XXL Sage Install

[jptaz]

Do you actually have 10 OTA HD Channels in your Area?

I know I only get 7: ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, UPN, WB, and PBS.

Unless you actually have 10 OTA HD Channels available you will never use all of those tuners.

John

[digitalgm]

Originally Posted by jptaz

Do you actually have 10 OTA HD Channels in your Area?

I know I only get 7: ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, UPN, WB, and PBS.

Unless you actually have 10 OTA HD Channels available you will never use all of those tuners.

John

John, I have the same channels as you do. I cant speak for you but I know I find a great deal of things on those channels that I like to record e.g., lost, 24, Prison Break, etc. As I have said earlier in the thread, I'd rather design for the impossible case rather than just size this system to fit what I think my needs are now. Of course, I dont have to put in 10 tuners all at once...

--Regards, AdamR

[SHS]

I don't if any one here has ever done a PCI Expansion Setup a 13 slot with 6 PVR 500.
But as for this Master Commercial Skipping Server one big reason why you want skip becuases the MPEG file need be scan which will most likely be eat up a lot bandwith if I'm rigth I think you would be better off doong it local.

- Dual (Necessary) Xeon @ 3.0GHz / 1GB RAM / Gigabit NIC
- 4 x Hauppauge PVR-500's (Link)
- 1 x Seagate 750GB SATA Drive (Link)
- 1 x AccelePort Xp 8-Port Multiport Serial Card PCI (Link)
The reason why I say this way is becuase it big waste of money time getting a 16-Port Multiport Serial when will not be using the other 6 ports and real BIG Q has any one done that min ports one key problem that well know the more with serial port you have the more of headack it get it to change rigth when get more of load on each system.
Don't forget all standard PC Chassis case only have 7 slot so you also have think about mod the case unless you go with a PCI Expansion Setup being you said each output of the PVR500's are connected VIA S-Video to a DirecTV D10.
2GB is over kill after all your not building a kill data base sever.
digitalgm usely the avg per-pearson only need about 2 tuner per-house hold.

[digitalgm]

Originally Posted by SHS

I don't if any one here has ever done a PCI Expansion Setup a 13 slot with 6 PVR 500.
But as for this Master Commercial Skipping Server one big reason why you want skip becuases the MPEG file need be scan which will most likely be eat up a lot bandwith if I'm rigth I think you would be better off doong it local.

Another user had mentioned this a little bit earlier in the thread and I believe they might be right. The one reason why I did want to offload the chore of commercial skipping is the encoding servers could be recording from 10 tuners at once while streaming the files to users. As you may already know, SMB file transfer is very heavy on CPU usage in Windows so my first thought was to try and remedy this by moving the fill off the server. This could always be done after hours but I am still not sure its the way to go. I may just end up using a SAN ... not sure yet though.

Originally Posted by SHS

- Dual (Necessary) Xeon @ 3.0GHz / 1GB RAM / Gigabit NIC
- 4 x Hauppauge PVR-500's (Link)
- 1 x Seagate 750GB SATA Drive (Link)
- 1 x AccelePort Xp 8-Port Multiport Serial Card PCI (Link)
The reason why I say this way is becuase it big waste of money time getting a 16-Port Multiport Serial when will not be using the other 6 ports and real BIG Q has any one done that min ports one key problem that well know the more with serial port you have the more of headack it get it to change rigth when get more of load on each system.
Don't forget all startard PC Chassis case only have 7 slot so you also have think about mod the case unless you go with a PCI Expansion Setup being you said each output of the PVR500's are connected VIA S-Video to a DirecTV D10.
2GB is over kill after all your not building a kill data base sever.

In reference to the serial cards, I am not sure how many tuners each system is going to need yet. It may be that I need to go to a 5 tuner (total) or I may end up running more if I can get away with it. I wont know until I set up my lab system which I am in the process of acquiring. I'll let you all know how it turns out though!

As far as the external PCI cabinet goes, I did this for many reasons. First and foremost, was expansion - I would really like the ability to expand the system in the future and add more encoders. Also, if I want in the future I can just replace the server with something else and not worry about choosing a mainboard that has enough slots because everything is stored in a PCI cabinet, not in the server chassis iteslf. Next was cooling - as another user said these encoding cards get VERY hot and having 5 of them right next to a constantly spinning set of hard drives and 2 power hungry CPUs sounds like a recipe for replacing boards. Furthermore, I need to accomodate a PCI card to provide my serial ports as well as the actual encoder cards. That is already 6 cards + a video card (if there isnt one onboard). Thats 7 slots and I havent seen too many servers with that many slots.

