Dedicated SageTV system?

[SGtheArtist]

Hello,

I plan to invest in the SageTV tuner & software in the future and I was wondering if I should have a dedicated system just for SageTV or if I could use the system for other purposes while have SageTV running?

Here is an example that I'm considering:

-Dual core system for SageTV, DVD Player & Storage/DVD Library (Storage would be through a firewire 8 bay external drive enclosure) & gigabit networked.

OR

-Dedicated system for SageTV
-Dedicated DVD Player/Storage/DVD Library system

Notes:
-The SageTV system would be the a standalone system I would NOT be setting up a server/client configuration.
-The SageTV system would have internal HDDs for SageTV while the storage & DVD Library would be stored in the firewire external enclosure. The firewire storage would be network shared.

Thanks for everyones input.

[parkimar]

One of the reasons I favour Sage over MCE2005 is that I can multi use the PC.

I have a pvr 350 (Used for capture only) , 6600GT, Athlon 2400+ and 512Mb ram.
Im connected to about 1 TB over my home network for storage.

I use the S-Video out of the Graphics card as my primary display and feed this to my TV out.

Whilst my family use an ATI Remote wonder to control all the TV / DVD, etc on the TV display, I can still use the LCD monitor running over the DVI out to rip DVD's web surf, word process, etc. (I use wireless mouse and keyboard about 20 ft away from the actual pc)

If it's convenient in a wiring sense, then go for the dual purpose (I speak as a true miser )

Cheers

Mark

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by SGtheArtist

Hello,

Hey new people are so fun to mess with Oh, did I say that out loud?! Seriously, always nice to "see new faces".

I plan to invest in the SageTV tuner & software in the future and I was wondering if I should have a dedicated system just for SageTV or if I could use the system for other purposes while have SageTV running?

In general the dedicated setup is the optimal one. By dedicated I mean where you have the system dedicated to your media, and not doing your "normal PC stuff' on it.

Here is an example that I'm considering:

-Dual core system for SageTV, DVD Player & Storage/DVD Library (Storage would be through a firewire 8 bay external drive enclosure) & gigabit networked.

OR

-Dedicated system for SageTV
-Dedicated DVD Player/Storage/DVD Library system

Notes:
-The SageTV system would be the a standalone system I would NOT be setting up a server/client configuration.
-The SageTV system would have internal HDDs for SageTV while the storage & DVD Library would be stored in the firewire external enclosure. The firewire storage would be network shared.

Thanks for everyones input.

You're close, but I think there's an even better way to do it (which happens to be the way I did). And that is, dedicated media server. The power of this need not be spectacular. This would house all your storage, SageTV, and all your tuners. So you'd have your DVD Library here. Then you build a client, the client would be the frontend to all that storage and recording.

IMO, this is the optimal setup, for a number of reasons. First off, Sage is very stable (as you've probably read) but like anything, it can be crashed. However 99.95% of the time you do manage to crash it, you crash the user interface. (Not I day you crash, because it's usually screwing with playback settings that will cause a rare crash). With the client/server setup, you can mess with the client without affecting your recordings.

Second: Noise. Storage is loud, and cooling storage is loud, by moving all your storage into a media server, you can eliminate a primary source of noise from your viewing environment.

Third: Expandability. Since you've already got a client/server setup, it is exceedingly easy to add clients. You can simply duplicate the client config for more.

For some specifics:

My Server
Athlon XP 1800+
Abit NF8-S2G
512MB ram
Geforce 4 MX video card (unused I use RDP for any maintenance, the server is headless)
200GB HDD for Sage recordings
160GB HDD for misc stuff
3ware Escalade 7506-8 RAID controller
8x250GB HDDs in RAID-5 for my DVDs (~250 so far)
Hauppauge PVR250
And an Avermedia A180 to go in once Sage adds HDTV support
Antec SmartPower 2.0 500W PSU
Running SageTV

My Client
P4 2.4B
Abit BE7 (i845PE)
512MB ram
Geforce 6800 (Passive Gigabyte model)
40GB Toshiba Laptop HDD
M-Audio Revolution 7.1
MyHD MDP-130
M-Cubed T-Balancer (fan control)
Antec Phantom 350 PSU
Ahanix D.Vine 4 HTPC case
running SageClient.
Driving:
Toshiba MT700 -> 96" Goo/Parkland screen
Anthem AVM-20 2.0
Anthem MCA-50
Klipsh Synergys
Velodyne CHT-12

Since you're considering multiple computers already, I highly recommend this config. Actually for me the primary reason is the noise factor, it's essentally impossible to make storage quiet, especially beyond one drive. But put that storage elsewhere, and it's rather easy to get an essentailly silent HTPC.

