Help with setup - about to loose spousal approval...

[robhix]

Hey all,

I really hate to post long posts, but I am about to go under here. The SageTV spousal approval factor (SAF) has gone way down recently all because of one issue. I would really appreciate some help here.

The Problem : I have recorded cartoons, movies, etc. for the kids and to save space, ran them through the DIVX encoder to convert them. Now, when we play them they skip terribly if we are doing anything else on the computer that is the Sage Server.

My Setup: I am running Sage 6.3.10 on a Intel P4 3.0 GHz with 1 GB RAM. I have one MVP media extender (wired) that we use for playing the recording back into our entertainment system. Capture card is a single WinTV-PVR-150.

My Options As I See Them (and Problems/Questions):
1. Buy a new computer and dedicate the one we are using now to Sage service. Problem, SAF goes down more
2. Buy the new HD extender and use it instead (Will it support DIVX natively)?
3. Use an old machine that I have set up as a Windows Home Server as my Sage Server. Machine is AMD Athlon 1.2 GHz with 1.5 GB RAM and IDE drives.. The first problem here is DIVX will not install on it correctly. Second problem is if I want to get another capture card and increase my recording capacity, I am not sure the machine will handle it. (Will it handle it?) (How do I support DIVX on this machine).
4. Buy a hard drive enclosure that will play the DIVX natively and not use sage for that function.
5. Ditch Sage altogether and go back to the dark ages.

If anyone could help me out, I would appreciate it. I really prefer option 3. I am pretty sure that machine will record one channel with no problem. I am not sure it will simultaneously record a program and playback a DIVX stream. I also have the problem of getting DIVX installed on the machine.

I would really appreciate any help you could provide, I am in a bind here and not really sure what to do.

Thanks in advance,
Rob Hix

[stuckless]

a P4 3ghz should be plenty powerful enough to do 2 things at once. But, you should probably try to optimize your windows by shutting down any non essential services. Check to see which programs are using memory / cpu. Stuttering can be caused by lack of memory (ie, all other programs are using it, and it forces windows to swap), IO (ie, several programs are accessing the HD excessively), or lack of CPU.

I would think that most people here run a dedicated server or server/client for best results. But I can see how spending another 500-1000 for another box could have negative SAF

Something else to consider is converting your divx files to mpeg2. The MVP does have native mpeg2 decoding support, so there should not be much load on your server when using the mvp. When you play divx on the server, the server (ie Sage) needs to transcode them on the fly to mpeg2. The HD extender has native support for divx and mpeg2.

As for hardware... I've known people that have used sage on a p3 with 2 tuners, without issue. As long as the tuners have hardware encoding.

I don't run windows, so I can't really help with why divx does not install.

good luck.

[waltraud]

Originally Posted by robhix

Hey all,

My Setup: I am running Sage 6.3.10 on a Intel P4 3.0 GHz with 1 GB RAM. I have one MVP media extender (wired) that we use for playing the recording back into our entertainment system. Capture card is a single WinTV-PVR-150.

As stuckless already said the MVP will only play MPEG so your DIVX files have to be transcoded to MPEG on the fly. This is quite CPU heavy. I used to run Sage on an AMD Athlon 2.8GHz system and it was definitely not powerfull enough.

I'd say your best option is the HD Media Extender. Less expensive then a system upgrade and it will play DIVX and many other formats natively so no more transcoding required.

[BFisher]

or buy another hard drive and don't convert them to DIVX... Hard drives are cheap...

[robhix]

So, if I go with the HD extender for the DIVX files, can I assume that the Windows Home Server will do the job for at least single channel encoding and playback (MPEG2) at the same time? I would not think of using a capture card that did not do the hardware encoding. I guess with the HD extender I could probably play back the DIVX at the same time as well as MPEG2 since the extender has native support.

That is probably what I will end up doing given that the HD extender and a DIVX playing hard drive cost about the same amount of money.

Thanks again for the help,
Rob Hix

[stuckless]

I think the HD extender is the smartest thing to todo... plus it will come in handy if you ever go HD. The only other issue that may cause stuttering is network bandwidth.

[Jesse]

I saw 750GB HDD's at Fry's today for $109.00 and 500GB for $89.99. That is a lot less than an HD extender. Why not just go with a big drive and stick with MPEG2. It would be the cheapest solution.

Jesse

[autoboy]

Here is what I would do.

1.Buy a bigger harddrive - they are stupid cheap now. why waste time and CPU converting files...

2. Dedicate your WHS box to SageTV. - SageTV does not really use the CPU for recording because all tuners (including HD tuners) do the hard processing for you and the server just writes it to disk. My Sage Server uses 5-10% CPU (Athlon X2) to record 5 shows, 3 in HD. For reliability it is best not to have Sage on a machine that gets general use by family members. Make sure the SageTV recording harddrives are not in the managed pool. Stick with mpeg2 and there will be no transcoding going on.

if you really want Divx upgrade to a HD extender. I would still run it on my WHS box though. There has to be a way to get Divx on it. Or you could just stick to the Mpeg4 compression built into SageTV transcoder.