If your interested, you can see the draft of one of my fully popuated racks. Unfortunately I made this at home and not at work with the luxury of a miriad of suitable Visio stencils. In any case, it appears that as long as I can fit a single D10 in a 1U space, I will be able to fit 2 whole analog network encoding servers, each of which will house 10 encoders, the necessary disks and all the source components. This is great news because at 2 of these monsters per rack, I will only need 3 racks for the whole system.

Rack1 will hold 2 of my SD network encoding servers (10 tuners each)
Rack2 will be same configuration as Rack1
Rack3 will hold my two HD OTA network encoding servers, an HD SAT network encoder as well as my master sage server.

Perfect!

--Ciao, AdamR

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by digitalgm

As far as the external PCI cabinet goes, I did this for many reasons. First, was expansion - I would really like the ability to expand the system in the future and add more encoders. Also, if I want in the future I can just replace the server with something else and not worry about choosing a mainboard that has enough slots because everything is stored in a PCI cabinet. Next was cooling - as another user said these encoding cards get VERY hot and having those in the same case as some other very hot components sounds like a recipe for replacing boards. Furthermore, I need a PCI card to provide my serial ports as well as my encoders. That is already 6 cards + a video card (if there isnt one onboard). Thats 7 slots and I havent seen too many servers with that many slots.

Does all that stuff really need to be PCI? Wouldn't you get a lot more mileage out of your PCI slots by using USB encoders and USB-to-serial adapters? If you run out of bandwidth on your mobo's USB controller, just pop another USB controller into an empty PCI slot (of which you'll have lots if you go all USB).

[jptaz]

I second that. I love my 3 VBOX USB OTA HD TV Encoders. I even added a Hauppauge USB2 encoder and I am planning on pulling me PVR 500...it has not been configured in a couple weeks anyway. Also you use USB2 Hubs to off load the power requirements on the Serers.

John

[src666]

I can think of one serious fly in the ointment: WIZ.BIN. Keep a close eye on this file, and make very regular backups of it. Tracking that many sources and recordings is going to stress the heck out of the file.

[digitalgm]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Does all that stuff really need to be PCI? Wouldn't you get a lot more mileage out of your PCI slots by using USB encoders and USB-to-serial adapters? If you run out of bandwidth on your mobo's USB controller, just pop another USB controller into an empty PCI slot (of which you'll have lots if you go all USB).

USB Encoders I may be swayed to but I have had horrible experiences with USB->serial devices and swore them off a long time ago.

Originally Posted by jptaz

I second that. I love my 3 VBOX USB OTA HD TV Encoders. I even added a Hauppauge USB2 encoder and I am planning on pulling me PVR 500...it has not been configured in a couple weeks anyway. Also you use USB2 Hubs to off load the power requirements on the Serers.

John

John - I had considered the USB route because it would a) be less expensive, b) require less sophisticated equipment and c) be more elegant (debatable). However, what turned me off of this solution was my fear of Sage waking up from sleep and not seeing the encoders. I seem to remember seeing threads on this before and they were enough to leave a bad taste in my mouth. Also, do you know how the device being USB affects the CPU while recording? I feel silly for asking this question but I dont really know the answer. While recording, my PVR500s never even have my CPU crack a sweat -- 5-10% utilization. Thank you in advance.

Originally Posted by src666

I can think of one serious fly in the ointment: WIZ.BIN. Keep a close eye on this file, and make very regular backups of it. Tracking that many sources and recordings is going to stress the heck out of the file.

Hmm... I had never heard of any problems regarding that file but I may not have my ear to the tracks enough. Can you tell me more about how this could be stressed by all of the tuners, etc. I wish Narflex or one of Sage guys had commented on the thread by now.. Who knows, they may be as scared as I am to try this out.

To all of you -
I really appreciate all of your feedback - this is a very large undertaking for me and I thank you all for the time you have spent up until now to help me with it. You guys are alright by me and if you are ever in the area when this is all complete, Id be honored to buy you a beer!

[SHS]

digitalgm nice picture but in your picture look ok but you forgot take count you need min of 11 open Slots not 7 unless you going start drilling holes in the case in order get all 5 pair PCI A/V bracket to fit a screenshot below on what I'm take with come to PVR 500 in order to have two set S/Video input one for each encoder.
Only PVR 350 runs hot not 150 and 500 I have test up to 8 tuner setup on CableTV setup or "4" PVR 500 and most my sage server 1.6GHz system ever got was 96 at best in small midtower size case with 3 250GB drive.

[jchiso]

Originally Posted by jptaz

...
Unless you actually have 10 OTA HD Channels available you will never use all of those tuners.

Though it's not particularly likely that one would want to capture something from each channel simultaneously there is the fact that several stations may have multiple subchannels, so "in theory" one could use them all.

