2008-11-26, 01:43 AM
Hello all,
First, I’ve been trolling GBPVR forums and the website (obviously down for now) for some time now out of curiosity. GBPVR has always come across as an extremely competent PVR but I have always taken different approaches to my HTPCing software for no real apparent reason.
I have a situation now, which will allow me to take GBPVR “out for a spin”. I am currently using Vista VMC in my living room entertainment system but because of the lack of H.264 support I cannot record any HD (albeit somewhat compressed) programs from my DirecTV STB. As a result I’m am going to bid adieu to VMC in short order and either return to SageTV or maybe GBPVR so that I can record my programs in glorious (compressed) HD.
Rather than totally submerse myself in a VMC replacement in the living room (and risk a plummeting WAF) a situation has arisen which is the perfect vehicle to allow me take a good look at GB without leaving a permanent mark on my person. In the past whenever the missus and I had competing programs showing at the same time, one of us would retreat to the guest bedroom where another DTV receiver/TV is available to resolve the conflict but now I have another locale that would provide a more comfortable setting for me as opposed to the guest room.
If you’re still with me, here’s the crux of the post…
I plan to run coax cable from one of the spare LNBs on my satellite dish to my office and have DTV activate on of my spare SD STBs so that I can watch TV on my PC’s 22” monitor. My choice of STBs is an old (and still functioning flawlessly) Hughes model HIRD E1 or a DirecTV D11-300 I’ve never used.
My quandary is over the control of the STB in my office. I don’t particularly care to rig up some sort of blaster when the Hughes has a low speed data port (RJ11) and the D11 has a USB port. After performing a search on these forums for more information on the topic it appears at this early juncture that the best way to go would be with the old Hughes STB because of the simpler RJ11 to DB9 connection. My search may not have been as thorough as I would have liked so I might have missed some salient points. Any advice from the forums would be greatly appreciated, as I will be converting the office PC to a quasi-HTPC in short order.
Which way should I proceed? Use the box with the RJ11 data port or the USB port?
Oh, BTW, I am planning on using something like a cheap Hauppauge HVR-1250 to serve as my tuner card on a rig with the following specs:
AMD A64 X2 S939 4200+ CPU
2GB (4 X 512MB) RAM
nVidia 9600GT video card
2 X 250GB HDD
Thanks in advance.
First, I’ve been trolling GBPVR forums and the website (obviously down for now) for some time now out of curiosity. GBPVR has always come across as an extremely competent PVR but I have always taken different approaches to my HTPCing software for no real apparent reason.
I have a situation now, which will allow me to take GBPVR “out for a spin”. I am currently using Vista VMC in my living room entertainment system but because of the lack of H.264 support I cannot record any HD (albeit somewhat compressed) programs from my DirecTV STB. As a result I’m am going to bid adieu to VMC in short order and either return to SageTV or maybe GBPVR so that I can record my programs in glorious (compressed) HD.
Rather than totally submerse myself in a VMC replacement in the living room (and risk a plummeting WAF) a situation has arisen which is the perfect vehicle to allow me take a good look at GB without leaving a permanent mark on my person. In the past whenever the missus and I had competing programs showing at the same time, one of us would retreat to the guest bedroom where another DTV receiver/TV is available to resolve the conflict but now I have another locale that would provide a more comfortable setting for me as opposed to the guest room.
If you’re still with me, here’s the crux of the post…
I plan to run coax cable from one of the spare LNBs on my satellite dish to my office and have DTV activate on of my spare SD STBs so that I can watch TV on my PC’s 22” monitor. My choice of STBs is an old (and still functioning flawlessly) Hughes model HIRD E1 or a DirecTV D11-300 I’ve never used.
My quandary is over the control of the STB in my office. I don’t particularly care to rig up some sort of blaster when the Hughes has a low speed data port (RJ11) and the D11 has a USB port. After performing a search on these forums for more information on the topic it appears at this early juncture that the best way to go would be with the old Hughes STB because of the simpler RJ11 to DB9 connection. My search may not have been as thorough as I would have liked so I might have missed some salient points. Any advice from the forums would be greatly appreciated, as I will be converting the office PC to a quasi-HTPC in short order.
Which way should I proceed? Use the box with the RJ11 data port or the USB port?
Oh, BTW, I am planning on using something like a cheap Hauppauge HVR-1250 to serve as my tuner card on a rig with the following specs:
AMD A64 X2 S939 4200+ CPU
2GB (4 X 512MB) RAM
nVidia 9600GT video card
2 X 250GB HDD
Thanks in advance.