FTA HD Receiver and PVR timed recordings

[taxial]

You know I might be looking for a Rolls Royce at Yugo prices. Sounds good to me. Where can I find that? ^_^

I not sure how much I'm willing to spend, I think my budget right now needs to stay under $1500 for the complete package. In a quick search I think I can easily accomdate a 36 or 39" dish and a high def receiver in that price range. Not sure about a 6 foot dish - where would you recommend looking for that?

Now, to address your comment ..... My concern and question have had nothing to do with dishes. You're the second person to mention that your not sure what I'm asking for. I've posed the question a couple times in this forum.

An HD FTA receiver that has a PVR. I want the PVR to

--- Record an HD signal
--- Record a second HD signal on another channel at the same time

From what I've read thus far (... on this forum and many others...) has lead me to think that I may be able to record TWO HD signals at the same time on any current HD FTA Receiver as long as those two signals are coming from the same 'transponder' (where I think transponder means one satellite) I have no idea if that is true though.

I also am lead to think that I cannot record two HD signals at the same time if those signals are coming from two different satelites (transponders?). True? Nobody has been able to answer this question anywhere. Everybody keeps asking me "Why? would I want to do that?" or "You should try a starter receiver" .... or.... "your want TiVo" ..... Well I gues my answer to all those is the same I stated here. I already have the canadian HD equivelant to TiVo. I'm keeping that. I want to get into FTA. It's neat. I want my FTA stuff to be able to record TV like my TiVo.

And ... If you want to know why I want that.... it's because I'm never home to watch TV. And if you want to know why I'm never home.... meh.... you shouldn't. ...... So if you have information you'd like to share I'm very appreciative. There has been very helpful information for me so far. But I hope I don't need to explain what I'm looking for again.... I think what I put above should make sense....

An HD FTA receiver that has a PVR. I want the PVR to

--- Record an HD signal
--- Record a second HD signal on another channel at the same time

 

[schlever]

Well if your never home to watch what you want, FTA isn't for you. The stuff, i.e. feeds, comes and goes and is never, ever, at a certain time at a certain place. There is no 'guide' to say when something is on, or where it is going to be, if its even going to be there.

Thats what a blindscan reciever is for. In this hobby, you sit down in front of the TV, blindscan the satellites that may have something in particular you want to see, i.e. news or sports, and hope you get lucky and find it.

I'm a Calgary Flames fan. If I want to watch a game I can't get on my pay services (satellite, cable or OTA), I'll sit there for sometimes an hour searching the different satellites for it. If I find it cool, if I don't then so be it. At the maximum, you may find that someone else has found it and will tell you where it is, but believe me, its not going to be widely publicized anywhere.

 

[taxial]

Hey. Sorry if I haven't been clear yet. Your the third or fourth person to comment on that. Maybe I can clear that up

I'm looking for a HD FTA Receiver that has a PVR. I want the PVR to be able to

#1 Record an HD channel
#2 Record another HD channel at the same time

I'm not interested in the signals coming from different sats. If both HD signals come from the same sat .... that's great.

Why is that important to me? I'm never home and when I am I like to watch what I missed over the last couple days. I already have the Canadian version of HD TiVo. So cable TV is already set up to do this for me. If I'm getting into FTA I want to do the same thing with the available FTA channels (and I'm now aware that there aren't that many HD FTA channels....that still doesn't change my mind).

As for the dish comment - I still haven't done any research so I'm not sure what I want. A rolls royce and 'yugo' prices sounds good though.... where can I find that? My budget is around $1500 to start so after my receiver I should have about 800 - $1000 to spend on the dish setup. From what I've seen most of the 36" dishes out there are under $200 so if I deceide to go with something bigger it should fall inside that area of play? Anyway, dishes aren't my concern yet - PVR capabilites are.

 

[taxial]

Right - double post - didn't see my first one go through .... Sorry about that....... the second one is clearer.

So there is no guide? I've watched video on youtube that shows a guide? And each of these receivers say they have "EPG" which I figured was similar to a guide.

I thought that meant that the FTA shows like PBS had a schedule that can be recorded against? Am I wrong?

 

[schlever]

Nope, no guide. The FTA on youtube is probably someone STEALING or HACKING Expressvu or Dish network. There is absolutely NO GUIDE for LEGAL FTA reception ---- probaly why your getting so many snarky comments back --- anyone looking to modify any reciever to pick up subscription programming isn't tolerated on here. If your looking for legal FTA HD content, this is the place.

 

[taxial]

Ahh. That makes more sense, so no guide means no real use for PVR - so why the frick would I want that without being a pirate. I understand. Well, that's unfortunate, I figured since the companies who sold the receivers wouldn't promote piracy so why advertise EPG ability. Your snarky comments are welcome then - my apologies for poluting your forums with what now seems like a crap load of double talk. My intentions were pure.

I still think I'm going to get invloved in this either way - international channels still sound way too cool to be missing out on. I guess I'll drop my interest in the PVR side of things though .... which I guess means I may as well get a SV8000.

Next up - dish talk. To the internets to research !!! (anybody want to recomend a place to look up prices on large dishes ??? .... shipping is probably a bitch.....

