2) Is there a DirecTV receiver that has multiple tuners that isn't a TiVo receiver? I really don't want a Tivo receiver because MP will be my PVR, but I would like to have access to two separate receivers. From the little I've looked, only the receivers with Tivo have two tuners and I don't even know if they have outputs for the two receivers. I suppose that I could just have two satellite boxes, but that seems a bit overkill if there exists a box that has two receivers already.

2a) Can MP address two different receivers?

3) HD programming. Is it possible to PVR any of the HD programming and what connections would be needed?

Thanks for any advice.

Regards,

Jesse

 

[neognat]

I have the same setup with the PVR-500 and I just transitioned from cable to DirecTV. As far as I know, there isn't a very good solution just yet, but I expect to see some good things happening in the near future.

The PVR-500 is still a dual-receiver card and two 150 aren't the answer. You cannot use a splitter as you did with cable, for a lot of reasons. What you need are two set top boxes (STBs). Each of which feeds each of the PVR-500 analog receivers. And yes, you have to pay the monthly lease for each box.

I'm just using one of the PVR-500's receivers with one STB. It's an HD box which complicates things a bit more. The digital signal from your satellite has to be converted to analog to work with either the 500 or 150 cards. (I have a 150 in another computer, so I'm familiar with that one too.)

What I'm looking for is a PCI card from DirecTV for our media computers. I don't know if they'll do it, but I write a message to DirecTV's development team as often as I think about it. Another possibility might be an HDMI input into the media computer (which the HD STBs support) and some method of controlling the STB, again, from the media computer. I am using an IR emitter taped to my STB that allows control of the box, but that seems like a stupid way to do it when we have all kinds of data ports on the back of both the STB and the computer.

I must confess that my experience to date is with Windows MCE. That's left me wanting however, so I'm thinking hard about media portal. I think for both, however, the challenge is quite similar: Get the digital signal from the satellite to the computer and get the computer to control access to the digital content.

Perhaps as I read more about Media Portal I'll find that they're further along than MCE is in terms of making us happy.

 

[Hesse]

I have the same setup with the PVR-500 and I just transitioned from cable to DirecTV. As far as I know, there isn't a very good solution just yet, but I expect to see some good things happening in the near future.

The PVR-500 is still a dual-receiver card and two 150 aren't the answer. You cannot use a splitter as you did with cable, for a lot of reasons. What you need are two set top boxes (STBs). Each of which feeds each of the PVR-500 analog receivers. And yes, you have to pay the monthly lease for each box.

Thanks for the reply neognat. You know the PVR-500 only has one Cable input and one FM Antenna input. It has an internal splitter which splits the cable input to the two tuners, so I don't see how this card could work with satellite TV, but maybe you know.

I was thinking about hacking into it and removing the splitter and just routing the antenna port to the second tuner so that it could be a true two tuner card. But I don't want to do that until I have a backup plan .

Jesse

 

[Hesse]

Nvidia Dual MCE Card

I just found the Nvidia dual MCE card which has a similar coaxial RF connection to the PVR-500 (one port, internal splitter), but from the block diagram and user's manual it shows that it has two independent S-video inputs which the PVR-500 does not have. Therefore, this card should allow to STBs to be connected through S-video.

But there must be a STB that has two receivers (mutiroom receiver) that isn't the Tivo version so that you don't have to pay for multiple STB?

 

[neognat]

Hi Hesse,

My approach was to forget about the tuners in the PVR-500 because that function is taken over by the STB. An analog tuner can't do much with a digital input anyway. The goal, therefore, is to get the signal (what ever the tuned channel) from the STB to the MP box. There are different methods depending on the STB and the card(s) in your computer. The PVR-500 has one back panel composite/s-video plus stereo audio inputs to connect to cable or satellite set top boxes and two on-board A/V headers that provide additional inputs using a card slot opening. The STB would connect directly to one of these inputs. The only problem is that none are better than S-Video or composite (if I recall correctly). On another computer, I have a PVR-150 connected to a good quality VCR that I use to convert VHS tapes to digital formats. It has no connection to the cable or satellite. The signal is directly to the additional (non-tuner) inputs on the PVR-150. It works fine, now that I've found decent software to capture the input.

I am really hoping that DirecTV will either provide, or allow others to provide, a PCI card for my computer that will completely replace the STB. That seems to be the best solution. This would remove the rather artificial barriers to enabling our MP systems to communicate with our satellite, just as STB receivers do now. What if we all sent a message to DirecTV asking for them to provide such a product? It might help.

If they can't do that, I would be interested in one or more connections between the STB and the computer that would handle both the data stream and channel changing, and maybe even be able to turn the box on and off. A firewire connection could probably do this. HDMI with USB could too. Heck an Ethernet cross-over cable might come close.

I hope I'm not dreaming. Time will tell.

neognat

 

[Hesse]

neognat

Yes, that is pretty much what I was thinking: use the Svideo connection. There are a couple of plugins available on this website called DirecTVTune and something similar. I can get a link if you need it.

It is capable of controlling the STB via the serial port. Some of the newer STBs come with USB ports, but I do not think this plugin works with that, but I saw a commandline utility that does when I did a google search. So, bottom line, it should be very possible to have full control of the STB from within MP.

Jesse

 

[natrlhy]

II am using an IR emitter taped to my STB that allows control of the box, but that seems like a stupid way to do it when we have all kinds of data ports on the back of both the STB and the computer.

Hi neognat,

What plugin or application are you using ATM to control channel changing with via IR? I currently have an NVIDIA DualTV w/MCE remote and IR transmitter. I am troubleshooting the current DirecTV serial plugins with the code writers but I would like to get IR working. What did you do to get this working with your setup?

Many thanks!

 

[Hesse]

Hi neognat,

What plugin or application are you using ATM to control channel changing with via IR? I currently have an NVIDIA DualTV w/MCE remote and IR transmitter. I am troubleshooting the current DirecTV serial plugins with the code writers but I would like to get IR working. What did you do to get this working with your setup?

Many thanks!

How do you like the NVIDIA card? Do you just have a single box that you are controlling? I'm curious as to what feedback you have for your experience with this card and MP.

Jesse

 

[natrlhy]

Hi Jesse,

The card is great! The card worked out of the box with MP. I had installed the latest NVIDIA drivers for the card before even installing MP.

Pictrue quality is excellent to me (first HTPC so nothing to compare to).

I got the DualTV card w/remote so it comes with absolutely everthing you need.

A review of it is here

I only have one DirecTV receiver connected to the SVID1 port ATM. No plans to attach another any time soon.

Not much more to say. Great picture quality, single PCI card that can accept two S-Video inputs, FM... I'm very happy with the NVIDIA DualTV

 

[Hesse]

natrlhy,

Thanks for the info! I will probably be getting one shortly after my satellite is setup. From the review the DualTV handles sports and fast motion scenes better which the PVR500 does OK, but for fast pans you can really see the blockiness.

Jesse