Client / Server config

[h8dk97]

After several unsuccessful attempts to get the 350 tvout working properly I now came up with the following client / server configuration:

Client
--------
P3 800MHz
384Mb RAM
Xcard used for playback to SDTV
PVR350 used as tv tuner / capture
Dedicated 100BaseT interface to the server
Disk storage mapped from the server

Client will be sitting in the living room, xcard remote will be used to control it


Server
--------
P4 3.0
500Mb RAM
PVR500 tuner / capture
Disk storage for video
Soundgraph Imon remote for playing PowerDVD and other apps

Server will stay in the computer room, imon remote will be used with an RF infrared extender


Server and client each will have separate connections (s-video, composite audio) to SDTV. It may seem like a bit too much but since I have all the components (except xcard) and cables running from computer room to the living room I may as well use them.

My main concern is will the client be powerful enough to run 350 for viewing live tv and timeshifting. The reason why I want to stick 350 on the client is I won’t have to use any sort of amplifier for the antenna cable (I would’ve thought you need one for three tuners?). Do you see any drawbacks in this configuration?

[salsbst]

a) Why not put the underpowered machine to use as the server, and use the powerful machine for the heavy lifting (rendering of video/audio)?

b) If you already have a switch, why use a dedicated cable between the two? If you don't already have a switch, why not just buy one?

c) Why capture/encode on the client? Wouldn't it make more sense to do that on the server?

d) "Soundgraph Imon remote for playing PowerDVD and other apps"... I don't know what this is, but it sounds like something that is playback related... wouldn't that belong on the client side?

[Opus4]

My main HTPC used to be a p2-400 w/2 tuners and an XCard for playback. I had no problem recording 2 shows at the same time as playing 1 back locally on the Xcard while streaming another one to a client. It had 384MB RAM and after upgrading its IDE interface, there was no disk throughput problem with the disks formatted with 64K cluster sizes. I doubt your p3-800 would do any worse.

But, remember: the server just records and streams data for viewing on the client. I would consider using the slower system as the server and use the faster one to handle all playback... unless that setup doesn't work for you for whatever reason.

One of the reasons I finally dumped the old p2-400 was that I decided its case was poorly cooled and it was eating hard drives.

- Andy

[h8dk97]

Originally Posted by Opus4

But, remember: the server just records and streams data for viewing on the client. I would consider using the slower system as the server and use the faster one to handle all playback... unless that setup doesn't work for you for whatever reason.

- Andy

Well,

1. I want to use the server for other things as well i.e. recording videos from my camcorder, burning dvd's, post processing photos in photoshop etc. If I put it in the living room it will be useless

2. The client machine is noiseless and the server does produce a bit of noise (it will eventually have 5 hard drives), unacceptable in the living room

3. Apart from streaming video the server will also run comskip which takes a bit of cpu even on my dual core P4

From what I read on the forum I think XCard should be able to handle playback without using much of cpu on the client, just like 350 "does" . I guess if I find that 350 is chewing up cpu on the client I'll have to stick it on the server… time will show.

[h8dk97]

I've answered ‘a’ and ‘c’ in my reply to Andy.

b) I have a router but it's connected to my production server (running websites) which is quite heavily hit from outside. I'm not sure if streaming video is not going to interfere with that, I just don’t want to take any risks with that.

d) imon is a usb remote control. I'll be using two remotes: xcard to control the client and imon to play dvd's from the server through the graphics card tvout

Originally Posted by salsbst

a) Why not put the underpowered machine to use as the server, and use the powerful machine for the heavy lifting (rendering of video/audio)?

b) If you already have a switch, why use a dedicated cable between the two? If you don't already have a switch, why not just buy one?

c) Why capture/encode on the client? Wouldn't it make more sense to do that on the server?

d) "Soundgraph Imon remote for playing PowerDVD and other apps"... I don't know what this is, but it sounds like something that is playback related... wouldn't that belong on the client side?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by h8dk97

I guess if I find that 350 is chewing up cpu on the client I'll have to stick it on the server… time will show.

BTW: If the 350 chews up cpu time while recording, you've got serious problems. The Hauppauge PVR-xxx series of capture devices are hardware encoders, so the encoding is done by the card & all the PC has to do is take the data spit out by the card and save it to your hard drive. That's why I was able to use a p2-400 for so long.

