Choosing a PVR

so this is how i understand it so far:
my cable signal goes out of the digital cable (firewire or usb) or antenna box to the sage hd unit which beams it to my capture card/box so sagetv can recognize the file format?

Showanalyzer finds the commercials and notes them, then sage skips them while sending them back to the HD 200?

do i understand it correctly?

[toricred]

Actually that's not quite right. The HD Extender is not connected to the cable box at all. The extender only connects to the network and the TV. The cable box is connected to the PC running the Sage server "directly".

I have Rogers digital cable in Canada. This is the Unit.
Explorer 4250HD
I called rogers and they said that the USB ports have been disconnected, at factory on their models.

I figure that i need to connect the box to my capture box/card. How would i do that in this case?

[toricred]

One option would be to use an IR emitter. If you are still considering SageTV I would answer go to Frey Technologies Redirect and ask some of these questions. There is a very active user forum with a lot of people that know a lot more about cable boxes than I do (I've been with satellite for over 12 years so I don't know much about cable boxes).

thanks for the help.

When you say server, you mean my laptop in this case correct? Pretty new to the game as you can see.

i also have a fta satellite reciever that i could use if that would make thigns easier. this is the model.

Viewsat Platinum LITE FTA Receiver from Viewsat Canada