Request for recommendation, first time SageTV setup

[tbizzy]

All,

I have spent some time on the forums, and I am looking to make the jump into a SageTV system to eventually replace my Dish 501 PVR. I have 2 TVs, no HD, but I may get it in a year. I have a powerful PC that I am ready to set up with either WinXP or Windows Server 2008. The primary use for SageTV is as a media server for my DivX (DVDs), pictures, and other files on my PC. Right now, this is being handled by a DivX DVD player with USB and external hard drive, but the interface and performance is pretty bad.

I'd like to keep the WAF high. This is to make it easy for her to play some of the many kids DVDs that we have that I will eventually rip on DivX. Eventually, if the SageTV Placeshifter interface is to our liking, it would replace my Dish DVR.

My request for recommendations are:
1) What Sage licenses do I need, to initially support just the media extender, but eventually recording/placeshifting?
2) Should I go with the MediaMVP (from Hauppage or eBay, as I can't find it on SageTV) or the HD Extender?
3) Do I need a client license for every media extender, or just the ones that I do not buy directly from SageTV?
4) Any preference of Windows XP vs Windows Server 2008?

Thank you in advance for any insight your experience provides.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by tbizzy

1) What Sage licenses do I need, to initially support just the media extender, but eventually recording/placeshifting?

Even if you don't want to do recording, you still need a license to SageTV Media Center. You'll also need a license for the extender. If you buy the extender from Sage it will already include a license. Otherwise you can buy an extender license separately.

2) Should I go with the MediaMVP (from Hauppage or eBay, as I can't find it on SageTV) or the HD Extender?

I'd definitely recommend the HD extender. This is particularly true since you want to use it to play back divx movies. The MediaMVP's can only play back mpeg2 video. It only plays back other videos by transcoding them on the fly to mpeg2, which results in a noticeable drop in quality.

3) Do I need a client license for every media extender, or just the ones that I do not buy directly from SageTV?

It's a little complicated. As I said, all extenders from Sage already include an extender license. So, assuming you buy one or more HD extenders, you'll be set.

If you buy extenders on eBay then they won't include a license. You don't need a license for every extender. You only need a license for as many extenders as you'll think you'll use simultaneously. So, if you have 5 extenders, but you know you'll only use one at any given time, you only need 1 license.

Also, extender licenses are the same thing as Placeshifter licenses. So, if you have one extender license, at any given time you can either connect to the server using a Placeshifter client or an extender.

Finally, be careful with the term "client". There is a license to SageTV Client, but that's a completely different thing than the extenders and SageTV Placeshifter. SageTV Client is for computers on your internal network that you want to connect to your SageTV Media Center server. Placeshifter will sort of work for the same thing, but it's more geared towards streaming files over the Internet.

4) Any preference of Windows XP vs Windows Server 2008?

I'd say WindowsXP. More people around here use that, so you'd be less likely to run into problems. And, if/when you do, you'd have an easier time getting help.

[GKusnick]

Regarding licensing, you will need a full SageTV Media Center license to do anything at all with Sage. With this license you can set up your media library, record TV, and watch TV or library media on your server machine.

To watch elsewhere using an extender, you'll need an extender license. Most people here will recommend the HD extender over the MVP; however the HD extender is currently out of stock and sells out quickly whenever it comes into stock, so getting one will take some patience. Extenders you buy from the SageTV Store come bundled with the necessary license; if you buy an MVP elsewhere then you'll probably have to buy the license separately.

Extenders are licensed per active connection. Two extenders can share a license so long as they're never powered up at the same time. You need only as many extender licenses as the number of extenders you have powered on simultaneously.

Extender licenses also work as Placeshifter licenses, with the same rule about simultaneous connections. With N licenses you can have N extenders powered up, or N Placeshifter clients, or any combination totalling no more than N simultaneous connections.

Regarding OS, I have no experience with Server 2008 and would probably stick with XP personally.

[mistergq]

Windows Server 2008 is overkill for this. I have not considered this, but Windows Home Server before Server 2008.

I would go with XP. Stable OS. and its definitely not too much or too little os for Sage.

[tbizzy]

Originally Posted by mistergq

Windows Server 2008 is overkill for this. I have not considered this, but Windows Home Server before Server 2008.

I would go with XP. Stable OS. and its definitely not too much or too little os for Sage.

I have a Sun Ultra 24 which supports more than 4GB of memory. I was looking for a long-term, all purpose 64 bit OS. I don't do any gaming, but I have some software development projects and virtual machines I run on it.

Since I have the Windows Server 2008 license, I was leaning toward that. It looks like Windows Home Server (OEM from NewEgg) is only 32 bit.

[mistergq]

Originally Posted by tbizzy

I have a Sun Ultra 24 which supports more than 4GB of memory. I was looking for a long-term, all purpose 64 bit OS. I don't do any gaming, but I have some software development projects and virtual machines I run on it.

Since I have the Windows Server 2008 license, I was leaning toward that. It looks like Windows Home Server (OEM from NewEgg) is only 32 bit.

besides Sage, what else are you planning on running on the server? I know you said development projects and virtual machines, but do those need to be 64 bit software?

Also, Sage is a 32 bit application, its not a 64 bit. So you won't see any advantage on a 64 bit OS.

While I use my Sage Server as a work from home machine average 1 day per week, generally speaking, most people are happiest when their Sage server is a dedicated PVR server. And the software i run when I work from home is gotomypc, web browser, and word processing. Not the most taxing programs out there.

