My DirecTV project is underway...

I have the 4 boxes and the dish installed. Now waiting on the various control hadware and my 4th PVR card. Summary of this setup is a Sage server with 1 PVR-250 and 3 PVR-150's. I have 4 DirecTV DC10-100 tuners. I am using a USB-UIRT for 3 of the boxes and direct serail control of the 4th. I will let you know when the stuff gets here. I am anxious...

OK so here is the beginning of my little work log...

here is the basement closet it is all going in...


pic of the inside of the closet...


here is the networking equipment for the house. I have a Lynksys WRT54gs router and Lynksys 8 port switch. I also have a Dell 24 port switch for bonus connections, but it is loud, so I try not to use it...



tuners...


I had the installers bring the cables straight into the closet and put in a splitter...


I took the RCA cables and the svideo cable provided and zip tied them together to make a single cable...


and marked them to go with the appropriate tuner box...


and lastly, the phone splitters...

dude, I'm nervous for you! sounds like a helluva a project!

hehe sounds nice.

well, the server has een running smooth with analog cable and 3 PVR's for a while now. I am just adding a PVR and setting up the USB-UIRT really. I have already run cableing and stuff. I will snap some pics later tonight. maybe turn this into a mini work log

Any updates IDversusEGO?

USB-UIRT and 4th PVR will be here Friday. IR emitter wil not be here until monday. I have been marking cables and getting the phone lines split. I'll snap some pics of the progress so far when I get home.

sweet, thanks.

bump for pic updates...

Are you splitting the DirecTV signal with a splitter and not a multi-switch? If so you will run into problems turning the channels on all the boxes. The way DirecTV channel changing works is way different than cable. You just can't split the signal coming in. DirecTV has 32 different transponders it looks at. The box changes transponders by sending voltage back up the line to the LNB on the Dish to make it switch to an odd or even transponder when you switch to a channel. The LNB can only be on odd or even, not both at the same time. You will end of having two receivers using the same LNB and fighting over looking at odd or even transponders. One or both receivers will only be able to see half of the channels. You need to get a multi-switch to get around that problem. It locks the dual LNB dish onto odd and even transponders permanently and then has internal circuitry to switch to the correct odd/even transponder without affecting the other boxes.

I would read over this FAQ. It explains it much better than I just did.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=55509

that splitter was installed by the DirecTV installers. According to the label it is a DTV3x4 Multi-switch. 2 of the lines are coming from the dish, the other 4 go out to the tuners.

Looking good ID

Excuse my ignorance but I don't understand what your doing here. What type of network is this using DirecTv boxes? How are you going to change the channels in the different tv's? I really don't understand.

SgeTV has a feuature that allows you to use it as a server. You can have all the tune cards in the server. trhen you connect client PC's to each TV and you can schedule recordigs, watch live TV, and play previous recordings that are on the server. The advatages tot his are that the client PC's don't have to have tuner cards and you don't have to have a cable/satellite tuner in hte room. Just a PC and an ethernet connection (or wireless). Also, the clients don't have to be on 24/7 since the server is doing the actual recording. Oh yeah, and the licenses are cheaper for the client software.

usb-uirt will change the channels on 3 of the boxes. the 4th box will use a direct serial cable connection to change the channels. A usb-uirt is a universal IR transmitter/reciever.

oh, and here is a picture of what is keeping me busy while I wait on the rest of the parts...



just need to stain it and put the felt top in.

I love house that have little rooms like that.
Pretty cool.

yeah, it is perfect for this. It is even centrally located so cable runs are easy.

Nice, I've been in a few house that didn't do that what a pain those were. Did you build that poker table yourself? Looks very nice.

yeah, from scratch. My design and everything. I am still going to add the adjustable feet to the legs of the table. those legs are perfectly level, but my basemetn floor isn't. and thanks.

so what's the setup to connect the direct tv boxes to the computer?

Are you running the USB-UIRT to each television using long ass usb cables? Does the USB-UIRTs connect to the computer, or to the cable boxes? If to the computer then what do you use to connect the computer to the cable boxes to be able to switch channels?

