Questions about Servers, Tuners and Media Extenders

[Mitch G]

For discussion purposes, assume I have the following setup:

House Network:
- 10/100 Mbps Ethernet hardwired.

Basement:
Server box with:
- Intel Core Duo 2-ish GHz; 1 GB RAM
- 1 tuner card (assume a single tuner) that supports analog cable and clear QAM HD
- 1 big-ish hard drive
- 1 copy of SageTV Media Center
- running Linux maybe? Maybe I'll chicken out and go with Vista.

Family room:
Sage HD Media Extender

Bedroom:
Sage HD Media Extender

So, here are my current questions:

1) Is this all the hardware/software I would need to do the following through SageTV from either of the Media Extenders:
a) Watch/pause/resume live TV.
b) Watch/pause/resume DVDs ripped to the server.
c) Record/Watch analog/SD cable or clear QAM HD TV programs.
(Part of this question is whether or not a 10/100 Gb Ethernet network is sufficient for this.)

2) If watching live TV on one media extender can you watch a different program on the other extender? Or, does this require a second tuner?
(I gotta believe a second tuner is needed for this, but a question not asked is a question not answered.)

3) For live TV, does this set up really work as well as a dedicated DVR (e.g. Tivo)? By that I mean, will the fact that the server with the tuners and the disk space is sitting in the basement be transparent to a user (i.e. wife) in the family room? Or, will there be delays between hitting pause and the program actually pausing, etc.

That should do it for now.

Thanks,


Mitch

[mikesm]

Yes, all that should work. Don't use Vista though for the server - it has too many issues at this point to recommend. Go XP. It just works. There is better tuner driver support in windows than the linux version, but for what you want to do, you could probably do it under linux if you choose tuner hardware carefully.

If you want to watch two different channels live from two different extenders, you will need two tuners. Same channel, will only need one tuner no matter how many folks are viewing it.

It works pretty well, but the Tivo just works. The reason to use Sage is to be able to do things that the tivo just can't do. With the right hardware and configuration, I think it works better as a PVR than a tivo, but the tivo today can do cablecard which Sage cannot. From a WAF perspective, if you set it up right it can be very high. Extenders work pretty well for what you are talking about doing.

[gplasky]

Recommend a dual tuner card for the SDTV and a HDHomerun on the network for clear QAM and/or HDTV. Once you start using Sage you'll start to get away from watching "Live TV" and begin watching your recordings more. I have 52 favorites and I can't remember the last time I watched live tv.

Gerry

[Mitch G]

Thanks for the input.
Now for another question:

What is the binding between tuner(s), sageTV software and media extenders?
I guess my question is, when I turn on a media extender, who/what decides which tuner to use? Do I, the user, have to choose a tuner when I turn it on each time? Do I just select a channel and SageTV picks a tuner? Or, is each media extender configured to use a given tuner?

Thanks,


Mitch

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Mitch G

Thanks for the input.
Now for another question:

What is the binding between tuner(s), sageTV software and media extenders?
I guess my question is, when I turn on a media extender, who/what decides which tuner to use? Do I, the user, have to choose a tuner when I turn it on each time? Do I just select a channel and SageTV picks a tuner? Or, is each media extender configured to use a given tuner?

Thanks,


Mitch

Sage will pick for you. You'll setup your EPG info per tuner and Sage will present it to you as one, cohesive guide. You choose a channela nd Sage will know if that is a channel on the tuner card, HDHomerun, Set top box, etc. It will prefer to record HD by default if you have those channels. And you can tweak it some with a priority setting. One of the goals is to make it as simple for the end user as possible to watch TV.

Gerry

[Mitch G]

Excellent. That's what I was hoping to hear/read, but again wanted to make sure.

So, how about another question:

- Some of the tuner cards come with remote controls. Does that remote control essentially get thrown away? In other words, the media extender's remote control is all that's needed, right?



Mitch

[sandor]

I would go ahead and pick up a gigabit router. having the extra head room is never a problem, and they are cheap.

[killerkhan]

This is a good thread, and all the questions are pretty much what I had in mind and then some.

