How Much Hardware Do you REALLY Need?

[Osoksniper]

Hey,

We all know what has to be said in the setup, that it will function with 256 or even 128 and 512 is recommended. We all know that it is supposed to work on a pentium 3 or better with 1.2 gig processor. What does it really take to do sagetv the right way? I have two of the later dell laptops with a gig each of memory that I am running sage shifter on. I have a 300MB wireless router and, every pc runs at close to that speed. In fact they have consistently run between 270 and 300 mb/sec. The video card in the PC used as a server is a NVIDIA 5500 with 256 mb and 400mhz processor. I have 512 mb ram on the server pc with a 2.4 real pentium 4 and two hauppage dual tuners with the latest sound blaster live card for the audio. The combination is pretty good and, all the network equipment is linksys. The only "older" equipment is the Supermicro motherboard and the ide drives which are 133 ata drives in an adaptec raid array. They seem to work fine though currently. Question is, I have some jumping in my laptops and play back currently from remote computers and, I figured out that we need more memory in the box so, will have 2 gigs in it soon. Will that be enough and if so, what else does it need to get video smoothed out? Looking for a few answers, the sofware seems good however, a newby at doing video stuff. thanks!!!

[motobarsteward]

Before spending more money on RAM, try connecting your laptops directley to the server (with wire) rather than WiFi. See if it's still jumpy.

I got so fed up with WiFi not working reliably, I CAT5e'ed my whole house. I found that, even with signals that look good, the data flow was not smoth and caused sage to jump around.

[Osoksniper]

Thanks...does that apply to wireless N as well? I can understand that with 11mb or even 54mb. Wait, My laptops both have g so, they are only getting 54mb to them. Maybe upping them to wireless N will get the speed they need? The files from the wireless server, whic by the way has three coaxes attached and gets almost 300 mb wireless...800+ k per second, I tested it, has no issues transferring files at all. So you're saying Sage may be the issue and it may not be able to work with it? That would totally blow what I am trying to do...I want the house to be unobstructed with wires and such...the pc sits in the corner now with the antenna in the window in some shades...what about usb Hauppage tuners? I have run out of card slots and was wondering if i got a usb hub and attached two more usb type tuners would they keep up with the card pci type tuners? Just as fast and reliable?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Osoksniper

The files from the wireless server, whic by the way has three coaxes attached and gets almost 300 mb wireless...800+ k per second, I tested it, has no issues transferring files at all.

_If_ it is an issue using wireless, file transfers aren't really comparable to media playback. The file transfer has no problem resending parts that didn't go through correctly or waiting for a hiccup in the connection to go back to normal, because there is no requirement for the transfer to be made by a certain time. During media playback, it has to transfer the data fast enough and reliably enough to keep playback operating smoothly.

what about usb Hauppage tuners? I have run out of card slots and was wondering if i got a usb hub and attached two more usb type tuners would they keep up with the card pci type tuners? Just as fast and reliable?

I have 2 PVR-USB2 tuners in use along with 1 PVR-250 pci card. They all work fine. If you use a USB2 hub, you may need a powered hub. The only issue I've heard about the PVR-USB2s lately is that it sounds like they may not work correctly when the newer ones are mixed with the older ones. I don't have that issue, so I can't give more details.

- Andy

[mattdcknsn]

One way to test wireless connectivity is to use robocopy, it will show you the file transfer in percentage and you can see when it has hiccups. I had a wireless setup and when I tried a test with robocopy I could see that almost every 10% it would pause for a couple of seconds and then continue. When I switched to a powerline adapter it was smooth.

To get robocopy you have to install the windows 2003 resource kit (free download). The win2k3 kit is compatible with windows xp.

[PhillJones]

can you increase the size of the buffer to iron out such hiccups?

[Osoksniper]

Thanks for all the input guys...this is really good information and, admittedly a bit overwhelming. I surely do hope that the wires don't have to come out however, sounds like a possibility. Can you increase the buffer so that the program buffers more? From what i have read it really isn't really "live" anyway since it buffers some before even sending the live stream. Would it be possible to keep a larger buffer and thereby making the video stream smoother? With all the ram I have purchased, surely it will have enough to buffer a few seconds of video, right? That resource kit idea is a great one and that would definitely tell the tale in whether it has issues from the server through the router and back to the pc being fed video. The info on the usbs is wonderful!!! All I really need to do then is get a powered hub, and two more usb pvrs and we will be set...better do that next month though, the wife is taking notice of my plans...ha!!! thanks!!!