Quad HD Tuner DirectTV BeyondTV setup

[zareh]

Hi,

I currently have a quad tuner setup for my analog cable system and am quite happy with it. I'm dumping my cable provider for DirectTV and will be getting 4 tuners on my dish. This should allow me to concurrently record 4 HD feeds. As I understand it I'll get 4 cables coming down from my DirectTV dish and each will go into a DirectTV tuner box. I'd like your opinions and advice on where to go from here.

I plan on getting this device from Hauppauge:

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html

It can take in component HD, encode it as an H.264 stream and save it on the hard drive. It does have a USB port, so I'm assuming I can have it save the H.264 file on my PC (my HTPC).

So if I'm going to have 4 DirectTV tuner boxes, I guess I'd need for of these HD PVR boxes, right?

Also I guess I'll need 4 IR Blasters to control the 4 DirectTV tuner boxes. I've been told that this is doable with BeyondTV.

Apart from the above, I'll need a nice video card with HDMI or DVI output capable of handling 1080i/p output to my HDTV.

Does the above setup seem doable? Am I missing anything? Is there another HD PVR box/card I should consider? Any comments welcome.

Best Regards,
Zareh

[tscales]

It should be possible, but the HD-PVR isn't officially supported yet (or actually available). I'm on the waiting list and they've delayed about a month due to production issues. The beta version of BTV supports the device, but keep in mind you'll be on the bleeding edge.

If the DirecTV boxes allow you to change the IR codes by box, then one blaster will do. I'll defer to others for multiple blaster support.

I suspect it will take reasonable horsepower on your server to save four streams. Shouldn't be too bad though since the box is doing all the work.

For DirecTV, the HD-PVR is your ONLY choice. No other HD solution exists (at least fully supported and that I am aware of )

As for a video card, I'm partial to nVidia. Any of the higher end cards will work. Heck, the Intel integrated video works (at least GMA950 or higher)

[mayhem70]

Granted I have no idea what kinda of load that having 4 HD-PVRs recording at once would be on a CPU, I would lend to think that you might want to consider a higher end 8000 or 9000 series Nvidia card. Even though the 7000s are HD compliant, the newer lines have drivers specifically designed to offload HD processing to the GPU processor rather than most video cards that rely on the CPU to process. I think you can find the 8800 GT around $150 now. If you like ATI, I've heard that the 3850 and 3870 are equally as good in performance.

And a single USBUIRT should be able to handle 4 boxes as long as you create zones.

I'm kinda interested to find out how you intend to handle storage. Are you thinking a single drive or RAID?

[Deuce911]

4 HD-PVR's recording at once should not be that much load on your CPU since it will be just like recording OAT Streams, the problem is playback.

Go with a heavy hitter for your video card (Min 8800GT) since playback and recording at the same time with stress your CPU so offloading to your video card for playback would help alot.

I would also go with a RAID Storage system for once again playback and recording at the same time. If possible get a smaller machine and put the 8800GT in it as a LINK machine and then you won't have to worry about any slowdown on the machine during recording and use your main machine as a Server Setup.


Mike

[tscales]

I wouldn't think RAID is necessary. I record 4 HDHomerun streams without RAID without problem and the streams from the HD PVR should be smaller (H.264 compressed).

Raid 0 makes me nervous.

[Deuce911]

I agree on the recording portion, but on Playback and Record at the same time with HD-PVR files, might be needed.

Mike

[zareh]

Originally Posted by tscales

It should be possible, but the HD-PVR isn't officially supported yet (or actually available). I'm on the waiting list and they've delayed about a month due to production issues. The beta version of BTV supports the device, but keep in mind you'll be on the bleeding edge.

If the DirecTV boxes allow you to change the IR codes by box, then one blaster will do. I'll defer to others for multiple blaster support.

I suspect it will take reasonable horsepower on your server to save four streams. Shouldn't be too bad though since the box is doing all the work.