Here is what I am thinking of doing.

I have a linksys 8 port gigabit switch, this is where all the clients will be connecting to including the sagetv server. using cat5e or cat6 cabling. I have 4 rooms with TV, and the 5th room is my office, this is where my sagetv server will be, and I am planning on putting up an LCD in this office. So, here are some of my questions in continuation of the previous questions...

1: will I need to use a sagetv client for the TV in the room where the sagetv server is? or can I conect a TV to the sagetv server and watch tv there without interrupting any server activities?

2: using my own movies. I have a huge collection of DVD's and I think its time I make them available on all TV's. So, can I rip them into XVID and stream them using sagetv? or I have to just rip them and then stream them as dvd ISO or dvd files meaning MPEG2?

3: Can sagetv download movie information from sites like imdb or whatever including the movie dvd cover etc.? would love to see the movies stored on the sagetv with some information rather than just file name.

4: if I get an account for xm radio or sirius can I stream those to all the tv's? and same question as the TV channels, can more than 1 tv listen to the radio on different channels, or I will need to have multiple xm or sirius devices, or will this be done over internet using internet account? I am not too familiar with the internet radio so just wondering.

5: also can I stream regular radio to the tv's? like the local radio stations I get when I am in the car of home radio etc? what I need for that?

6: since I have 4-5 TV's and I want the ability for any tv to watch any channel, will not always be the same channel, so lets say I need 4 seperate channels, and hence 4 tuners, can I install 2 dual tuners in the media server? totaling 4 tuners?

thanks for everyone contributing to this post

[DualQuad]

Originally Posted by Mitch G

Excellent. That's what I was hoping to hear/read, but again wanted to make sure.

So, how about another question:

- Some of the tuner cards come with remote controls. Does that remote control essentially get thrown away? In other words, the media extender's remote control is all that's needed, right?



Mitch

If the remotes actually controlled the tuner on the card, then the remotes are not needed as long as Sage Supports the card. In general, your Extender signals the Sage server which then signals the capture card over the bus to tune channels/etc.

You may be able to use the IR/RF capabilities of the card to control the Sage box, but I am not certain. In the past I had used a USB-UIRT to get my IR commands into the SageBox and not anything through a capture card.

DualQuad

[Arioch5]

Originally Posted by killerkhan

1: will I need to use a sagetv client for the TV in the room where the sagetv server is? or can I conect a TV to the sagetv server and watch tv there without interrupting any server activities?

Yes you can connect a TV to the server and use it like a client. I currently do that in my living room where my server also services my HD-TV.

Originally Posted by killerkhan

2: using my own movies. I have a huge collection of DVD's and I think its time I make them available on all TV's. So, can I rip them into XVID and stream them using sagetv? or I have to just rip them and then stream them as dvd ISO or dvd files meaning MPEG2?

You have multiple options here. You can rip your DVD's into the Vidoe_TS/Audio_TS folders and play them off the Hard Drive. It will not directly mount a .iso. Or you can trans code the videos into a different format and stream that. Sage can play back the DVD's or other Codecs on the clients. Only the Placeshifter can not stream DVD's.

Originally Posted by killerkhan

3: Can sagetv download movie information from sites like imdb or whatever including the movie dvd cover etc.? would love to see the movies stored on the sagetv with some information rather than just file name.

I'm fairly sure sage can d/l the IMDB information for a movie. I'm positive that running the SageMC STV this option is available. There are also ways to use DVD Profiler, but I've never done that.

Originally Posted by killerkhan

4: if I get an account for xm radio or sirius can I stream those to all the tv's? and same question as the TV channels, can more than 1 tv listen to the radio on different channels, or I will need to have multiple xm or sirius devices, or will this be done over internet using internet account? I am not too familiar with the internet radio so just wondering.

5: also can I stream regular radio to the tv's? like the local radio stations I get when I am in the car of home radio etc? what I need for that?

I'm not positive of the answers to these two.