I guess you are using the sage front end on each of the televisions and switching channels through that? How does the menu selection work? Are you relying on sage, or do you have access to the directv menu?

I wonder if this would be possible with MCE? Seems like a nice setup.

IDversusEGO said:

SgeTV has a feuature that allows you to use it as a server. You can have all the tune cards in the server. trhen you connect client PC's to each TV and you can schedule recordigs, watch live TV, and play previous recordings that are on the server. The advatages tot his are that the client PC's don't have to have tuner cards and you don't have to have a cable/satellite tuner in hte room. Just a PC and an ethernet connection (or wireless). Also, the clients don't have to be on 24/7 since the server is doing the actual recording. Oh yeah, and the licenses are cheaper for the client software.

usb-uirt will change the channels on 3 of the boxes. the 4th box will use a direct serial cable connection to change the channels. A usb-uirt is a universal IR transmitter/reciever.

oh, and here is a picture of what is keeping me busy while I wait on the rest of the parts...

just need to stain it and put the felt top in.

Click to expand...

wow very interesting, I never knew you could do something like that with DirecTv. I don't understanded all but I will definitly follow this thread to learn more about this as you go along with your project. Thanks for the info and btw nice table.

bizzz111 said:

so what's the setup to connect the direct tv boxes to the computer?

Are you running the USB-UIRT to each television using long ass usb cables? Does the USB-UIRTs connect to the computer, or to the cable boxes? If to the computer then what do you use to connect the computer to the cable boxes to be able to switch channels?

I guess you are using the sage front end on each of the televisions and switching channels through that? How does the menu selection work? Are you relying on sage, or do you have access to the directv menu?

I wonder if this would be possible with MCE? Seems like a nice setup.

Click to expand...

I am going to answer these in order that they were asked...

DirecTV tuner boxes will be using the svideo and RCA composite audio to connect. Each tuner box has it's own PVR card in the server.

The USB-UIRT is connected to the server and points to the tuner boxes directly across from it.

USB-UIRT connects to the Server in the closet.

The USB-UIRT is what controls the channel changing on for the tuner boxes. It sends signals fromt he server to the DirecTV boxes.

Yes, sage front end on the clients is what requests the channel change

Menu selection is just like in regular sage. The client and server haev identical appearances.

For the program guide, I will be using sage's downloaded info. I will not interface the DirecTV guide at all.

No, MCE does not support client server setup. .

That looks great! Ive always wanted to do that.

One question, how do one USB-UIRT changes channels etc in a specific DTV receiver and not in all of them at the same time?

Or are you using one USB-UIRT per receiver without letting the "blasted" IR signal of each USB-UIRT unit interfere with the othe receivers?

For you guys that aren't familiar with the client/server aspect of Sage, I'll try to sum it up. Basically, you put all the storage and tuner cards in one server PC. You run all the television signals to it and set all the configurations like sources, media libraries, and viewing preferences on the server.

Now you build a cleint. It is like Sage lite. same interface, it just pulls lots of the config stuff from the server. So when a sage client launches, it connects tot the server. If you go to live TV, the client asks for a tuner. The server goes down the lsit of sources and assigns the first available one. Kind of like DHCP for TV.

EvilAngel said:

That looks great! Ive always wanted to do that.

One question, how do one USB-UIRT changes channels etc in a specific DTV receiver and not in all of them at the same time?

Or are you using one USB-UIRT per receiver without letting the "blasted" IR signal of each USB-UIRT unit interfere with the othe receivers?

Click to expand...

the USB-UIRT has a min-plug on the back that allows you to hook 2 more emitters on it. You put the emitters on the DirecTV box and use duct tape to mask off the reciever to all other sources. that way the IR reciever on that box only gets what is coming from the emitter taped to it. looks ugly, but I don't care, it's in a closet. You also have to set zones so the USB-UIRT knows which emitter to send the signal too. haven't done it yet, but there is a decent thread on it on the sage forums.

IDversusEGO said:

Kind of like DHCP for TV.

Click to expand...

Thats alot better then I probably could have said.

MCE does support something similair with the Extenders but those are heavily limited in what they can display and really don't work the same way.