For DirecTV, the HD-PVR is your ONLY choice. No other HD solution exists (at least fully supported and that I am aware of )

As for a video card, I'm partial to nVidia. Any of the higher end cards will work. Heck, the Intel integrated video works (at least GMA950 or higher)

Thank you very much for your post.
Much appreciated,
Zareh
P.S. I too am partial to nVidia.

[zareh]

Originally Posted by mayhem70

Granted I have no idea what kinda of load that having 4 HD-PVRs recording at once would be on a CPU, I would lend to think that you might want to consider a higher end 8000 or 9000 series Nvidia card. Even though the 7000s are HD compliant, the newer lines have drivers specifically designed to offload HD processing to the GPU processor rather than most video cards that rely on the CPU to process. I think you can find the 8800 GT around $150 now. If you like ATI, I've heard that the 3850 and 3870 are equally as good in performance.

And a single USBUIRT should be able to handle 4 boxes as long as you create zones.

I'm kinda interested to find out how you intend to handle storage. Are you thinking a single drive or RAID?

Thank you for your post. As for storage I plan on using 2 one Terabyte drives in a RAID0 configuration.
Best Regards,
Zareh

[zareh]

Originally Posted by Deuce911

4 HD-PVR's recording at once should not be that much load on your CPU since it will be just like recording OAT Streams, the problem is playback.

Go with a heavy hitter for your video card (Min 8800GT) since playback and recording at the same time with stress your CPU so offloading to your video card for playback would help alot.

I would also go with a RAID Storage system for once again playback and recording at the same time. If possible get a smaller machine and put the 8800GT in it as a LINK machine and then you won't have to worry about any slowdown on the machine during recording and use your main machine as a Server Setup.

Mike

Thanks Mike. Yes, I'll definitely go with a RAID setup. I'm eyeing the nVidia 790i motherboard:
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec....iteria=AA72878
Best Regards,
Zareh

[zareh]

Originally Posted by tscales

I wouldn't think RAID is necessary. I record 4 HDHomerun streams without RAID without problem and the streams from the HD PVR should be smaller (H.264 compressed).

Raid 0 makes me nervous.

True RAID0 is risky, I'll put my OS on a separate system drive, perhaps a solid state one. If the RAID goes bad, I'll loose the shows but not my setup.
But now that I hear you're doing 4 HD streams on a non-RAID system, maybe I'll reconsider my setup, but as pointed out by Mike, RAID0 might give you a smoother playback when you're also busy recording multiple streams.
Best,
Zareh

[grandpaken]

Originally Posted by zareh

Hi,


I plan on getting this device from Hauppauge:

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html

Best Regards,
Zareh

Why do you plan to go this route vs a HD DVR? Four devices will cost you a grand plus whatever hardware upgrades you need to make. BTV is great for SD recording but you're getting into unknown territory with 4 HD capture devices. All Hauppauge says is that there driver supports multiple devices...not that they've done testing and that it works. Control will also be a problem with IR as the boxes use all the same codes and need to be setup as AV1/AV2 if you have more than one. It's not like Dish where you can number the remotes. The boxes support RF but there are no devices that I know of that outputs the Directv RF codes so your only other choice is serial>USB. There's also a D* software beta program in place now that allows you to watch your HD DVR content from a PC.

[zareh]

Originally Posted by grandpaken

Why do you plan to go this route vs a HD DVR? Four devices will cost you a grand plus whatever hardware upgrades you need to make. BTV is great for SD recording but you're getting into unknown territory with 4 HD capture devices. All Hauppauge says is that there driver supports multiple devices...not that they've done testing and that it works. Control will also be a problem with IR as the boxes use all the same codes and need to be setup as AV1/AV2 if you have more than one. It's not like Dish where you can number the remotes. The boxes support RF but there are no devices that I know of that outputs the Directv RF codes so your only other choice is serial>USB. There's also a D* software beta program in place now that allows you to watch your HD DVR content from a PC.

