Streaming from a network drive....

[robhix]

Ok, here is the setup. I have a Sage server that does all of my recording and stores it locally on the computer hard drive. I watch all of my recording on a MVP media extender that is sitting out on my network.

I would like to buy a NAS device to store the recordings on. I realize I might have to copy the files over if I cannot record directly to the NAS. My first question is when I use the MVP to watch an MPEG recording, will it stream directly off of the NAS to the MVP, or does it need to go through the computer for processing? I think the answer to this is NO, since the MVP can natively decode the MPEG stream. Second question, if the recording is DIVX does it need to go back through the computer for decodin. I am thinking it will since the MVP does not do native DIVX decoding.

Thanks in advance for the help. I really need this information to help me expand my SAGE system.

Rob Hix

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by robhix

My first question is when I use the MVP to watch an MPEG recording, will it stream directly off of the NAS to the MVP, or does it need to go through the computer for processing?

I think the server reads the file from the NAS and then streams it to the MVP. I don't think the MVP is capable of streaming directly.

I think the answer to this is NO, since the MVP can natively decode the MPEG stream. Second question, if the recording is DIVX does it need to go back through the computer for decodin. I am thinking it will since the MVP does not do native DIVX decoding.

Non-natively-supported formats are ready by the server, transcoded into an MVP-friendly format MPEG-2) and streamed to the MVP.

[stevech]

Beware that most NAS products cannot do large disk block allocations (i.e., 64KB as in Windows). Most NASes are Linux and don't have a simple/viable user interface to permit you format to large blocks. This is a serious throughput issue for video recording.

May as well have a small PC running Windows, I say. I have that, with low cost RAID1 for safety (family photos), as two partitions, and the PC runs things other than a Sage Server, such as home automation and a personal web server.

My setup is typical: Sage Server on the above-mentioned PC. MVP streams from this server. Mine uses vanilla 802.11g via a Buffalo Tech. bridge, because of cable routing issues. Fortunately, none of my neighbors stream on the same WiFi channel I use.

[sandor]

Originally Posted by stevech

Beware that most NAS products cannot do large disk block allocations (i.e., 64KB as in Windows). Most NASes are Linux and don't have a simple/viable user interface to permit you format to large blocks. This is a serious throughput issue for video recording.

after about 6 months of running recordings and imports on my NasLite system, www.serverelements.com , i have yet to have any fragmentation problems. ext3 seems incredibly less susceptible to fragmentation than NTFS. i think 64k blocks are a necessity with NTFS, but really make no difference (or little difference) with ext3 (a common linux/NAS file system)