[loomdog32]

The only reason I was stay away from a 64-bit OS is driver issues...

If you know all the tuners you are using are 64-bit stable (HD PVR and SB X-Fi come to mind as not 64-bit stable, also BD/HD-DVD playback can have issues)

Sage doesnt require that much as far as processing power if ran from a dedicated box (used a Dell Dimension 4600C as my SageTV test rig running Vista (also tested XP - no difference in performance), 2.8P4 533Mhz FSB, 1gb RAM, GeForce 6200 256mb - HDHomeRun and PVR150.. was happy with performance, used for server/front end and 1 client)... I would recommend doing something simular, run Sage in a test box first w differnt OS (XP, XP64, Vista, WHS, S08) to see whats going to work the best for you...

[tbizzy]

Originally Posted by mistergq

besides Sage, what else are you planning on running on the server? I know you said development projects and virtual machines, but do those need to be 64 bit software?

Its not that I need the 64 bit support for the apps, I would like to run with 8-16 GB of memory on the computer

I'm going to likely be running 2-3 Linux virtual machines along with Sage. They won't eat a lot of CPU, just some memory, both real and virtual.

[tbizzy]

Originally Posted by loomdog32

If you know all the tuners you are using are 64-bit stable (HD PVR and SB X-Fi come to mind as not 64-bit stable, also BD/HD-DVD playback can have issues)

I don't have a tuner card yet, so when I do purchase one, I would look to try and find one that is supported.

[SWKerr]

Keep in mind there is a trail version so you don't need to buy anything except for the tuner card until you know it works for your needs. If you have a decent monitor and video card you will get a good idea about how it will work and look on your eventual HDTV before having to make a decision on what extender to buy.

Also: keep in mind that for only $199 you can get and Xbox 360 and link it to the Media Center interface in Windows and do everything you want and play games as well. You can even get PlayOn and watch online content from YouTube and Hulu on the 360. Netfix online content will also be available soon. That said, Sage is just a much better experience\product than the Windows MCE especially when it comes to TV.

I would use XP for SageTV but if you really want a 64 bit OS I would use 64bit Vista. I can't imagine you will not have problems getting drivers for consumer oriented toys to work on a server OS.

I would recommend the Hauppauge WinTV HVR 1600. $80 at Newegg. I used this card in a Vista 64 setup with Media Center about a year ago and it worked fine. I have not used Sage on 64 bit Vista as of yet because I dropped the 64bit version of Vista about a year ago when I could not find a video editor that would work with it. It was very stable but driver and software support was limited at the time. There are some posts that seem to indicate if you have driver support for your tuner card it will work fine. I would stay with the Hauppauge products because they include a proven IR blaster that you will want to change the channel on you Dish TV box. The 1600 card also includes an OTA HD tuner as well so you can probably record HD content with a cheap antenna depending on where you live. The OTA HD recording will look about as good as a DVD on an Analog TV.

To get the best quality recording from DISH you will want to use the SVHS out from the DISH receiver. I actually started my HTPC addiction with that same receiver. I started by recording the same shows on both and eventually realized I was paying $10 a month for no purpose. I upgraded to HD equipment from DirecTV knowing I would buy an HDTV eventually and continued to record with the same analog setup but since the source data was higher resolution the recording still looked much better even on the Analog set. (Close to how a DVD looks on an analog set thru the SVHS or component cables.)

I have 2 HD sets today but something I do today with my remaining Analog TVs might interest you. I use my desktop PC with a SageTV Client. I have the SVHS output from the video card directed to a $40 converter box I got a radioshack. The box converts the signal to an analog coax cable signal on channel 3 that I then run to the two analog TVs. I use a radio frequency FireFly remote to control Sage from several rooms away. The picture quality is not great but not really much worse than analog cable.

Lastly: I do not have a Sage Extender but it seems like a very cost effective way to get the Sage TV experience to the living room. You can build an HTPC but it would cost twice as much to get something quite that worked as well. Also: keep in mind that you will need to run CAT5 network cable to wherever your TV is. The wireless solutions don't work very well on anything but analog content.

[fearless]

I am currently using Vista Enterprise 64 and it is quite stable and works well, only issue I had and I believe others have already recommended this is I would ensure that there is driver support for the hardware you are planing on buying.
I was lucky enough to find Vista 64 drivers for a Hauppauge HVR 1300 because it is not officially supported under Vista 64.
With the benefit of hindsight ample research is highly recommended, as much as one may be keen to get everything installed and running quickly
As far as RAM requirements are concerned, I am running 4Gb of RAM but at any point in time the maximum system memory utilization is probably only about 2Gb as SageTV seems to be quite efficient, and that with the pagefile disabled, so I reckon at this stage anything more than 4Gb is probably an overkill.
CPU however is a totally different story, during conversions and watching and recording it will use processor resources depending on availability
I have an AMD 64 X2 4400+ which is about 30% utilized during playback of a HD channel and about the same during a file conversion, SD channels do not need much CPU resources.


Regards

[loomdog32]

Originally Posted by tbizzy

I don't have a tuner card yet, so when I do purchase one, I would look to try and find one that is supported.

If you plan on having some kinda TV Tuner anyways, I would highly recommend the HD HomeRun.. Its a dual network ATSC/QAM tuner that is 32 and 64-bit stable (I used one w/ Vista 64 in my early VMC days)...

Using this along with the trial version of Sage would let you see exactly what you can do.. And if you decide not to use Sage (if you get it configured rite, i doubt you will not use it), you still have a very usable tuner that EVERY computer on your network can use