BTW anyone care to guess if the Linux version of SageTV has a client version yet? Easy thing to take a couple of Epia boxes for use as a client box but their performance under Windows is still horrid from what I hear.

I contacted sage about the linux version, and they are not marketing it as a software release right away. they will only have it on the boxes they are building.

serial cable is here now. Hopefully will have at least 2 of the boxes up and running by saturday.

How much bandwidth does a four-tuner-cards setup use? If you have all four running at once, how much strain is the PCI-bus under?

not sure. haven't had problems with 3 yet. will see how 4 goes. I just got the first box working with serial connection. piece of cake really. now on to the USB-UIRT. But I am serioulsy considering selling hte USB-UIRT and using serial for all of them.

oh, and the quality is easily better than the standard cable.

ID is there any reason why one could use there main HTPC as the Sage "server" provided it has enoguh storage for recording shows? If I undertsand correctly the software the server runs is the full blown SageTV software?

aboslutely no reason why that couldn't be done. I have considered moving the sage server to another PC because it seems a waste were it is, but I don't hae a case that is big enough and quiet enough to hold the tuner cards and go in my viewing area. now if I could figure out how to use remote tuners like Myth does, it would be all good. Myth lets you use tuners in other boxes kind of like you share drives. reduces the need for a server. what I like about the server is the tuner cards are allocated to whicever TV needs them and not locked to one location.


UPDATE: the serial cable was a freakin breeze like I said before. I also have the first USB-UIRT box setup. I was having trouble masking the IR receiver on the serial controlled box with just duct tape. I used 2 layers and the signal still went thorugh. so I got creative. My solution only cost 25 cents. I took a quarter and placed it over the IR receiver. then I taped it in pace with the duct tape. the quarter was the perfect size and the metal created a nice barrier. to make it look cleaner, I am going to get some smal cut lengths of steel from the local Home Depot and place them over the IR with double sided tape. I think the duct tape looks disgusting, even if it is in a closet in the basement.

setting up the IR was easy too. installed the drivers for the USB-UIRT fromt he website. then added antoher source. for you guys out there that use multiple tuners, you know how annoying it is that the sources are simply marked 1,2,3,4 etc... Makes it hard to identify whoch card you are working with. since I didn't want to put the cards in one at a time, i turned off all the tuners boxes exept the one I wanted. got lucky and 3 was the one I wanted to be 3. so, now that one device is amsked and the other 2 are off, I have my box isolated. I add it as a source, using all the same info as the first. I had to have sage learn the IR fromt he controller, but that was easy. the wizard just tells you to press bttons 0-9, one at a time as it learns each keystroke. TIP - keep the remote close to the USB-UIRT for the best learning.

So now I have the channel setup. One pain in the ass is that I had to go through all 160 of my channels because it had nowhere near the right ones selected. tedious, but I went ahead and removed the crap I don't use like home shopping network and those paid programming things. also the pay per view. I have over 60 movies I haven't watched yet on DVD, so PPV is not needed. So, to confirm the IR is working and I have the right box, I test some channels here before I leave the wizard. tuned like a champ. maybe a little slower than the direct serial control, but only by 2 seconds or so. not enough to matter since I pad my recordings by 1 minute anyway. setup was only a little longer for this too.

so now I have 2 tuners running. one serial cotnrol and one IR controlled. still waiting on the other IR emitters to continue, but luckily, weekends are light on the recording. 2 should be fine until monday.

comments on DirecTV as a service - seems good. quality is head and shoulders above the standard cable crap I was watching. I only get blockiness on fast motion. colors are better. all the channels are the same so far.

Another question for you ID, as I try and get SageTV running on my HTPC.

What audio/video codec are you running? PowerDVD doesn't seem to work for DD/DTS pass thru via SPDIF, and NVDVD doesn't pass any audio for me a all. I think I'll have to stick my Turtle Beach card in and try that as it's specifically listed.

edit: n/m got it all going with NVDVD and the turtle beach!

even got a client running with that imo-desk motherbaord.