I think it's time to turn the floor over to questions and give my keyboard a break.

[SGtheArtist]

Thanks for the input.

parkimar,

That is an interesting setup you describe. My current system was planned and built to do everything! So I know its possilbe, and impressive when you can get one system to do so many things. I've realized this is not without cost, however. It took forever to get all the software to work nicely together and still to this day it crashes once in a while. In addition the cooling required for my system at one time was killing my hearing, I've since changed some fans and its tollerable for me but still loud. This leads me to my post...

stanger89,

I agree that your setup & suggestion is the best configuration. Not only does it reduce the number of systems that have to run continuously (Server & SageTV) but also remove the noise from the front-end as you mentioned. One thing that I am pleased to see is that you're not using a highend system for the server. I noticed that you don't have ROM's on your server so do you copy your movies on another system then move them to the server later and if so does the storage traffic affect the SageTV on the server?

Thanks for everyones help.

Oh by the way I do have another question what is the disk space requirement per hour of NTSC video recorded?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by SGtheArtist

stanger89,

I agree that your setup & suggestion is the best configuration. Not only does it reduce the number of systems that have to run continuously (Server & SageTV) but also remove the noise from the front-end as you mentioned. One thing that I am pleased to see is that you're not using a highend system for the server.

Yup, server is the hand-me-down, it's three generations back in my build history. Since the PVR250 does all the heavy lifting, and the playback is done elsewhere you don't need much. In fact I was running it underclocked (1.15GHz) for a while without issue.

I noticed that you don't have ROM's on your server so do you copy your movies on another system then move them to the server later and if so does the storage traffic affect the SageTV on the server?

While I can't say I've ever tried copying to the server and playing at the same time, I can't see any issues with it. I've got Gigabit going everywhere but my HTPC. FWIW, I do all my ripping and such on my workstation. I can copy files to the server in about 3-4 minutes (full DVD rips, not shrunken ones).

Thanks for everyones help.

Oh by the way I do have another question what is the disk space requirement per hour of NTSC video recorded?

It's totally dependent on the quality you pick. You can go anywhere from about 1Gb/hour to 5.6GB/hour. I've found that 3GB/hour is about the sweetspot, with that I don't get any macroblocking.

[SGtheArtist]

Thanks for the quick answers.

Does the server/client setup allow the client to watch live TV as if it had a TV tuner installed? Or is that why you have the MyHD installed in your client? Also does the server not need sound?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by SGtheArtist

Thanks for the quick answers.

Does the server/client setup allow the client to watch live TV as if it had a TV tuner installed?

Yes, in fact SageTV standalone works (or rather can work) as a client server. The Client can do everything the server can.[/QUOTE]

Or is that why you have the MyHD installed in your client?

That's in there because it doesn't work with anything else, so if I want to use it, it has to be in my HTPC.

Also does the server not need sound?

Not AFIAK.

[flavius]

You can watch Live TV. The server has no need for sound in this kind of setup.

[SGtheArtist]

Thanks again for all your help.

I'm sure I'll have questions in the future when I get around to doing this, at which time I'll ask them.

[Kanati]

I definitely prefer the dedicated box setup... I don't have to worry that my heavy gaming or video editing will interfere with any recording going on in the background. Plus you get to have one of those nifty htpc cases specifically made to look like they belong in your rack.

[SGtheArtist]

True...True

[parkimar]

With regards the dedicated box, I guess another of the reasons I use a system for multiple uses is games.

I spent a non trivial amount of cash on getting the 6600GT, and it felt a waste just to use it for PVR functions.
So I have the other programs enabled in SAGE MCE 16x9, and put links to all my games in there. (Too be fair when playing a game the system is useless for other things)

I have joy 2 key running and a wireless PS2 with USB adapter, and the kids (and me ) can access the games and play them on the TV. Saves me buying an X-Box. (Although I will be tempted by the 360's)

However I can see the logic for the client server setup. And despite my protestations, I actually have several machines around the house where I store all the media, so Im not strictly doing a single machine setup, more an overpowered main system setup.

Actually - thinking about it, you can do all of the above with a client machine anyway

Anyway enough rambling - the kids are demanding breakfast.

Cheers

Mark

[Stobor]

Originally Posted by stanger89

3ware Escalade 7506-8 RAID controller
8x250GB HDDs in RAID-5 for my DVDs (~250 so far)

Kind of a tangental question here. What kind of enclosure and power supply are you using for those disk and how are you interfacing them with the raid controller?

