Beyond TV and DirecTV HD tuner

[talon]

I would like to start using Beyond TV but have a question regarding how it would connect with a DirecTV HD receiver. I know that BeyondTV is unable to record the HD signal from a Satellite, but I would still like to watch these channels real-time without any degradation of signal. Is BeyondTV capable of recording standard DirecTv satellite signal but bypass the HD content? I would like to record standard DirecTV satellite signal in two rooms (one has a DirecTv/Tivo PVR, and the other has a DirecTv HD receiver). I would also like to be able to record 2 channels on each TV. How could this be accomplished/is it possible?

[Zogg]

The only way for Beyond TV to record from DirecTV is to use an S-video or composite output from the sat receiver into an analog capture card such as a PVR150. There are some shows I record from DTV in this manner and we watch them in BTV, but usually if we want to watch a channel on satellite we just switch the TV to the DTV receiver.

Later this year when DTV is offering over 100 channels in HD as they have promised, then I have to decide how to proceed. I may wind up getting a DVR receiver to record those channels to replace the DTV->S-video->BTV setup, and continue using BTV to record HD shows on the local channels. I hate to have 2 DVR type of systems but right now there aren't any other choices that I'm aware of.

Z

[talon]

I'm a complete noob on this and want to get the hardware/setup straightened out before I buy anything.
Do you lose any video quality with that S-Video connection?
I'm using a Composite connection from the DirecTV/Tivo PVR to the 51" Sony rear projection TV (currently the only TV that has PVR capability) and a HDMI connection from the DirecTV HD receiver to the Samsung 32" HDTV.
Would using composite connections be better than the S-Video connections?
I assume I could do a secondary composite on the Sony TV, and composite connnection on my Samsung from each PVR?
I would like to get rid of the Tivo PVR if possible but I would need to be able to record 2 channels at once. Ideally both TV's could watch these recordings (I don't want two separate Beyond TV setups). Both TV's are in separate rooms of the house.
Sorry for the long post, just trying to straighten this out.

[Bloggator]

You lose a slight bit of picture quality, but probably no more than you're already losing going from the DTV box to the 51 inch via composite cables. S-Video gives you a higher quality picture than composite does. I have a DTV HR20 HDTV box and I'm going out of the box with S-Video to a PVR-150 and the picture quality is as good as on my DTV HR10-250 HD Tivo box on the SD channels (once I tweaked them with Hauppauge tweaker).

I even record the HD channels from the HR20 via S-Video to give me another HDTV source. It's not really HD, but it's widescreen and REALLY good SD. About as good as DVDs.

I have three HD OTA tuners and the PVR-150, so I can record 4 shows at once. I'm about to replace the DVICO and the PVR-150 with two HVR-1600s. Then I'll add another DTV box and have 4 HDTV OTA tuners and 2 DTV tuners.

I control the channel changing on the DTV box with a serial cable and null modem cable.

As for the various TVs, I use BTV link boxes on the different TVs around my house, powered by gigabit ethernet.

It all works great.

[talon]

Sorry, I meant component, not composite, connections.

I'm not sure if there is a component tv tuner on the market or not.

Is the BTV link box just another BTV box?

I was trying to get away with only one BTV box.

[Zogg]

A Link system is usually a computer dedicated for playback with no recording capability. Many of us have found that dedicating one computer for capturing only, stuck in a closet or basement or somewhere, and then using a Link system at your TV just for playback, works better than trying to do it all with one system.

Anyway, I'm not aware of any component input capture cards. The bottom line is that right now, with a PC-based DVR the best you can get capturing from satellite is with S-video. As Bloggator said it's pretty good, but it isn't HD. For my family though, the convenience factor wins out over having HD on everything. For now...

Z

[zeusage]

Originally Posted by Bloggator

You lose a slight bit of picture quality, but probably no more than you're already losing going from the DTV box to the 51 inch via composite cables. S-Video gives you a higher quality picture than composite does. I have a DTV HR20 HDTV box and I'm going out of the box with S-Video to a PVR-150 and the picture quality is as good as on my DTV HR10-250 HD Tivo box on the SD channels (once I tweaked them with Hauppauge tweaker).

I even record the HD channels from the HR20 via S-Video to give me another HDTV source. It's not really HD, but it's widescreen and REALLY good SD. About as good as DVDs.

I have three HD OTA tuners and the PVR-150, so I can record 4 shows at once. I'm about to replace the DVICO and the PVR-150 with two HVR-1600s. Then I'll add another DTV box and have 4 HDTV OTA tuners and 2 DTV tuners.

