SAGETV .frq file for Prof 7201 tuner

[FriscoJohn]

Greetings all. Anyone interested in using SAGETV with the Prof tuners--here is my SAGETV .frq file which is tested and working (all except MT-PBS which for some reason crashes SAGE). This includes all 11 regularly scheduled PBS stations on AMC21. All of them have complete EPG programming grid info via Sage. This makes it very simple to set up a recording. Just click on the listing for a program and click record. You can also set up recurrent recordings for series, etc. that will run automatically. Sage is really the solution to DVB-S DVR recording, IMHO. No more struggling with flakey built in PVR functions on your SonicView, PanSat, etc. (Ask me how I know).

Incidentally, I receive all quite well with an 0.9 meter dish in San Francisco, except for the LPBS stations which often (but not always) wimp out at night for unknown reasons. The Prof 7301 is one hot tuner--much more sensitive than my Sonicview 8000HD.

Please see my post on the Sage forum for installation details:

Sage, BDA, and DVB-S2 - SageTV Community

Note: I had to change the file extension to .txt to get it to upload. If you use it, change the extension back to .frq or simply replace the contents of your existing tuner file with the contents of my file. Since SAGE uses the BDA interface, this file may work in SAGE for other tuners that are BDA compliant.

 

[FriscoJohn]

Oops. Post title should be "SAGETV .frq file for Prof 7301 tuner"

 

[FriscoJohn]

Success with MT-PBS at last! Turns out the video decoder I was using in SageTV chokes on H264 signals such as MT-PBS. Sage support came through for me, did a thorough analysis of the problem and recommended changing my Sage set-up to use the Microsoft Video Decoder for H264. This worked like a charm. Thanks Sage support!

I now have all 11 regularly scheduled PBS or PBS affiliate channels (DVB-S and DVB-S2) coming through without problems (except, of course, for the flaky LPBS fade at night). AND, for each of the 11, I have 2 weeks of EPG program guide data, courtesy of Sage (which has a perpetual license from Zap2It for EPG data--no cost to the Sage user except for the initial purchase price of $80). To schedule a one-off or recurring recording is a snap. Simply highlight the upcoming program in the guide and set Record. If you want to record all future episodes you are given the option to make it a Favorite. You can designate whether you want new airings only or new airings plus reruns. You can specify a particular channel to record from or tell Sage to search all available channels and record any airings it finds.

The icing on the cake is that Sage provides the same convenient interface for all your channels, including cable, pay satellite, over-the-air, etc.

Well, I'm starting to sound like a shill for Sage so that's enough of that. (I have no financial or other relationship with Sage and have not been shy about knocking them in the past when it seemed they had little interest in making it work with the Prof 7301. That appears to have changed much for the better now as judged by my recent experience with Sage support.) It definitely is worth a look as a recording/EPG solution for FTA. There are enough of us Sage-using FTA folks around now that forum help should be readily forthcoming for people just getting started with Sage. I'll certainly be glad to pitch in.

For more on Sage and FTA DVB see my posts on the Sage forum, e.g.:

Sage, BDA, and DVB-S2 - SageTV Community