Anyone trying Sage7 on Vail?

[rykr]

I have a system that can dual boot the latest Vail release and Windows 7 x32. Sage 7 is configured with a PVR-150, PVR-500, and a Avermedia HD Duet (A188). Under Vail things work but SageTVService uses about 500MB ram and CPU hovers around 7-12% when recording 1 analog show. It routinely gets stuck using approx 50% cpu usage still just recording 1 analog show. Rebooting into Win 7 seems to show something much more reasonable with ram at 200M and cpu between 0-3% doing the same recording.

Is anyone else trying out vail? I know it's unlikely that someone else is trying out vail and is using my combo of tuners but thought I would ask.

Any info appreciated!
Reggie

[rykr]

A quick followup to that. I tried it again in Vail and the CPU when running a single recording from an HD200 ran about 0-3% so that seems ok but sagetvservice was running at >400M ram. is that about right?

However, I saw several messages in the system messages that said the Avermedia A188 had "stopped producing data". Sage indicated in the message that it would try to reset the device. I know the A188 didn't work for QAM tuning in WHS v1. I wonder if the drivers still have troubles with Vail.

[bsquarewi]

Just out of curiosity, did you just install Sage on your Vail server and then do the configuration via the HD200 like the current WHS version of Sage or did you try to actually configure sage directly on the Vail server? Nothing to do with the memory you are seeing, just curious how you went about installing and running Sage without the add-in approach.

Hopefully Sage will redo the WHS package once Vail is officially released.

[rykr]

I thought the current WHS edition of Sage doesn't work with Vail so I just downloaded the normal windows package and installed it. I was careful to put my recordings folder on a second drive that is not in the WHS pool.

I'm now starting to think I have a problem with the Avermedia A188 card as I'm getting quite a few "tuner has stopped producing data" messages for that tuner.

[Nelbert]

The WHS Edition won't work as WHS V1 add-ins aren't compatible with Vail and all need to be re-written.


In relation to memory use I wouldn't be surprised if all programs use more memory on Vail. Vail is a 64 bit OS whereas WHS V1 is 32 bit. It's the main reason why there is no upgrade path.

I'm currently in the process of installing SageTV onto my Intel SS-4200 and as the refresh of Vail had come out I had a look at it. I would prefer a Win 2K8R2 server base than a Win 2K3 server base, but I've decided to go with WHS V1 for now.

I was running vail in Virtual PC with a USB DVB-T stick and a SageTV client on the host without any problems on my laptop. Tried VBox but the USB support blows and couldn't transfer data from the USB tuner fast enough.
I used the full install of SageTV.
For tuners and Vail a big issue will be signed 64bit driver support. Problem 1 is whether the manufacturer of older cards will even bother with 64bit drivers. Problem 2, as it's based on Win 2K8R2 it's likely all drivers need to be signed, which isn't a requirement for the 32bit windows, which brings us back to problem 1. Unsigned drivers can be used by running windows in test mode and self signing without problems, but isn't as simple as plug in tuner and load driver.

While I could run SageTV without problems in the Vail Refresh I'm not willing to use it on my server yet because:

1) There are still too many reports of data loss from people using the refresh.
2) Lack of clarity over the changes to the file system on the storage pool. MS haven't answered questions about how it works with regards to storing files. All files in the pool go in 1Gb slices, but whether it uses all the slices and fills 1 disk at a time like V1 or whether it uses all disks (ala raid 0) was unclear. Some tests have suggested files >1Gb (eg dvd iso) end up on multiple disks. Great for performance, but 1 disk failure without duplication wipes out all the files using it. The MS vail forums had a huge thread without official answers. The only official stance is everything in the storage pool should have duplication enable to guard against loss in the event of disk failure.
3) There is currently no way to read and recover data from storage pool drives on a non-vail machine.
4) It still isn't clear whether Vail will be upgradable from the RC to full release or whether it's a fresh install once it becomes available.

Once Vail hits release I'll be planning to change my server to vail after the initial patch/update cycle as it worked fine during my testing with SageTV, but until then I want my server to just work.
I have enough 'fun' with servers and devs releasing 'alpha/beta' code for production use at work, so life is colourful enough without risking having to explain to my wife why she can't watch any films or tv until I get home and fix the server.