Originally Posted by killerkhan

6: since I have 4-5 TV's and I want the ability for any tv to watch any channel, will not always be the same channel, so lets say I need 4 seperate channels, and hence 4 tuners, can I install 2 dual tuners in the media server? totaling 4 tuners?

Yes a dual tuner provides 2 separately controlled channels at a time. However, I'd be willing to bet once you've started experiencing recorded TV (especially with commercials cut out) you won't need all that. Now that I use sage, the only meaning I give to quantity of tuners is the number of simultaneous recordings I can make. I haven't watched anything live in probably a year or more.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by killerkhan

1: will I need to use a sagetv client for the TV in the room where the sagetv server is? or can I conect a TV to the sagetv server and watch tv there without interrupting any server activities?

YOu can run a TV off the Sage server without normally interupting server activities. I'd set up the server to run as a service. That way the server backend is separate from the "client UI" and the service will keep running even if you were to lock up the UI. You can then restart the UI without affecting the backend server.

2: using my own movies. I have a huge collection of DVD's and I think its time I make them available on all TV's. So, can I rip them into XVID and stream them using sagetv? or I have to just rip them and then stream them as dvd ISO or dvd files meaning MPEG2?

You can do it either way. Rip to xvid for just the movie, or rip the entire movie and save the entire Video_TS folder on the hard drive.

3: Can sagetv download movie information from sites like imdb or whatever including the movie dvd cover etc.? would love to see the movies stored on the sagetv with some information rather than just file name.

Yes, you can DL movie info and photo from IMDB. there is a plugin to do this with the default Sage UI, or it is included if you use the alternate SageMC UI.

6: since I have 4-5 TV's and I want the ability for any tv to watch any channel, will not always be the same channel, so lets say I need 4 seperate channels, and hence 4 tuners, can I install 2 dual tuners in the media server? totaling 4 tuners?

You sure can. I have 2 PVR-500 dual tuners plus a HDHomerun and a firewired STB, for a total of 7 tuners.

You just need to be sure that the drivers for the tuners will support multiple cards. THe hauppauge PVR-500 drivers do, and there is a beta driver out for the discontinued nVidia DualTV that will support multiple cards.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by killerkhan

2: using my own movies. I have a huge collection of DVD's and I think its time I make them available on all TV's. So, can I rip them into XVID and stream them using sagetv? or I have to just rip them and then stream them as dvd ISO or dvd files meaning MPEG2?

If you're starting out, I recommend against ISOs, because they're overall just a pain because very few programs can play them without them being mounted to a virtual drive.

As for options you could transcode them to any format Sage can play, or, my preferred method is to rip just the main movie (no recompression) into a folder. Sage can play these natively.

3: Can sagetv download movie information from sites like imdb or whatever including the movie dvd cover etc.? would love to see the movies stored on the sagetv with some information rather than just file name.

There are a couple options, there's an IMDB import, or there's an STVi that will import the data and copy the covers from your DVD Profiler collection.

[killerkhan]

thank you all for such complete and fast answers. this is why I love sagetv, the user support.

So looks like I will need to buy 2 of the PVR-500 for my setup. I am set on getting 2 of the 1TB seagate sata drives. and getting the hauppauge MVP wireless for all the tv sets. I have not upgraded my tv sets to HD yet, not much money so for now I will skip this whole HD craze till the tv sets come down in prices

thanks again guys. looking forward to some recorded tv

[Mitch G]

Yes, thanks for the help.

In case anyone cares and in case anyone has any suggestions, I've decided to approach this in a few phases.

Phase 1:
I'll start with a scratch-built Windows XP server, an HD Homerun and the trial version of SageTV.
I'll test this setup all from the server and once happy, I'll move to phase 2.

Phase 2:
I'll add an analog card to the server, a gig-E switch on the backside of the network and an HD media extender to the family room.
If this passes MeAF and WAF, then I'll move to phase 3.

Phase 3:
Run Cat 6 to the bedroom.
Add a media extender to the bedroom.
Put my Sony DVR on ebay.


Mitch

[dagar]

Originally Posted by killerkhan

thank you all for such complete and fast answers. this is why I love sagetv, the user support.

