Server hardware requirements for HD media extender?

[tch65721]

What are the minimum server hardware requirements if one intends to use it with HD media extender?
My 6600 GT died (ate it's fan) and I was never happy with it for HD. It would do 720p and nvidia claimed it would do 1080i... but they lied. It always stuttered a bit.
I'm wondering if I should just buy a cheapie AGP card and HD media center OR upgrade to pci-e now. I have read for a couple hours and have not found minimum requirements for the server... It would be appreciated.

[stanger89]

Works fine running off my Athlon XP 1800+ with say a Geforce 4 MX video card.

[matt91]

Originally Posted by tch65721

What are the minimum server hardware requirements if one intends to use it with HD media extender?
My 6600 GT died (ate it's fan) and I was never happy with it for HD. It would do 720p and nvidia claimed it would do 1080i... but they lied. It always stuttered a bit.
I'm wondering if I should just buy a cheapie AGP card and HD media center OR upgrade to pci-e now. I have read for a couple hours and have not found minimum requirements for the server... It would be appreciated.

Not sure exactly what you're looking for, but does this answer it?

Maximum Number of SageTV Media Extenders: 1 SageTV Media Extender works with SageTV minimum system requirements. Tested 5 SageTV Media Extenders successfully on 2 Ghz CPU 512MB RAM PC with average speed disk drive (7200 rpm 8MB cache) and 100Mbps home network.

[tch65721]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Works fine running off my Athlon XP 1800+ with say a Geforce 4 MX video card.

Man... that sucks. I'm officially bummed.
My vid card died on my AGP system and I could not find an adequate replacement so I ordered parts ($450) to go pci-e. Unfortunately, I was not aware of the Sage HD extender and I ordered the parts on the very day the extender was released for sale. Turns out I could have ordered a $30 AGP card and the HD extender ($200) and likely had a better system. Tell me that isn't crappy luck.

[matt91]

Originally Posted by tch65721

Man... that sucks. I'm officially bummed.
My vid card died on my AGP system and I could not find an adequate replacement so I ordered parts ($450) to go pci-e. Unfortunately, I was not aware of the Sage HD extender and I ordered the parts on the very day the extender was released for sale. Turns out I could have ordered a $30 AGP card and the HD extender ($200) and likely had a better system. Tell me that isn't crappy luck.

You can't RMA them?

[tch65721]

Originally Posted by matt91

You can't RMA them?

I could... but I had to go to three different places to get what I wanted so I would still take a $100+ hit on return shipping/restocking fees. Plus time is short this time of year, returns would be a hassle and the other parts of this old system won't last forever. Easier to just keep the stuff and forget the extender. If I could back up a few days I would do it differently. Oh well.

[autoboy]

My first server was a PII 350 with 512MB ram, 10/100 nic, PCI video card, and 3 200GB harddrives. It served 3 clients with SD video. Since all the server does is write information to disk, and schedule recordings, you need very little PC to do that. Do I recommend you go out and get a 486 to be your server? No, I'm just showing you a worst case scenario.

I upgraded my server for comskip and transcoding, but if you don't use that, even serving HD, since all the decoding is done on the clients / HD extender, little processing is done on the server.