Getting ready for BTV

[mhunterdts]

So I actually have permission (not that I need it - oh wait who am I kidding of course I need it) from the wife, but I want to make sure I don't screw it up... She keeps nagging me to get tivo, but I want so much more than that. I have a few questions to see if BTV is ready?


1) QAM (cable TV) - so reading the forums it seems that BTV supports HDHR (only). So this means that qam channels will just show up in the listing guide like all the other regular channels. How does channel mapping work. (my wife gets confused that even though NBC is on channel 3, the hd channel for NBC is 11.1) Is this something that you can manually adjust?

2) quantity of tuners - is there a limit? I'm thinking of 1 or maybe 2 HDHRs (so 2 -4 tuners) plus a regular NTSC dual tuner. That would be 6 tuners. In the program guide the programs from different sources are combined into one listing (see I'm really worried about this).

3) Are the other functions very much like tivo (season pass - one command to record the entire season of shows?)

4) Once I have the programs on the HD, how to ship it to other TVs (not computers) in the house over Ethernet?

5) What kind of computer do I need to have (horse power) to do all this? Which OS, XP or vista.

6) system standby, does this really work. I'm not sure I want to leave my pc on 24 hours a day.

7) Does it work well. If you had to do it again, would you?

8) What am I forgetting?

[queonda]

1) Channels start at the 1000 range depending how you make the major and minor numbers. You will only be able to record unencrypted channels

2) Yes, you have a combined listing. I seen people use up to 3 HDHR +analog tuners. There is unlimited tuners for BTV but you will be PCI slot, network, and Spec contrained.

3) you have the option to record all shows or record only new shows for a channel. you can also edit a recording from one channel to all channels (incase you have a conflict).

4) You can get BTV Link. this will stream from the BTV server, where you can watch live tv, recorded shows and setup recordings and look at the quide (looks just like BTV interface).

5)IMHO, i'd go with XP and if you going to do alot of showsqueezing get a dual core processor. This will do 2 showsqueezing jobs at the same time (one for each processor).

6) I hear yes, but I leave my computer on all the time, so never personally tried it.

7) I love it. I've had a few problems every now and again. but I use it 24/7

8) TIME. you will want to tweak and setup your system, may take a bit of a learning curve. This MAY NOT work correctly out of the box. Not like a tivo, which you open the box and plug in and off you go. I love BTV cuz it give me MORE OPTIONS.

[Joe The Dude]

I use Dimension 4 to automatically update my BTV Server's clock.
http://www.thinkman.com/dimension4/

I've attached a screenshot to show you how I've set it up, as an example for ya.