My planned Sage TV hardware (any good before I buy)?

[blueroom]

Core system for Sage TV 6.5.1 connected via HDMI to my Samsung 40"

ASUS M3N78-VM
AMD Athlon X2 5050E (45W stock cooler)
Hauppauge HVR-2250 ATSC tuner (for dual antenna digital OTA)

This is pretty much only for use as a DVR not a media center (I have an AppleTV for that)

[QueOnda]

What is going to be your OS? How much memory are you getting?

[blueroom]

XP Pro with 1G 800MHz DDR2 RAM (is more needed?)

[QueOnda]

Originally Posted by blueroom

XP Pro with 1G 800MHz DDR2 RAM (is more needed?)

You say you only going to use to record, what about play back? Are you going to use comskip or showanalyser for marking commercials? Are you going to run other programs? Are you going to add any addon to sagetv?


With memory being cheap, I would ad more.
With XP 32bit, it has a limit of recognizing 3G max.

[blueroom]

I hate being a noob (I've been working with computers since the COSMAC1802 in 76)
Yet Sage is all new to me.

I don't mind letting it run for a few hours pulling out commercials (I have a SA 4300 so I'm used to fast forward) plus I like the look of Sage sans any custom add ins.

I tried using an old P4 3GHz HT with 1G and an AGP NVidia 7600 and it's useable but I want HDMI and that's a cheap motherboard with an 8200 on it. (Can't stand ATI video cards)

Are comskip or showanalyser standard features or add ins?

[QueOnda]

Originally Posted by blueroom

I hate being a noob (I've been working with computers since the COSMAC1802 in 76)
Yet Sage is all new to me.

I don't mind letting it run for a few hours pulling out commercials (I have a SA 4300 so I'm used to fast forward) plus I like the look of Sage sans any custom add ins.

We were all noobs.

Won't pull out commercials only highlight them using Sagemc (addon) or for the standard sagetv (i think you need to had an add on, I don't think it works stock).

Originally Posted by blueroom

I tried using an old P4 3GHz HT with 1G and an AGP NVidia 7600 and it's useable but I want HDMI and that's a cheap motherboard with an 8200 on it. (Can't stand ATI video cards)

So, your using not only for recording but playback also? You might want to think of getting the HD200. Keep your current computer and upgrade the memory and use it just for the server. People spent time trying to get computers to work correctly with codecs and such. I had a computer next to my tv at the start but worked ok for most of my stuff. But when I went with the HD100 (now I have in addiction 2 hd200) no problem.

Originally Posted by blueroom

Are comskip or showanalyser standard features or add ins?

They are add ins.

[DualQuad]

I too am running a AMD5050e and M3A78-CM motherboard. This machine is only used as a backend (i.e. no playback on server, all playback is via extenders). Overall the machine is easy on the powerbill and is comskipping HD HDPVR captures in realtime. I run a single instance of comskip so that the other core is "free" to handle other requests.

The temperatures are good. I am using a stock cooler and it keeps temp right at 46C. Also the CPU throttles up and down well according to load, all that power saving stuff seems to work.

Weird stuff that I am still chasing down:
1) Odd memory usage, previous server didnt have this, so I can only guess its related to the hardware combination (potentially drivers)
2) The exiting of menus from the extender results in more "circles" than the previous machine, though this one has more power.

If you get this machine, please post back.

DQ

[heatvent]

I am using a Pent D 2.8 Ghz w/ W7, 4GB Ram, HVR-2250 and an ATI HD 4350 512MB video card. I had issues with Sage and HD studdering. The encoding side of things is totally fine. It's an issue of asking the machine to encode and decode at the same time. I think most people recommend the extenders, the seem to work really well and this allows for a lower end video card on the server and also avoids a lot of issues. Also, FYI, the Sage decoders aren't the best. You can get basic intervideo ones off the Hauppauge website but if you want something like PowerDVD, plan on spending some extra cash. Otherwise, channel the money toward and extender. I don't have one but I have seen nothing but positive feedback on them.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by QueOnda

But when I went with the HD100 (now I have in addiction 2 hd200) no problem.

"in addiction"? Freudian slip?

[blueroom]

I have PowerDVD Ultra 9, can SageTV use it's decoder?

[pir]

I'm using the older (slower) sibling of the 5050E on a (3yr old) Asus M2NPV-VM w 2G of DDR2-800 with the HVR-2250 for dual tuner analog and the onboard video -- and it all works fine, though I did have driver issues with the HVR-2250 with both tuners recording at the same time until I updated to a specific driver version (7.6.1.27090) -- I haven't tried the newest beta driver, since I'm afraid to change anything now that it all works.

Everything is exclusively in Standard Def at this point in my setup (no big-screen hdtv yet). I'm not sure this rig has the bandwidth to handle hi-def happening everywhere at once, though it might, it can definitely do HD playback.

SageMC/comskip (with Comskip Monitor) works fantastically. The machine is fast enough to run comskip in real-time, but I told it not to.

The cyberlink (powerdvd9) codecs work with Sage, it even uses the hardware acceleration for MPEG-2 decoding in the onboard video -- now that I have my TV set as the primary monitor.

[blueroom]

How did you know both tuners were running at the same time?

[pir]

Originally Posted by blueroom

How did you know both tuners were running at the same time?

Two shows recording simultaneously resulted in sputtery video until I installed the 7.6.1.27090 driver.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by blueroom

How did you know both tuners were running at the same time?

I am looking at the motherboard you have - asus - have you tried the on-board video for HTPC playback, and if so, is it capable of HD?