WHS installation and remote access to music

[IvyGuy]

Please point me to instructions for installing and configuring SageTV on a WHS. Do I need only PlaceShifter on my client notebook PC to be able to (initially) play music stored on the WHS? Please direct me to instructions on configuring the link between the two. Do I need to install DirectX on the server or only on the client? Thanks.

[crarbo1]

I would be interested in these instructions too. I'm having difficulties geting it to work but maybe I'm doing something wrong. Instructions specifically for WHS would be nice.

Originally Posted by IvyGuy

Please point me to instructions for installing and configuring SageTV on a WHS. Do I need only PlaceShifter on my client notebook PC to be able to (initially) play music stored on the WHS? Please direct me to instructions on configuring the link between the two. Do I need to install DirectX on the server or only on the client? Thanks.

[mikehaney]

I just went through setting up a new WHS installation, and initially I used PC clients but switched to the HD extenders for the tvs (still use sage client on our computers in the office). I also just setup the placeshifter client at work today and tried it out.

What specific questions do you have about the setup? The instructions will vary based on what capture cards you have, etc., I can try to explain what I did for my setup. I have digital cable with 2 settop boxes feeding into a PVR500 card. I also have an HD Homerun I use to get local HD channels and a handful of cable channels that are still clear QAM.

After setting up WHS, I installed the drivers for the HD Homerun and the PVR500 (just used the latest XP drivers off their respective websites - worked fine with WHS). I configured the HD Homerun following the instructions for SageTV on the silicondust.com site - this was probably the most time consuming part of the process, because their mappings were out of date, so I had to watch and remap every channel. Anyway, if you don't have an HDHR then just ignore this - if you do I can give you more details.

Installing Sage on the server is just like any other addin - copy the .msi file to the Add-Ins directory, and install it from the WHS console. It will add a Sage tab to the console, which basically lets you start/stop the service and register licenses.

The only other thing I had to do on the server initially was configure the MultiDCTTuner plugin to control my settop boxes. IF you happen to have Motorola DCT2xxx boxes, I highly recommend this. I have found the serial control to be much more reliable than using IR blasters.

Now, to actually configure Sage you can do one of two things. You can RDP into the server and run Sage from the start menu, which basically starts the client piece running on the server. Oh yeah - make sure you have Java installed on the server for this to work. If you don't, Sage will just shut down while initializing. That tripped me up at first. The other way is to install the Sage Client on another PC. Either way, once you have a client running, walk through the configuration wizard and answer all the questions, and then you'll eventually get to the video source setup.

Now, for using Sage with your server, you have basically 3 types of connections - clients, extenders, and placeshifters. Which one you use depends on your needs, and of course you can mix all 3 types together (I use 2 PC clients, 3 extenders, and 1 placeshifter).

Client - a full install of the UI part of Sage, that is pretty much the full program except that it connects to the server for all the TV stuff.

Extender - a dedicated hardware client, like the HD Extender or the Media MVP. These are pretty much like clients, except with dedicated hardware that is specialized for handing the video stuff. The other main difference is that any plugins, themes, etc. that you want to use are added to the server installation, and then they will appear available to the extenders.

Placeshifter - like the extender, except that the app is actually running on the server and the placeshifter app is just a thin client. This puts more load on the server, because it has to transcode video on the fly to stream out to your client (vs. a client or extender, which is doing all of the decoding on it's end instead of the server).

As for your laptop question - I think it depends on how you want to use it. IF you mainly want to access your music around the house over your local network (i.e Wifi), then the full Sage Client would be best. However, if you want to be able to stream to your laptop over the internet while you are away, then the placeshifter is what you want, but it will put more of a load on your server, and the quality won't be as good (unless you have a screaming connection on both ends).

[DOS64K]

Originally Posted by IvyGuy

Please point me to instructions for installing and configuring SageTV on a WHS. Do I need only PlaceShifter on my client notebook PC to be able to (initially) play music stored on the WHS? Please direct me to instructions on configuring the link between the two. Do I need to install DirectX on the server or only on the client? Thanks.

You don't need DX on the server (although WHS will support it). Your client (PC or HD-100) does the heavy lifting.
What specifically can't you configure? When you fire up Sage for the first time (via server or client), it walks you through the initial setup including setting up your "watched" folders. In the case of WHS, I'll assume you're using the Music folder to store your tunes. Just add the Music folder to the list of watched folders. If you've done this and your client still can't see it, then it's likely a permissions issue. Make sure that the account being used on the client is added to the Users area via WHS's server console.

[`ariel]

Nice post mikehaney, i was a little confused about Client and Placeshifter. I`m using the WHS version and last night i test Live TV on my setup (i`m on the trial version) and i really like what i get, now i need to test my 2 MediaMVP (Helius Version) and finally get the licenses.

Note: coming from other PVR software......

[IvyGuy]

Originally Posted by DOS64K

You don't need DX on the server (although WHS will support it). Your client (PC or HD-100) does the heavy lifting.
What specifically can't you configure? When you fire up Sage for the first time (via server or client), it walks you through the initial setup including setting up your "watched" folders. In the case of WHS, I'll assume you're using the Music folder to store your tunes. Just add the Music folder to the list of watched folders. If you've done this and your client still can't see it, then it's likely a permissions issue. Make sure that the account being used on the client is added to the Users area via WHS's server console.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. To start with I only want to access music stored on my WHS from my notebook computer when I'm on another LAN with broadband access. Installation of the MSI on the WHS went OK. After starting SageTV from the Start menu of the WHS, I went through the config wizard without a problem. When I start PlaceShifter on my notebook (when on a different network) I cannot connect to the WHS, using the https web address, https://name.homerserver.com, or https://server ip address. I need assistance configuring the PlaceShifter Internet connection to enable it to see the WHS. (I use the same username and password in PlaceShifter as I do to access the WHS remotely.)

[mikehaney]

Sorry about that - I forgot that if you run the config wizard on a client, it doesn't give you all the placeshifter options.

Run Sage on the server (remote desktop in) and run through the configuration wizard. One of the steps will ask you if you want to use extenders/placeshifters with the server. If you choose 'yes', the next few screens will help setup the placeshifter. If you have a UPNP router it will configure everything for you (worked perfectly for me) and give you a locator id number. Use that locator id when you configure your placeshifter client - that way you don't have to worry about your ip address changing.

[rubell]

FYI, i use simplify media to access my music on the go. works pretty nicely on WHS for iphone, itunes, and winamp. and its free.