Top 4 Advantages and Disadvantages of HTPCs

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by bialio

User induced and factory induced bloat are of course a given. But I think OS induced bloat exists also. Use a normal Windows PC with the normal programs (Office Suite, Web Browser, Email, and related programs) - and over time it starts to slow down. I've seen this happen over and over again.

My desktop runs for ages too, not as long as my server, but that's because I tend to install/uninstall lots of software/drivers/etc. So yes, I've experienced the "accumulated bloat", but I recognize that it's my fault.

[GKusnick]

I'm with Stanger on this one. In the decade or more that I've been building my own Windows computers, I've never had to resort to periodic reformats & reinstalls to get good performance. (I think we're all agreed that pre-built store-bought machines are a different story, given all the preloaded crapware they come with.)

I do on the other hand take some sensible maintenance precautions, like preallocating an adequately large paging file, running a decent disk defragmenter that can defrag the paging file, MFT, & directories, periodically clearing the browser cache & history, emptying the Recycle Bin and Temp directories (you'd be surprised at how many people never do that), and so on.

So yeah, there's junk that accumulates over time. But there are tools for managing that short of nuking and starting over, and most of those tools are pretty easy to automate using Scheduled Tasks.

[pjwerdna]

Thought I'd add another one...

Disadvantages

* PC decoders have low tolerance for errors in recordings. The SageTV Decoder doesnt seem to cope at all, other decoders are better, but still fail on 20-30% of my recordings.

[wado1971]

Advantages:
1) All the fun involved with user stv/stvi’s – both modifying studio & trying out various users work. The time, effort & quality of some of these modifications is unbelievable and you never know what’s coming next. It gives a real ‘linux-project’ community feel to the software.
2) Being able to organize/view/play various media files. ie: with an expatriate in the household I download (automatically scheduled) over 100GB of GermanTV/month categorized with directory monitoring software and watch it from sagetv seamlessly.

Disadvantages:
If you’re the type of person who can’t leave well-enough along but don’t consider an HTPC a hobby……. then the disadvantages are too many to list.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by pjwerdna

Thought I'd add another one...

Disadvantages

* PC decoders have low tolerance for errors in recordings. The SageTV Decoder doesnt seem to cope at all, other decoders are better, but still fail on 20-30% of my recordings.

Wow 20-30% of the time? You've got some problems. When I was using full PC Clients, I rarely ever (less than 1% if even that) had a problem with my recordings. The only issue I had is that both of my PC clients were borderline at best to handle HD and would have the occassional studder.

Edit: I should mention I use Purevideo Decoders/codecs for all of my recordings.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

I can attest computers can be flakey. The USB ports on my mobo just stopped working one night. Worked fine when I went to bed, next morning dead.

Bios flash, reinstall windows.... no dice. And I tested like 4 different devices. Still I generally get a weeks uptime on my sage server... which is also a general purpose computer, used for playback, encoding, and the occasional game. Not bad when compared to a Comcast SA box.

I believe most of it has to do with the components chosen to build your server. Previous iterations of my server have run flawlessly with uptimes in the 6 to 7 month range without the need to restart SageTV or Windows. The only reason being to finally get around to installing Windows Updates. It has been only relatively recently that I've had a small spat of hardware and software problems. I had the power supply in my HTPC go bad which in turn caused the motherboard to get flakey. Since then the only issues I've had pertained to a rather flakey HDHR driver.

If I'd stop screwing with it and not upgrade the drivers and such so often I could have much longer uptimes without issue. But I'm waiting for some sort of fix to the HDHR 5min skip problem. It's rather irritating at times.

But in my estimation most flakiness is either attributed to bad or cheap hardware or badly written software or drivers. As long as you have a nice solidly built machine you shouldn't have any issues short of maybe the occasional software glitch.

Oh, and as far as your "Microsoft bloat" goes XP has made that non-existent. Maybe back in the day with Windows 98 and ME you may have needed to start things fresh once in a while but with XP as long as you keep it well maintained you shouldn't need to do a clean install unless you change out your motherboard. XP will run for months on end without the need for a clean install or a restart. I don't know what the record for my Sage server is but I believe it's probably in the 6 to 7 month range between restarts, if not longer.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by wado1971

Advantages:
1) All the fun involved with user stv/stvi’s – both modifying studio & trying out various users work. The time, effort & quality of some of these modifications is unbelievable and you never know what’s coming next. It gives a real ‘linux-project’ community feel to the software.

Advantage: Even if you are clueless about studio, programming, code, etc., it's still fun to be able to install well-explained customizations that make SageTV better and (especially) improve the WAF.

Disadvantage: When you've already installed all of the currently-available customizations that you want, and you have to sit and wait for new ones (and constantly check the forum, hoping to see some great new stvi posted) because you yourself have no programming skills. Also, when you post ideas of customizations that you would love to see and the post(s) get completely ignored and fall off the board.

Um, not that I would do that or anything.

[lobosrul]

On the bloatiness again:

I never even heard of this urban legend about PC's becoming bloated all on their own, so I assumed you meant "user-created" bloating. Sounds implausible to me. My work machine (the one I'm on now) is 4 years old and has never had a re-install. It takes forever to restart but thats due to scripts and AV on startup.

And I've had hardware go bad all on its on at least 4 times now (in around 12 years). Twice that was a BFG branded product (never buying again), once was a fairly old HDD, and once was a 56k modem that I think was hit by a surge. Also I have an 8500GT passive cooled card that crashes after about 30-60 mins of watching 1080i (with purevideo) and thats with a case fan blowing right on it.

[Thomas Wischgol]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

I do on the other hand take some sensible maintenance precautions, like preallocating an adequately large paging file, running a decent disk defragmenter that can defrag the paging file, MFT, & directories, periodically clearing the browser cache & history, emptying the Recycle Bin and Temp directories (you'd be surprised at how many people never do that), and so on.

I completely agree with you on this one. The fragmentation of the swap file is probably the number one issue why people think the system performs better after reinstalling. Then the swap file is no longer fragmented of course, but defragmenting the hard drive the right way would give you the same results (in significantly less time). Frankly, this is a flawed design to begin with, but Microsoft often goes for the safe route (read: less calls to their help line) and not the best performance.

Thomas

[Ender]

Advantages:
Seamless integration of all input sources (OTA HD, Cable, Streaming Video)
Ability to customize the interface in almost any fashio one would desire.

Disadvantages:
Can get very expensive, especially if you don't do your homework first.
If you are the type that likes to tinker and don't do an OS image regularly, or your images get corrupted because you are retiling you kitchen floor, and a piece of debris falls through a 1" hole in floor and falls on your external drive. Well things can get a bit messy, and tedious.

But with a bit of prudence, The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

[stroths]

Advantage:
Addictive

Disadvantage:
Addictive

[othy]

Originally Posted by Ender

Advantages:
Disadvantages:
... your images get corrupted because you are retiling you kitchen floor, and a piece of debris falls through a 1" hole in floor and falls on your external drive. Well things can get a bit messy, and tedious.

Probably not a common problem, but one that I'll watch out for in the future

Tim

[mayamaniac]

Advantage:
Endless extendability.

Disadvantage:
Extendability mileage may vary.