Running Comskip from networked machine

[AtomicPenguin]

My idea is to take comskip off of my SageTV server and have it run on a seperate machine on my network. Is there anything I need to look out for or be careful with when going this route?

Is anyone doing this now?

[gplasky]

Just make sure you use UNC paths or that if you use mapped drives the same drive letter must be used for the recording directories that are used on the server. I use UNC paths and it works fine.

Gerry

[erik]

Depending on the way you record (SD, HD, h.264 or MPEG) and your network (100MBit/s versus 1GBit/s) Comskip can fully load the network. In particular MPEG recording processed on a fast processor do generate a HUGE load on the recording disk and thus on the network.
It sometimes is better to run Comskip on the server with play_nice set (reducing the processing speed) then to offload to another PC

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by AtomicPenguin

My idea is to take comskip off of my SageTV server and have it run on a seperate machine on my network. Is there anything I need to look out for or be careful with when going this route?

Is anyone doing this now?

I am doing this but in a different way... I have 2 NIC cards in my server. I then have My most powerful client connected to 1 NIC with a crossover cable. The other nic card on my server is connected to a switch where I connect the other clients and extenders.

The 2 Nic Cards on the server are bridged together. This works great I use the Client to offload some of the encoding and Comskip.

[AtomicPenguin]

Does comskip monitor allow UNC paths in its config file or do I need to go with dirmon2?

[davephan]

I tried offloading Comskip to three separate computers several years ago. It does work, reducing the load on the main SageTV computer. However, if you use really old, retired computers, that are too old and slow for normal use, they won't be able to keep up with new recordings. Electrical costs in Minnesota are about 50% cheaper than California and maybe about 80% cheaper than Hawaii, but running a computer 24 x 7 still makes enough difference to the monthly electrical cost. The extra electrical costs running the three additional Comskip computers 24 x 7, and the fact the old computers could not keep up with new recordings, made me scrap the idea.

Instead, I replaced the main computer, which was a slow Althlon XP 2800 with a fast 3.0 gig dual-core computer. This allowed me to run comskip on my main computer without bogging it down. I think upgrading your main SageTV computer would be a better solution to the Comskip problem.

However, I think offloading Comskip would work if you had a fast dual-core, or maybe quad-core dedicated for Comskip. Then the Comskip computer could keep up with the ongoing load, generated by new recordings. Then you only have to run one extra computer 24 x 7, to minimize the extra monthly electrical cost.

It would be hard to justify using a faster computer dedicated to Comskip than your main SageTV computer. I recommend upgrading your main SageTV to a fast dual-core or quad-core before setting up extra Comskip computers.


Dave

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by AtomicPenguin

Does comskip monitor allow UNC paths in its config file or do I need to go with dirmon2?

You have to manually edit the config file \\\\server\\share

Gerry

[Peter_h]

Take a look at Sage Job Queue. It was designed for this very purpose. IE, To assign tasks to idle computers on the network.