[jptaz]

If SageTV is written intelligently it should only require one tuner to record all the HD Sub Channels on one HD Channel, I am almost positive that BeyondTV does this from when I tried it, but honestly none of the sub channels currently have anything of value so I do not even have them in my EPG.

Also in terms of USB encoders the CPU is still very low, but I am sorry to say you are correct that they do not always show up after resuming from hibernate.

The only question I have is how you plan on coordinating power management across multiple network encoders. The last time I checked SageTV will schedule waking and allowing it to sleep based on the schedule, but all your network encoders will have to be woken up some how by the main SageTV server if it needs those encoders and as far as I know it does not have the intelligence to do that. In fact I have found SageTV pretty unreliable after wkaing from hibernate or standby so I leave my server running 24x7.

John

[digitalgm]

Originally Posted by SHS

digitalgm nice picture but in your picture look ok but you forgot take count you need min of 11 open Slots not 7 unless you going start drilling holes in the case in order get all 5 pair PCI A/V bracket to fit a screenshot below on what I'm take with come to PVR 500 in order to have two set S/Video input one for each encoder.
Only PVR 350 runs hot not 150 and 500 I have test up to 8 tuner setup on CableTV setup or "4" PVR 500 and most my sage server 1.6GHz system ever got was 96 at best in small midtower size case with 3 250GB drive.

SHS : I have actually already talked to Magma and they are going to be selling me their 7-slot mainboard in the 13-slot chassis. This means that I will be able to have 13 slots to use and 7 of them will line up with PCI cards. And before you as, Yes I do plan on extending the cables from the PVR-500 expansion card to reach the other slots

Originally Posted by jptaz

If SageTV is written intelligently it should only require one tuner to record all the HD Sub Channels on one HD Channel, I am almost positive that BeyondTV does this from when I tried it, but honestly none of the sub channels currently have anything of value so I do not even have them in my EPG.

Also in terms of USB encoders the CPU is still very low, but I am sorry to say you are correct that they do not always show up after resuming from hibernate.

The only question I have is how you plan on coordinating power management across multiple network encoders. The last time I checked SageTV will schedule waking and allowing it to sleep based on the schedule, but all your network encoders will have to be woken up some how by the main SageTV server if it needs those encoders and as far as I know it does not have the intelligence to do that. In fact I have found SageTV pretty unreliable after wkaing from hibernate or standby so I leave my server running 24x7.

John

John : In all honesty I dont ever see getting my setup to suspend/resume reliably and have been planning for 24/7 operation. It sounds like you are big on the USB encoders - do you have any more issues with them outside of the resume from standby problems? I am asking because I have really found my PVR-500 PCI cards to be ROCK solid and I mean ROCK solid. The only problem I have had with them (which was my fault anyways) was when I couldnt get them to work with my VIA-chipset based mobo. Once I changed the motherboard everything worked like a charm.

[jchiso]

Originally Posted by jptaz

If SageTV is written intelligently it should only require one tuner to record all the HD Sub Channels on one HD Channel...

Sage uses a seperate tuner for each subchannel.

[orangezero]

i can certainly appreciate your geekiness, but unless you have 20 to 30 fulltime tv watchers, the amount of tuners you have is just wastefull. wouldn't u rather spend the money on extra storage, or better remotes, or something other than just the tuners?? I can't see 40 tuners being a problem for a group of 100+ people actually, when you look at real time usage.

i'm not sure about the rest of you, but I rarely watch things live anyway, usually i just watch what I've recorded for the week.

just another comment i'm sure you don't need.

good luck.

[digitalgm]

Originally Posted by orangezero

i can certainly appreciate your geekiness, but unless you have 20 to 30 fulltime tv watchers, the amount of tuners you have is just wastefull. wouldn't u rather spend the money on extra storage, or better remotes, or something other than just the tuners?? I can't see 40 tuners being a problem for a group of 100+ people actually, when you look at real time usage.

i'm not sure about the rest of you, but I rarely watch things live anyway, usually i just watch what I've recorded for the week.

just another comment i'm sure you don't need.

good luck.

The way my wife is talking about having kids lately, we may make use of those 40 tuners a lot sooner than I thought In all seriousness though, I will most likley build the system 1/3 at a time and add more racks as necessary. Currently, I have almost enough hardware to build 1 full analog network encoder (from my template - 10 tuners) including encoders, disks, servers, etc. This also includes the SageTV server as well as another server for commercial skipping that I may or may not use. This will be my testbed and will eventually move into production use.

As always I will keep you updated!

--Regards, AdamR

[digitalgm]

NOTE : A reason why I also want that amount of tuners is as far as I know there is no way to have sage just "mirror" what is on one TV to another TV. For example, in my bar I have multiple TVs (3) that sometimes are all tuned to the same channel. In this case, its silly for Sage to use 3 encoders to watch the same channel. Does anyone know a way around this? If so, this could save me a bit of money ...