I control the channel changing on the DTV box with a serial cable and null modem cable.

As for the various TVs, I use BTV link boxes on the different TVs around my house, powered by gigabit ethernet.

It all works great.

Hi,

You've got the exact setup that I've been considering!

May I ask if you are able to operate the HR20 in a SlingBox-type fashion via BTV and the serial setup (or IR blasting for that matter)? i.e. Can you control the HR20's Guide, List/Playing functions, Recording funcions, etc? If so, has anyone created any skins for the remotes?

Also, how do you like the S-video capture and record qualities from an HR20 recording playback via the PVR-150? I hear some folks touting the ATI cards as having better picture.

Thanks for any help,


Zeusage

[jhanan]

Originally Posted by talon

Do you lose any video quality with that S-Video connection?

Yes, but now you can use HD-PVR with the HR20 STB.

Jeff

[sean_snider]

Hey talon,

Just thought I'd weigh in here. . .

I've been doing this exact same thing you are wanting to do since I bought BeyondTV 4 years ago.

Let me tell you a abit about that first, and then also help you make decisions. . .

I actually have 2 directv satellite boxes in my living room. I have an H20 & H21.

The H21 is hooked up to my TV directly (well actually through my pioneer receiver) via HDMI, and the component video is hooked up to a Hauppauge HD-PVR.

The H20 is hooked up to a 2nd Hauppauge HD-PVR via component cables. For this one, I have black electrical tape covering the IR receiver on the STB (satellite box).

Both STBs are hooked up to my PC via serial port-> null-modem cable -> IO gear USB-Serial Adapter to change channels without using an IR blaster (this is much more reliable). Note I had to add a serial port card to my machine to do this.

Now note that 1 with one of my STBs, you can just watch normal TV, no PC involved. This is a bit tricky since someone may inadvertently change the channel and not realize the PC is trying to record something. .. I could just force everyone to use the PC, but that might be too much for them. . . I'll tell you how I get around this in a sec. . .

Ok so now you're going to ask, why 2 STBs? Well to watch 1 and record 1, or record 2, or whatever, in order to do so you need to REAL sources which means 2 STBS.

Now your going to ask, wait doesn't that cost more money per month? Shouldn't I just get a DirecTV HD PVR? The answer is, well yeah maybe.
DirecTV will charge you an extra 5 per month for a 2nd box. But they charge you 6 per month per DirectTV HD pvr. So cost is basically a non-factor.
Really its up to you in terms of what you might want to do with recordings etc (eg burning/archiving etc, which you can't do with a DirectTV HD pvr).


In terms of the video connections you have 2 choices:

1.) Hauppauges HD-PVR, which will allow you to capture component video
2.) Any other SD tuner card that can take an S-Video input.

In terms of controlling the sattelite boxes, (STBs) you have 2 choices
1.) IR Blasters (may need multiple with STBs)
2.) DirecTV Serial to USB control.

Now first off the video connections. . .

I found that just using an S-Video cable to connect to my tuner card from the STB was pretty darn good quality. . . But it is not HD. My suggestion is that if you are trying to be cheap, just watching/recording shows once in a while, not burning them/archiving them at all, and are fine with looking at Standard Def channels on HD TVs, then just go the S-Video / SD Tuner Card route (or just by the DirectTV HD pvr service). This will be the cheapest route (2 tuner cards for the PC < $200 plus whatever software you want to use, BeyondTV, Sage, whatever).

Note that this option is also the most compatible with BeyondTV if you want to use them (which I don't anymore, or at least for now). This is b/c older/SD TV tuner cards work great, having robust drivers and the like. They are officially supported.

Now I'm using the 2 Hauppauge HD-PVRs with component connects. And let me tell you, the video quality is AMAZING!!. The caveats too this are, 1.) pricey (HD-PVR is at least $200 for one), 2.) BeyondTV is still in Beta in terms of providing support for the HD-PVR (keeping hearing its coming) 3.) You need a pretty stout PC. You don't necessarily need a dual/quad core pc, but if it is a single core, it better be a high -end CPU, lots of ram (2GB), and either way you need a very solid video card (At least and ATI HD 3850, or Nvidia 8500 and above series). Again this all may come back to $$$.

Now too controlling your STBs.

I can't stress this enough, but forget the IR-blaster!! Lots of people get them to work fine, but its more hassle than its worth a lot of times and you can save time and money if you just go with Serial control.

