Sunday, September 19, 2004
My HTPC saves the day
If you are a DirecTV customer, you know that there are 3 satellites (A,B,C) from which you receive programming. Recently, DirecTV started moving channels around from one satellite to another. For example, ESPN HD, Discovery HD and the Louisville local channels got moved to the B satellite. For most people, that would be no big deal. For me, however, it was bad news. See, during the spring and summer (when my neighbor's tree has leaves on it), I don't receive the B satellite at all.
While I'm content to wait a couple of weeks for the leaves to fall (since I don't watch much network TV), my wife wants to see the new fall lineup of shows from the major networks (and she wants to be able to TiVo them). Since my DirecTiVo doesn't have an over-the-air antenna, I decided it was time to turn to my HTPC.
I've connected my HDTV receiver, which receives our digital local channels over the air, to the Hauppauge PVR-250 tuner/capture card in my HTPC. By using SageTV, I can now set up my HTPC to record all of the network programming that my wife is missing from DirecTV. Whew!
The next step is to reinstall MediaMVP server on the HTPC to allow the recorded shows to be streamed over my LAN to the MediaMVP set-top box in our bedroom.
If you are a DirecTV customer, you know that there are 3 satellites (A,B,C) from which you receive programming. Recently, DirecTV started moving channels around from one satellite to another. For example, ESPN HD, Discovery HD and the Louisville local channels got moved to the B satellite. For most people, that would be no big deal. For me, however, it was bad news. See, during the spring and summer (when my neighbor's tree has leaves on it), I don't receive the B satellite at all.
While I'm content to wait a couple of weeks for the leaves to fall (since I don't watch much network TV), my wife wants to see the new fall lineup of shows from the major networks (and she wants to be able to TiVo them). Since my DirecTiVo doesn't have an over-the-air antenna, I decided it was time to turn to my HTPC.
I've connected my HDTV receiver, which receives our digital local channels over the air, to the Hauppauge PVR-250 tuner/capture card in my HTPC. By using SageTV, I can now set up my HTPC to record all of the network programming that my wife is missing from DirecTV. Whew!
The next step is to reinstall MediaMVP server on the HTPC to allow the recorded shows to be streamed over my LAN to the MediaMVP set-top box in our bedroom.
¶ 1:16 PM 
About Shawn Morton
Married father of 4, social media strategist at Nationwide, consumer electronics enthusiast, hair metal aficionado.
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