Sage works quite well, I think I'll be sticking with this one.

skwayb said:

Are you splitting the DirecTV signal with a splitter and not a multi-switch? If so you will run into problems turning the channels on all the boxes. The way DirecTV channel changing works is way different than cable. You just can't split the signal coming in. DirecTV has 32 different transponders it looks at. The box changes transponders by sending voltage back up the line to the LNB on the Dish to make it switch to an odd or even transponder when you switch to a channel. The LNB can only be on odd or even, not both at the same time. You will end of having two receivers using the same LNB and fighting over looking at odd or even transponders. One or both receivers will only be able to see half of the channels. You need to get a multi-switch to get around that problem. It locks the dual LNB dish onto odd and even transponders permanently and then has internal circuitry to switch to the correct odd/even transponder without affecting the other boxes.

I would read over this FAQ. It explains it much better than I just did.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=55509

Click to expand...

Basically, correct, yes.

The even & odd channels multiplex themselves on different voltages. IIRC, the odds are on 13v and the evens are on 18v. And, each sat has 11 (2 thru 12) transponders (totalling 33, not 32)

Another thing is, ensure that all your cable is RG-6, not RG-59. If they were REALLY good, they would've installed plenum-rated RG-6.

Also, what kinda splitter is that? Looks kinda strange.

IDversusEGO said:

that splitter was installed by the DirecTV installers. According to the label it is a DTV3x4 Multi-switch. 2 of the lines are coming from the dish, the other 4 go out to the tuners.

Click to expand...

addressed the splitter already above.

The cables from the dish are not labeled as RG-6 or 59. The cables going to teh boxes are all RG-6. I already had four 3 foot lengths on hand ready to go.

IDversusEGO said:

addressed the splitter already above.

The cables from the dish are not labeled as RG-6 or 59. The cables going to teh boxes are all RG-6. I already had four 3 foot lengths on hand ready to go.

Click to expand...

Ok, cool. It looks like that multi-switch is already doing it's job for ya then

No offense but,....you had some pretty lengthy posts that I didn't wanna read thru

yeah, purpose of a work log type post is so others can learn from your process and help them later. detail is important.

Today I had to go buy an adapter for the audio into my PVR 250. this little guy...

http://www.radioshack.com/product.a..._name=CTLG_007_002_001_002&product_id=274-369

goes into a stereo 1/8 jack and gives me right/left RCA plugs. so now I am sitting on m hands waiting on the IR emitters. ho-hum, ho-hum....

so while I was waiting on the IR emitters, I figured I would work ont he table some more...




close up of the finish...



now I need to vacuum the felt. It got some sawdust on it.

IDversusEGO said:

so while I was waiting on the IR emitters, I figured I would work ont he table some more...

Click to expand...

VERY nice work Poker AND a TV distro system, a dream come true

Did you tear up one of those table-toppers to get the felt etc?

just a suggestion - you could probably use aluminum foil to block the ir signal. might be easier than making brackets

dualblade said:

just a suggestion - you could probably use aluminum foil to block the ir signal. might be easier than making brackets

Click to expand...

doh! can't believe I didn't thik of that. even cheaper than my quarter trick. the quarter was in my pocket though. The foil is all the way in the kitchen. Yep, I am that lazy.

for the table, I used a table topper for the felt surface. I was going to build my own, but the chip trays cost as much as the whole table top from Target. So I bought the whole top and saved some time/work/money.

Now that the table is finished, I need chairs. Trying to decide if I am ballsy enought o build my own or do I just buy.

Done? at least for now I think.

Got the 2 emitters in to day.


pretty nice. came with an adhesive pad and 3 relacements for the future, assuming I don't throw them away accidentally.


placed them directly over the IR recievers and made "tents" out of tin foil and duct tape. This is to be sure that no stray IR signals are received by the wrong tuner box.


used double sided tape to put the USB-UIRT on the top of the 3rd device. the signal reflects on the wall perfectly.


Then I used the following guide to set up the zones...
http://forums.freytechnologies.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5291&page=1&pp=20

all of the boxes and a belkin KVM switch box for my sage server and backup Linux router.


set 4 concurrent recordings, all recorded fine. now to build my last client and get a Hauppauge MediaMVP for the bedroom.