[stanger89]

The whole server is in this case:
https://www.casedepot.com/proddetail.asp?linenumber=79
Well not quite, that looks like a newer more expensive version. And they're just using standard (but long) PATA cables.

The PSU is an Antec SmartPower 2 500W

[SGtheArtist]

parkimar, thats cool I'm glad everything works well. After living on a single system solution in college I realized that when it went down I was SOL until I was able to set it back up. Norton Ghost has minized the down time, of these events which do not happen all to often with W2K & WXP.

stanger89, That's an impressive case. After thinking about your setup and my future use I believe I would not have much use for a RAID5 array simply for my movies (I dont watch them as often as movie buffs) In addition I'll have the DVD disc if my HDD fails so the only real backup I'll require is for my personal files which do not exceed 80GB at this time and I do not believe will exceed 120GB over the next 5-10yrs. This is the enclosure I plan to invest in:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...y=167&tc=photo

This also makes it easily transferable from system to system since it is a simple firewire connection. I was looking at PC cases last night and I thought the Antec Titan 550 was a pretty impressive case, however I think it would be too large for my needs.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by SGtheArtist

stanger89, That's an impressive case.

That one is almost 2x the price I paid for mine, what like 5-6 years ago

After thinking about your setup and my future use I believe I would not have much use for a RAID5 array simply for my movies (I dont watch them as often as movie buffs) In addition I'll have the DVD disc if my HDD fails so the only real backup I'll require is for my personal files which do not exceed 80GB at this time and I do not believe will exceed 120GB over the next 5-10yrs.

Food for thought, I don't have the array to protect my DVD rips per-se, I have it to protect the time I invested ripping them. While it took me several months to rip them all, the total work ammounts to about 2-3 weeks full time. That amount of time "costs" considerably more than the RAID controller + extra drive.

This is the enclosure I plan to invest in:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...y=167&tc=photo

I'd go with this (scroll down):
http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/sata/satakits.php

Not a fan of ebay myself I'd rather spend a bit more at a "real company" (I understand some ebay sellers are "stores"). The deals just never seem that good.

FWIW, I figure I'll use an SATA enclosure when I build my next array.

As for cases, I really like some of the newer Lian-Li cases, V100 or V200 IIRC.

[SGtheArtist]

stanger89, I came across MacGurus SATA external enclosures when I was looking into external enclosures and I'm not a fan because it requires a SATA cable for every drive you install in the enclosure, this also requires a SATA expansion card (or 2) on you PC. While the bandwidth would be substantially faster than the firewire version I'm interested in, it has higher cost associated with it.

I like the firewire version because the controllers in the external enclosure can be daisy chained and then 1 cable sent to the PC. In addition since it is based on FireWire 400 (1394a) then the costs are lower. Also the 50MB/s bandwidth will be plenty for me since I'll only be doing one thing at a time on it (watch a movie OR work with files) By the way the MacGurus 8 bay enclosure is the same as the firewire enclosure

[stanger89]

That FW enclosure doesn't do RAID-5 does it? They sort of imply that in the ebay listing.

[SGtheArtist]

No the enclosure by itself does not provide any RAID support. I believe what they are referring to is Windows Dynamic Disk or software RAID. In addition the MacGurus enclosure does not do the RAID, however using a RAID SATA card with the external connections will allow for RAID. (At least thats how I understand it) Then you have 8 SATA cables going from your PC to the enclosure

http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/RAID/SyncRAID.php

Now thats RAID

I plan to install 500GB HDDs in the enclosure so I'll simply make a copy on another HDD in the enclosure, that will only be used as backup for my DVD rips. I only have 75 movies, so for me RAID would be overkill.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by SGtheArtist

No the enclosure by itself does not provide any RAID support. I believe what they are referring to is Windows Dynamic Disk or software RAID.

That's what I figured, and I wouldn't put Windows software RAID on a test box. Especially not on a removeable drive.

In addition the MacGurus enclosure does not do the RAID, however using a RAID SATA card with the external connections will allow for RAID. (At least thats how I understand it) Then you have 8 SATA cables going from your PC to the enclosure

I'm aware of that, I figure I'll use a 3ware 9500s-12 when/if I do it. Start with 3 large drives and add as necessary.

http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/RAID/SyncRAID.php

Now thats RAID

Kind of small if you ask me

I plan to install 500GB HDDs in the enclosure so I'll simply make a copy on another HDD in the enclosure, that will only be used as backup for my DVD rips. I only have 75 movies, so for me RAID would be overkill.

For 75 yes, for 250, no