- Andy

[blade]

After reading your reply to Andy I must say I still don't see why you'd want to capture on the client machine instead of the server. The only thing I can see that accomplishing is increasing the amount of traffic between the server and the client.

Also comskip doesn't take much power, after all it's using idle cpu cycles which it will give up if the power is needed elsewhere. I'd suggest going with SA if you're worried about speed, it's twice as fast as comskip. I'm using a lowly Celeron 366 and can do 1 hr shows in 30 minutes so I would think your server could knock them out in no time flat.

[h8dk97]

Originally Posted by Opus4

BTW: If the 350 chews up cpu time while recording, you've got serious problems. The Hauppauge PVR-xxx series of capture devices are hardware encoders, so the encoding is done by the card & all the PC has to do is take the data spit out by the card and save it to your hard drive. That's why I was able to use a p2-400 for so long.

- Andy

I wasn't sure how client will handle 350 playback, although it will go through the XCard would still take some processing?

[h8dk97]

Originally Posted by blade

After reading your reply to Andy I must say I still don't see why you'd want to capture on the client machine instead of the server. The only thing I can see that accomplishing is increasing the amount of traffic between the server and the client.

The only reason was to avoid using an amplifier, but I'll try 350 with the server, all together 3 turners, and if the signal stays the same I'll leave it there.

comskip gave me better results, but I haven't experimented with the both enough to make the final decision.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by h8dk97

I wasn't sure how client will handle 350 playback, although it will go through the XCard would still take some processing?

The only processing for the Xcard will be if you use the plugin for it. There are tradeoffs:

If you don't use the Xcard plugin, there will be no menus on the TV, but there will also be close to 0 cpu usage as you play a recording.

If you do use the Xcard plugin, you will see the menus on the TV, but the menus and playback OSD will be a bit slower because the UI has to be reduced to meet the 256 color limitation of the UI overlay. (That 256 color limit is only for the menus/playback OSD. Video playback is in full color.)

- Andy

[h8dk97]

I'm thinking of using the plugin anyway, hopefully will still be ok in terms of processing power. Thanks.

Originally Posted by Opus4

The only processing for the Xcard will be if you use the plugin for it. There are tradeoffs:

If you don't use the Xcard plugin, there will be no menus on the TV, but there will also be close to 0 cpu usage as you play a recording.

If you do use the Xcard plugin, you will see the menus on the TV, but the menus and playback OSD will be a bit slower because the UI has to be reduced to meet the 256 color limitation of the UI overlay. (That 256 color limit is only for the menus/playback OSD. Video playback is in full color.)

- Andy

[h8dk97]

Now that I think about it I could use my old Athlon XP1600 1.4 GHz 512Mb as the server and use the new computer as my desktop pc. That way I don't ever have to login to the server, except when need to install new software. Would that be powerful enough to be a network encoder and to run compskip/sa?

Also I'm not sure about its power supply, it's some unknown brand 300W. The system would have 3 HDD's, raid card, pvr500 and pvr350. What do you think?

Off the topic, I'm surprised nobody mentioned before how huge pvr500 is, at first I thought I wouldn't be able to fit this monster on the motherboard. In fact there was only one pci slot where I was able to stick it on my new pc.

[blade]

Originally Posted by h8dk97

Off the topic, I'm surprised nobody mentioned before how huge pvr500 is, at first I thought I wouldn't be able to fit this monster on the motherboard. In fact there was only one pci slot where I was able to stick it on my new pc.

Lol, I had forgotten how difficult it was to get mine into the case. I had to take the mounting bracket off, sit the bracket in place with the screw barely started, then angle and jiggle card until it slid back into the bracket and pci slot at the same time.

I figured I had so much trouble because my case is really cheap and generic.

[h8dk97]

Originally Posted by blade

Lol, I had forgotten how difficult it was to get mine into the case. I had to take the mounting bracket off, sit the bracket in place with the screw barely started, then angle and jiggle card until it slid back into the bracket and pci slot at the same time.

I figured I had so much trouble because my case is really cheap and generic.

Well, I took the duct off my Sonata II, I haven't tried but I don't think I'll be able to put it back having 500 in that pci slot. If you want to have couple of those you'd really need to make sure you have enough room inside your pc.