Now I know many people will say to just split the feed that is going from one tv to another and this would be the simplest way - unfortunately though actually making this work well across a great deal of televisions is going to be a boat load of work.

One way to approach this would be to have a matrix video switcher capable of the amount of TVs that I have. I could have a simple program on the HTPC's that would allow me to see which TVs are watching what and allow me to choost to mirror what someone else is already watching. I see two possible scenarios to accomplish this

1) HTPCs located in server room, Matrix switch in server room
Pros:
- Would be able to output from HTPC directly into the matrix switch and avoid runs back from the individual TVs
- Only one video cable drop to each TV location
- IR cable to control HTPC could use the CAT 5e that is already installed where each TV will rest
Cons:
- I had wanted to connect the each HTPC to the TV they output to using HDMI/DVI, using this solution that would require very extended runs of HDMI/DVI cables thus requiring repeaters ($$$)
- This would require routing the IR from the TV location to the HTPC in the server room

2) HTPCs located at their respective TV, Matrix switch in server room
Pros:
- Short high quality HDMI run directly from HTPC to TV thus ensuring best quality picture to the set
- Output from matrix video switch could be plugged into seperate input for the TV
- No need to run IR cable to the server room
Cons:
- To facilitate this, each HTPC output would have to be strung back to the server room into the matrix switch
- In addition, the output from the matrix switch would have to be strung back to the location of the TV (Total of 2 video cables)
- Since the HTPC feed and the feed from the matrix video switch would be seperate runs, each would need to go into an available video input on the TV thus requiring the user to manually switch to the other input

After writing those, two clear things come out of it. First, I really like the idea of having the HTPCs downsatirs because a) they are cooled with everything else and b) that allows me to only have a single video run to the TV's. Unfortunately - and this is a big deal is trying to get high quality video (HDMI or DVI) to each of those TVs is going to require different cabling as well as expensive repeaters to carry the signal.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
AdamR

[Opus4]

It won't use multiple tuners to watch the same channel. If a show on a channel is being recorded & another client wants to watch the same show, that client will simply watch the existing recording. SageTV won't fire up another tuner just to record the same thing.

Unless you really have 40+ different shows that could be recorded at the same time, those 40+ tuners will never be in use at the same time.

Also, if you have 3 tvs in the same room, it will be difficult to get them all syncronized while watching the same show -- that single show will most likely be playing at a different point on all 3 TVs.

- Andy

[SHS]

Magma said you can order 13 slot case they pop in 7-slot mainboard that cool I guest then your all set.
The only thing I can see with your setup that may or maybe not be a problem is the fact your only install one hard drive and your planing a possable on highside having 10 tuner recording all at the some time plus it need 10 simultaneous streams clients which if I'm rigth is gone be a lot Disk Activity and real question that come mind is weather or not that work with out all disk trashing and I guest you be the first one to fine out.

[ben_95sl1]

Can't you solve most of your issues with switcheable video distribution and an RF remote????

[jptaz]

John : In all honesty I dont ever see getting my setup to suspend/resume reliably and have been planning for 24/7 operation. It sounds like you are big on the USB encoders - do you have any more issues with them outside of the resume from standby problems? I am asking because I have really found my PVR-500 PCI cards to be ROCK solid and I mean ROCK solid. The only problem I have had with them (which was my fault anyways) was when I couldnt get them to work with my VIA-chipset based mobo. Once I changed the motherboard everything worked like a charm.

My suggestion for USB is more for HDTV as I have 3 of the VBOX and they do a great job. I have only been using my PVR USB2 for about 2 weeks now and so far it has been solid and I know other people swear by them and only have them. From a power consumption and cooling stand point the Hauppauge USB2 devices are going to save you some money and also as a side note my Hauppauge USB2 device managed just fine after resume from hibernate, but none of the vbox USB devices did. I don't know if that is because I have them connected to powered USB2 Hub and the PVR UBS2 is directly connected to my server. The PVR500s probably are a good choice for you given the rack mounting. The only issue I have had with the PVR500 and SageTV is that SageTV decided to no longer tune Analog correctly with the PVR 500, but I have never had any issue with Svideo on the Hauppauge cards after over 3 years of heavy use.

Also I thnk you will find that 10 Analog Boxes is sufficient and that maybe 4 OTA HD Tuners is good enough. I am managing with 3 and the beauty of the USB HD Tuners is that I can easily add them to the system without having to shutdown the box and all I have to do is restart the SageTV Service and add them in. I may still add a 4th HD Tuner and drop another Terabyte of Storage into my Server, that would basically bring me to 8 Tuners and then I may drop one of the Analog Tuners and save the $7.50 a month rental fee for the Digital Cable box.

John