So looks like I will need to buy 2 of the PVR-500 for my setup. I am set on getting 2 of the 1TB seagate sata drives. and getting the hauppauge MVP wireless for all the tv sets. I have not upgraded my tv sets to HD yet, not much money so for now I will skip this whole HD craze till the tv sets come down in prices

thanks again guys. looking forward to some recorded tv

It would be worth some research on the wireless MVPs. While I don't have that model (I have the wired MVPs - 2 of them) there appear to be some users that have a lot of issues with them. As always YMMV but just wanted to throw it out there for you

[vividweb]

Originally Posted by dagar

It would be worth some research on the wireless MVPs. While I don't have that model (I have the wired MVPs - 2 of them) there appear to be some users that have a lot of issues with them. As always YMMV but just wanted to throw it out there for you

I would have to agree. I haven't tried the wireless setup in a while, but I haven't read about any improvements. My system was very hit and miss with the wireless setup. I would try one before you invest too much in wireless, they work wired too so you can hard wire if you have problems.

[killerkhan]

wired sounds good then, no need to spend extra money on wireless MVP's.

I just realized that my media server has 1 PCI and 1 AGP slot free, its got firewire and a whole bunch of USB ports. So what are my options as far as tuner cards go for my pc.

I have verizon FIOS TV and they come with the motorola QIP2500-3 set top boxes. What would I need to be able to record lets say 2 live feeds at the same time, no HD, just normal tv signals from set top boxes, and I assume I will need some kind of remote control or cable based control of the set top boxes as well?

Thanks again guys in advance for all your replies and help

[Mitch G]

So, phase 1 (see earlier post) is pretty much finished.
I have a 2.4GHz core duo with a cheap video card (Geforce 7200 based card that cost $20 after rebate). The video card has DVI and downloading some beta software from Nvidia allowed me to deal with overscan.
Things seem to be working fine.
The only real issue I'm having is an occasional stutter or interlacing artifact when playing back recordings. I don't see this with DVDs.

But, now I have some new questions:

1) When using the HD extender does the server still do video decoding? I downloaded the trial version of Nvidia PureVideo to fix some display problems. So, I'm wondering if I'm going to have to buy the software once I have extenders in the picture. I'm hoping the answer is "no, the server just passes the file to the extender where it's decoded and displayed using state of the art mega powerful hardware," but I have to ask.

2) How does the extender's user interface work? Can it be customized with things like miniguide or even SageMC? Is that customization done on the server? Or is it done on the extender? A corollary to that question is if I set up my server with SageMC or default STV addins, will those magically appear when using the extender?

Thanks


Mitch

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Mitch G

1) When using the HD extender does the server still do video decoding?

No -- the extender has a hardware decoder that it uses for media playback.

(Technically, if a format isn't supported by an extender, it can be transcoded by the server to a format the extender can play. While this is used for several formats played on the MVP, I don't think there are any that work this way for the HD extender... or if there are, I just don't know what those formats are.)

2) How does the extender's user interface work? Can it be customized with things like miniguide or even SageMC? Is that customization done on the server? Or is it done on the extender?

All SageTV clients can choose what STV to use, so the extender can use a custom STV. There may be limitations about which features work on specific clients, so you should check the customization for that.

You can choose the extender's STV from the UI on the extender.

A corollary to that question is if I set up my server with SageMC or default STV addins, will those magically appear when using the extender?

That depends... remote clients (Placeshifter + extenders) can get the default value for a setting from the server's sage.properties file if it doesn't already exist in the remote client's property file. So, if you run the server in non-service mode (so it uses sage.properties) & confiure the UI there, you might get most or all of those settings carried over the first time you use an extender. Once a setting is customized on an extender, that setting is then saved to & loaded from its own properties file.

- Andy

[Mitch G]

Thanks for the response.

The real gist of my last question is whether or not the HD extender, in particular, is as customizable as PC clients in terms of default STV plugins and the whole SageMC universe. It sounds like it is (with some possible caveats).


Mitch