Switching from MCE

[jelwood]

I'm switching from MCE to SageTV. I've downloaded the trial and like everything I see (using SageMC even does a decent job of replacing My Movies). Now I have a few questions before I build my system.

1) Is there any advantage to Vista (with UAC disabled) over XP? I can't decide which operating system to use. XP is definitely faster, but I'm guessing that Vista will have some advantages as the device drivers mature.

2) Is there anything special I have to do to get SageMC working with the HD Media Extender? If not, does it work well, or are there problems on the HD Media Extender (I've only evaluated SageMC on the PC as I haven't ordered an extender yet).

3) Is there a recommended limit to the number of Extenders you should run on one system (with MCE I'm currently running 4 extenders). I'm thinking about CPU resources, memory, is there anything I should consider bumping up to make the system work with 4 extenders cleanly.

4) Any advice on using Serial Channel changers with Directv Receivers? It seems like all the posts I've seen on this subject say it will work great out of the box if I just purchase The Paterson Device, but I was just curious if anyone has any other wisdom to share?

Thanks in advance, the forum members have been a great resource as you have a wealth of information.

[StephaneM]

Hi,

Originally Posted by jelwood

1) Is there any advantage to Vista (with UAC disabled) over XP? I can't decide which operating system to use. XP is definitely faster, but I'm guessing that Vista will have some advantages as the device drivers mature.

Well, Vista should have really better video quality, but only if all video components you are using are built for Vista (Graphic card and drivers, Playback software and codecs).

The only realy benefits I see from Vista is that you'll have less judder in video especially if you have video with frame rate that doesn't match your screen refresh rate (with XP you can handle this with ReClock)

Also Vista shouldn't be slower than XP. Though, has Vista does a lot of caching, preloading, indexing, make shadow copies of files etc... there are times when it is slow because it is accessing the hard drives like crazy. I'm sure this can be fine tuned (I don't do it personally, because these slow down only occurs when installing/uninstalling software or right after boot).

Also, I would recommend to not turn off UAC. UAC can cause :

* irritations : because you have to acknowledge your actions (but for me it's better than nothing, because you are warned that something is going to change files / registry that shouldn't be touched without a valid reasons : like installing a software)

* troubles with badly written software (SageTV is one in this regards). This is especially important because UAC is supposed to make software developpers behave correctly regarding security. If everybody turns off UAC then we will never have a secure Windows OS ever. When you know how Vista handle those softwares it won't cause you any problems (this is the Virtualisation trick : Vista create copies of restricted files in a virtual store when an unelevated process tries to write to these files).


So, I would go with Vista for a new computer (my HTPC is still on XP, though the day I will upgrade it I will switch it to Vista)

2) 3) 4)

I don't know for these points.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[toricred]

The extenders (MVP and HD) work great with SageMC. I also use the Pattersontech devices to do serial control and they work perfectly.

[jelwood]

Thank you for your replies... It sounds like there are advantages to Vista so I'll try it (and I'll keep the UAC turned on). Thanks again for your advice, this type of community support really helps new people start with SageTV.

[carlgar]

If you go with VISTA be sure to update to SP1 RC. Networking appears to be the weak point of VISTA. Expect to see the HD extender hang on occasion. I have run as long as 6 days without seeing a problem but I have also seen a problem as often as twice in a day. I am working with Sage support about this problem. Here is what the log shows:
Sat 1/19 16:02:58.352 [Pusher@70386d] Socket timeout on Vista...trying to workaround Vista TCP bug...
Sat 1/19 16:02:58.353 [Pusher@70386d] Error with MiniPlayer, closing UI: java.net.SocketException: Connection reset by peer: socket write error
Sat 1/19 16:02:58.354 [Pusher@70386d] pushBuffer call failed; terminating push loop
Sat 1/19 16:02:58.354 [Thread-17250@1565c5d] Killing UIMgr UIManager:localhost@@00085c53a3b1-1296e07
Sat 1/19 16:02:58.355 [ActiveRender-00085c53a3b1@78cdb6] java.net.SocketException: Connection reset by peer: socket write error

[nebulink]

