freedml; I think that your experience with needing two SageTV servers is out of the ordinary. Thank you for the comments.

Detection: Comskip or ShowAnalyzer. Both create TXT and EDL files which the program uses to know where commercials are.

Execution: Something has to run the detection programs. Popular options are DirMon2, ComskipMonitor, and SageJobQueue.

Plug-in: Comskip is built into SageMC or you add it on to the basic SageTV Media Center Package.

VERY IMPORTANT FOR BEGINNERS: SageTV Media Center comes with its ‘standard’ menu system. Some people add “SageMC” which REPLACES the standard menu system and adds plug-ins like Comskip. But you can also add plug-ins to the ‘standard’ user interface, as it’s called.

Wireless for the Sage extender is iffy for SD, bad for HD. Hauppauge extender wireless doesn’t work at all.

HD doesn’t really require a ‘faster’ computer. Almost no CPU time is used in storing content. It’s disk access intensive. gotta have those 64k blocks on your hard drive! Just that puts SageTV out of reach of the average computer user.

I like my DirecTV/USB Serial cable control setup. But haven’t got it working with box #2 yet.

I prefer several add-ons to SageMC (I have Multi-Stop, Dynamic Menus, and Comskip playback).

I’ve had my system for 2 years. It is somewhat stable now, but still not nearly as reliable as a Tivo or DirecTV box. Some things are easy to figure out, some are damn difficult (like interfacing with set top boxes).

The ‘money feature’ is true commercial skipping, which is one of those ‘can be damn difficult’ options, but worth it when it finally works. The accuracy is about 90% for me because I have a lot of OTA recording in a fringe area. It works better on DirecTV, perfectly on some channels and shows and less than perfectly on others.

I use Hauppauge 950Q tuners which are HD, USB into the pc, and very good. I have an HDHR which isn’t being used at the moment, and it was just ok. It connects to the network rather than the computer which saves a USB port and can be placed anywhere on your wired network (e.g. close to the antenna).

In my opinion, a wired network is necessary at this stage of home theater development.

My configuration:

Two servers, one OTA HD (3 950Q tuners), one DirecTV (HDPVR and HD receiver, 2nd one on deck)

(why 2 servers? because SageTV is flaky enough that I switch servers and watch something else if one goes down.)

2 HD200s and 1 HD100. The 100 only is an extender (not capable of accessing the network files directly) and is noticeably slower. The 200s have problems talking to gigabit routers so I use old firmware.

My advice: start slowly, backup before making ANYchanges, and THOROUGHLY TEST EACH AND EVERY PIECE OF HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE before unleashing it on your family.