Bill took out my server, thinking about getting HD200

[pknowles]

Up until Saturday night I was viewing Sage directly off of my server in my sig. The outer edges of Hurricane Bill caused energy spikes and the PSU of my Sage server is fried (and the surge protector is being tossed as well). Since my hardware is so old (see sig) I'm thinking about upgrading. I have a Q6600 quad core with 4GB ram machine in the house that I use for MS office, email, web surfing, and once in a while gaming. I've been thinking about using the Q6600 as my server and just keep it on all the time and use the HD200 at the TV. Is there a noticeable channel changing delay between using an extender compared to viewing directly off the server? What else am I giving up by going with the extender vs building another PC? It looks like I won't be able to do things like Netflix online service. Can I play a Blue Ray DVD from the server and have the extender play it without ripping the disk? Thanks.

[Hunter69]

There seems to be a 4-5 second delay when changing channels. I have researcherd this quite extensively and this seems to be to the norm. What will happen is instead of channel surf you will end up guide surfing. I can tell you it works just as well. What you are giving up, hmmm, how about a computer in your living room or where ever but seriously not much. I have read some plugins do not work with an extender (like pandora, streaming internet radio etc). I have built a similar setup (see sig below) and I am pretty happy with it.

[wayner]

That 4-5 second delay that you mention is for the HD-PVR and is the same whether you are using the server or an extender. Other tuners, particularly something like OTA tuners are much faster at channel changes and there shouldn't be any difference between using an extender or watching directly on the server.

But in the short term it is pretty easy to throw in a new PS in your old server. I would also highly recommend getting a UPS - they start at around $50 and should provide very good protection around energy spikes and save you for short power outages.

[Beefcake550]

Channel changing delay is not related to using an HD200 versus a SageTV client. The delay coems from wanting to use native resolution output from and STB into a HD-PVR tuner.

So, getting the HD200 will not make it take any longer to change channels than it did before.

It's the right choice given your situation.