(....Thanks for you input people....)

 

[Anole]

tell 'em twice

quote from two days ago:

I don't have an HD receiver for a number of reasons.
But most will let you record on timers like a VCR.
That is to say, no "guide-based" recording... because there is no guide to use.

Okay now. We got your number -
We'll just get two guys to tell ya and you'll be up to speed in no time. -

It was pretty obvious where you were getting your (mis)information.
But, now that you've found this forum, there's help available on all aspects of FTA.

As RV1pop mentioned above (he lives in a super windy location) the commercial molded dishes are excellent.
If you can find one that's no longer in service (locally) then there's no shipping and usually no cost.
This forum is full of info on using/converting such dishes (around 1 meter).

Ya need to be an opportunist and take what you can find at the time.
Worrying that today's purchase might be eclipsed by something better tomorrow, isn't so helpful.
Every piece of equipment brings experience, and will be educational.

So, that means if you locate a dish that isn't quite what you want, it might still be better than nothing.
Use it, while looking for better.
Later, you might find a secondary use for it, sell it, give it away, or use it to start some newbie down the road to FTA.

It's not uncommon for member here to ship spare equipment to others.
I sent a test LNB to someone half way across the country.
He liked it, and then purchased half-dozen from the vendor who had 'em.
One nice fellow sent me some LNBs with special feed horns that he didn't want.
Another sent me a dead motor to play with.
I reimbursed them for shipping, and everybody is happy.

If you have time in your schedule to experiment with FTA, you could find the folks on this forum your best resource. - :up

There are many different directions to pursue in FTA.

Some channels have superb digital picture quality without being hi def.

If you are worried about finding shows to watch, you can set some receivers to record a 24 hour block of time.

I like to make DVDs of some shows.

Sports feeds are very popular, and if you mention a team, you'll probably make several friends immediately -

About half of the American TV networks can be found on Ku-band.
The rest of 'em are on C-band.
If access to that programming is interesting, FTA can help.

There's foreign language channels who sometimes have news or other shows in English.
They give a different perspective on the situation in their part of the world.
One has American movies ( in English) with foreign subtitles, or in the foreign language with English subtitles.
(I watch a local OTA TV station for a weekly drama in a foreign language with English subtitles)


But, admittedly . . . it's not for everyone.
Maybe you'll find a niche that is interesting.

 

[taxial]

Very cool - my misunderstanding has lead to more insight. To me it sounds like I need to commit to something first. Once I do I'll be back. Thanks.

 

[delta_charlie]

Hi Taxial, Let me point out a couple of things I noticed in some of your previous posts. You made mention you work on computers for a living and you are interested in the tech side. Knowing this I would like to suggest you look into PC DVB cards for your HD PVR setup. These are not easy to setup but with your computer skills it should be a snap for you. One of the big problems with the PC DVB is they are hard to setup the dish alignment on.

No mater what you end up going with you really should consider a low cost SD receiver that you can take out to the dish and peak it.

If I were you I would go on ebay and start trying to find a deal on a coolsat 5000 or 6000. They can be had for really low prices and would make a great dish pointer and you could use it to get started on FTA. Then later set up the HTPC.

Your making this too complicated to start with. Forget about the HD receiver for now. Buy the best dish you can and get started. Forget about the motor drive for now. Just start with the good dish and set it up fixed. You will learn a lot with this basic setup and you have not bought anything you will not want to have later. You will not out grow a good dish and the low cost SD receiver will always be useful for peaking dishes and trouble shooting.

Later, DC

 

[rv1pop]

Thanks for the added information. With enough information there are hundreds of people to help you here..... When I wanted to record a series of programs, same station, same time every day, then MY solution was 9 VCR's, each set to the program I wanted. Now, I would use DVD recorders, which claim to do HD.

But as Anole indicated, I live in a very windy area. Our phone lines (we have) and commercial power (we do not have) may get knocked out by the wind on a regular basis. The phone company only promises to "not have the phone lines down for more than 72 hours a month"! So without commercial power I do my recording off a set top box that has PVR capabilities via a USB hard drive. That way a 250 to 450 watt inverter keeps my daily recording tasks in line. I do not use the computer to burn DVD's, however, I play the files back through my STB and record them with my DVD recorder as I watch them.

As far as EPG goes, the OTA and subscription services define there programing and make there own guides. Our FTA providers, for the most part, that either do have regular schedules , or send out the feeds, are not sending those signals to us as primary customers! They are sending to locals who may rearrange the sequence to meet there needs, therefore an EPG would have to be stripped from the signal before the station could use it - SO why bother. The data or fax copy they get is more than enough for them. Even TBN, who does promote FTA has local stations that use the same feeds, and then substitute their own local programing. The guide we got (at a TBN station) did not supply any program information, other than name, on the program guide, so the printed or on line was considered sufficient.

I hope this adds to the understanding and thread topic.
POP

 

[dellsam34]

The only way to be able to record one show and watch another the receiver has to have two tuners, and none of the FTA HD receivers available to north american market have two satellite tuners, as of if there is HD channels in FTA birds check lyngsat dot com and see for yourself.