Thank you for your post. Exactly what do you mean by HD DVR? What are my choices for an HD DVR? I know DirectTV has theirs, but theirs can only record 2 streams and there is no way of outputting the content to a DVD-R as far as I know.
Best Regards,
Zareh

[grandpaken]

Originally Posted by zareh

Thank you for your post. Exactly what do you mean by HD DVR? What are my choices for an HD DVR? I know DirectTV has theirs, but theirs can only record 2 streams and there is no way of outputting the content to a DVD-R as far as I know.
Best Regards,
Zareh

Directv has the HR20/21 which, like you mention, record two streams. As a new subscriber they will probably let you have them for $99 each vs the standard $199 cost. Of course one advantage of the hauppauge cards is thatyou own them and they can be used with any provider that supplies component output so you're not tied to a specific company. Since you would have to stay with D* for 2 years(or pay a penalty) whether you get their HD receiver or HDDVR I would go for at least one DVR and add a single hauppauge card for archiving to a PC or making disks.

If you were planning on 4 hauppauge cards that means you would have to lease 4 HD receivers (3 X $4.95/mth lease fee)while you would only need 2 HD DVRs ($4.95 lease fee+6.99 DVR fee). I'm sure there are quite a few users who would love for you to get 4 cards just to see if they work but I'd hate to see you spend all that money just to find out it doesn't. At this point I'm not sure if the new D* PC software in beta for viewing HDDVR content will allow you to save the files or just view them. My guess is that it will be for viewing only.

[zareh]

Originally Posted by grandpaken

Directv has the HR20/21 which, like you mention, record two streams. As a new subscriber they will probably let you have them for $99 each vs the standard $199 cost. Of course one advantage of the hauppauge cards is thatyou own them and they can be used with any provider that supplies component output so you're not tied to a specific company. Since you would have to stay with D* for 2 years(or pay a penalty) whether you get their HD receiver or HDDVR I would go for at least one DVR and add a single hauppauge card for archiving to a PC or making disks.

If you were planning on 4 hauppauge cards that means you would have to lease 4 HD receivers (3 X $4.95/mth lease fee)while you would only need 2 HD DVRs ($4.95 lease fee+6.99 DVR fee). I'm sure there are quite a few users who would love for you to get 4 cards just to see if they work but I'd hate to see you spend all that money just to find out it doesn't. At this point I'm not sure if the new D* PC software in beta for viewing HDDVR content will allow you to save the files or just view them. My guess is that it will be for viewing only.

Ah, you bring up an excellent point! I had not thought of using the DVR supplied by DirectTV and using the Hauppauge device for taking the output of the HDDVR's and saving them to my PC. That way I'll have the best of both worlds, the tried and tested DVR from DriectTV AND the ability to burn shows onto a DVD-R, thanks to the single Hauppauge HDPVR. This sounds like a much more realistic approach and will venture much less into unknown territory.
Thank you very much for your post, it was very helpful.
Best Regards,
Zareh
P.S. now my question is, with the above setup, who's the boss? will I need to be running BeyondTV? I assume I can schedule recordings with the DirectTV DVR's without using BeyondTV. How will I controll the Hauppauge HDPVR? with BeyondTV?

[grandpaken]

Originally Posted by zareh

P.S. now my question is, with the above setup, who's the boss? will I need to be running BeyondTV? I assume I can schedule recordings with the DirectTV DVR's without using BeyondTV. How will I controll the Hauppauge HDPVR? with BeyondTV?

Everyone should be running BTV...if you're using something else then you should switch to BTV. I use both a DVR and BTV. If you just record to a DVR then you have to play them again to archive the shows. If you use BTV then you can go directly to your hard drive for only those shows you want to save. The hauppauge box includes an IR receiver and blaster which will allow you to control the DVR. I'm sure that the BTV team is very busy on getting support for the new device into the software. What is unknown is whether or not the drivers will support multiple IR blasters
if you're using more than one card. Currently you can use two PVR150 cards but only use the IR blaster from one of them. In that case you would have to use a USBUIRT, serial control, or some other method of changing channels.