Originally Posted by carlgar

If you go with VISTA be sure to update to SP1 RC. Networking appears to be the weak point of VISTA. Expect to see the HD extender hang on occasion. I have run as long as 6 days without seeing a problem but I have also seen a problem as often as twice in a day. I am working with Sage support about this problem. Here is what the log shows:
Sat 1/19 16:02:58.352 [Pusher@70386d] Socket timeout on Vista...trying to workaround Vista TCP bug...
Sat 1/19 16:02:58.353 [Pusher@70386d] Error with MiniPlayer, closing UI: java.net.SocketException: Connection reset by peer: socket write error
Sat 1/19 16:02:58.354 [Pusher@70386d] pushBuffer call failed; terminating push loop
Sat 1/19 16:02:58.354 [Thread-17250@1565c5d] Killing UIMgr UIManager:localhost@@00085c53a3b1-1296e07
Sat 1/19 16:02:58.355 [ActiveRender-00085c53a3b1@78cdb6] java.net.SocketException: Connection reset by peer: socket write error

I am experiencing the same problem. I thought it was just me. Was this corrected by installing SP1?

[nebulink]

jelwood,

There is one thing that you might get annoyed with if you have 4 extenders and DTV. If you only have two tuners you may run into viewer conflicts. This means when all tuners are being used by other clients you have no way of taking control of a tuner from you as you do in MCE. MCE brings up a message stating "There is a Viewing conflict. Would you like to change the channel?" Sage presents and message stating an error of some sort. then you get to go to the other extenders and turn them off so you can gain control of a tuner.

I am also in the process of switching to sage but unfortunately I had to switch to cable to make it cost effective to add 4 tuners. 2 with STB and 2 without. This was to reduce the possibility of viewer conflicts.

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by nebulink

I am experiencing the same problem. I thought it was just me. Was this corrected by installing SP1?

The SP1 update improved the networking. I have not seen the problem when using the MVP with SP1. But the HD extender transfers a lot more data and I think Microsoft still need to make a lot more improvements in the networking area.

[jelwood]

Originally Posted by nebulink

There is one thing that you might get annoyed with if you have 4 extenders and DTV. If you only have two tuners you may run into viewer conflicts. This means when all tuners are being used by other clients you have no way of taking control of a tuner from you as you do in MCE. MCE brings up a message stating "There is a Viewing conflict. Would you like to change the channel?" Sage presents and message stating an error of some sort. then you get to go to the other extenders and turn them off so you can gain control of a tuner.

Wow, I didn't know about this so thanks for bringing it to my attention. This is a little problem, hopefully Sage will clean this up in a future release because the way Microsoft handled this was pretty clean.

Also carlgar, thanks for the heads up on the networking issues. I'll try it with Vista, but if I have issues, I'll just switch back to XP. Thanks for letting me know, without your heads up I probably would have just gotten frustrated and determined the Sage extenders aren't as reliable as Microsoft's. Now, I have a plan B in case there is a problem.

Great information everyone... Thanks for helping a newbee.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by carlgar

Networking appears to be the weak point of VISTA.

Indeed. I also had issues with networking in Vista, for me I had to replace a netgear switch that was causing the issue. The problem is that the networking stack on Vista is brand new.

So for anyone having issues with networking, try first to reduce the number of network devices between the vista "server" and the "client" device (for instance use only a recent network switch).

[nebulink]

Originally Posted by jelwood

Wow, I didn't know about this so thanks for bringing it to my attention. This is a little problem, hopefully Sage will clean this up in a future release because the way Microsoft handled this was pretty clean.

I was rather surprized about this when I ran accross it. I thought it was a bug but they did this by design. I asked if this was something they would correct in the future but was told they would put it in as a request. Who knows where it will go. As you mention, I also feel Microsoft handles viewing conflicts very well.

[brucesm]

Originally Posted by nebulink

I was rather surprized about this when I ran accross it. I thought it was a bug but they did this by design. I asked if this was something they would correct in the future but was told they would put it in as a request. Who knows where it will go. As you mention, I also feel Microsoft handles viewing conflicts very well.

Yep,
by design
The default behaviour also seems to be to hold the tuner unless STOP is pressed before going to a menu.
See this thread on how to stop the behaviour.
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27750

I will add this as a feature request for 7.0, if you want to push for it in this thread it may help.
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28541

[nebulink]

I added the feature request. We will see what comes of it.