Now in order to do this with the H20 and H21, you have to spend more money. You need to have 2 serial ports on your PC. You can go about getting multiple serial ports in a number of ways (many machines have none). You'll need 2 Null-modem Serial female to female cables. And you'll need anyware from 1 - 4 IO Gear USB-Serial converters, depending upon the actual number of Serial ports on your PC to begin with. For example if you have 2 serial ports on your machine (like from a PCI card that you can buy), then you need the 2 -null modem cables and just 2 IO Gear USB to serial converters.

I can't stress enough. . . FOR H20 and H21 STBs THEY MUST BE IOGEAR converters (yes they are a bit pricey ~$25 for each). I've posted about this before somewhere, and I can find the link if you need me too. . .

Now finally with the right setup I can say this. . . I CAN RECORD TILL MY HEARTS CONTENT IN FULL HD (or until my HDDs are full ;-) ) and burn DVDs for my friends, go back an watch full seasons. . .etc.

Obviously you can do a setup however you like. . .maybe only 1 HD-PVR or whatever for now. . .

Ok so one final thing, back to the having one STB that is used both in regular TV watching and with the PC.

In BeyondTV (and others, with more granularity in others) you can set which "source" has priority. So I just make sure that the PC DVR always records 1st from my STB that i don't use with regular TV. This way if I'm only recording 1 show at a time, people in my house can just use the TV without fear. . .If I happen to be recording 2 shows at the same time (rare), I'm usually home so i can just hide the DirecTv remote and that serves as signal to everyone, but this is almost never the case for me. I'm still working on making the whole system "user-friendly". (need a better remote solution etc. but its going to happen).


I have played with all this stuff a long time, and am very happy, but I don't use BeyondTV at the moment anymore b/c I feel like the haven't provided enough support and don't have enough features. . . I use SageTV.

Hope this helps. . .feel free to ping me back over private message or whatever and I'll try to answer questions best I can

[jhanan]

Hey Sean,

On the H21, why do you need to go usb to IOGear to cable to IOGear to USB? Can you just go USB to USB to drive channel change on the H21?

I dont have serial on my system. And currently I don't have IOGear converters either. Any tips on getting the USB-UIRT to work on the H21-100?

Thanks, Jeff

[jhanan]

Sean,
Thank you for your post. I followed it exactly! Now I have working connection from BTV to a H21-100 STB using USB to serial to USB and using the H10-200 code set. It was trial and error to find which code set works on the H21. D11 does not work. This is not documented by Snapstream.
Jeff

[sean_snider]

Oh yeah sorry I forgot to tell you which ones to select. . . sorry about that.

Btw, So I assumed you figured out that you can't go USB to USB. There is a doc out there somewhere (its posted in one of these forums b/c I found it on the net and added it as an attachment), that the "USB" port on the backs of the H21 and H20 are actually serial ports with a USB interface. Hence you need said converters, and only certain ones work.

Which selections did you end up using for the STB did you end up using?

I suggested the PCI serial card interface b/c you can find PCI cards that will give you 2 serial ports which then allows you to talk to 2 STBs if need be.

[jhanan]

I did not try USB only, but I was wondering about that - since it would be quite a savings. Since the USB/Serial/USB has documented to work, I just went with it.

I'm using the standard USB off the MB. The computer installed the USB as COM3. I did not change anything, and just made sure BTV was set on COM3. It all worked out of the box once I picked the right code set.

However, I am having another issue with the H21 STB. If you try to record a channel that you do not receive - live a pay per view channel (by mistake) - then the Guide throughs up a message and puts the selecton on to an "info" button on the Guide. Next time you put in another channel change sequence, the STB rejects it with the nasty "bump" sound. Now the guide is locked up on the PPV channel. Any new channel change is rejected.

Is there a way to get the STB to accept any channel as a channel change not get stuck in this situation with the DTV Guide? A setting? Is the only way to delete all channels that I don't get, including any PPV channel?

Thanks, Jeff

[sean_snider]

Are you using 4.9? or 4.8.2? 4.8.2 doesn't officially support the HD-PVR, so you might want to try upgrading.

But it also sounds like you might still have the wrong box (STB) selected from the setup wizard. . try using DirecTV Sattellite 2 (i don't think it has a label, can't remember b/c i'm using sage these days).

[sean_snider]

P.S. if you can retype out the full list of STB types that's shown in the setup wizard i can definitely pick the right one

So you ended up have to use 2 IO Gear USB to Serial conections with a null modem in between right? If you go get yourself a PCI card that has 2 serial ports directly in the PC then you can just plug the null modems into the serial ports, then the adapters on the ends of the null modems, you can control 2 HD-PVRs flawlessly