SageTV V7 on a Mac with Parallels

[hotwire]

I've been thinking about moving from a V6 OSX SageTv server on my Mac Mini 3,1 to V7 with Parallels and Windows 7. The mini will be used for recording, extenders will be used for playback. Tuners will be 2 dual tuner HDHomeRuns and 1 HDPVR to start with, adding a second HDPVR once it has proved to be stable. I already have copies of Windows7 home premium and Parallels 5 that I have purchased.

Does anyone have any tips or experiences to share with how they set their Mac up with Windows7 and Parallels?

Thanks,
Kenny

[hotwire]

I have been using the SageTV7 install guide found on missingremote.
http://www.missingremote.com/guide/i...ng-sagetv-v7-0
It's been about four or five years since I have had to set up anything on a Windows machine, and the guide has been a huge help. Do I need to install ffdshow or any other codecs if I am only going to be playing back on SageTV extenders?

Thanks,
Kenny

[gplasky]

The extenders handle all of your video decoding in hardware. No need for codecs.

Gerry

[hotwire]

Thank you Gerry.

[hotwire]

Well, I'm stuck. I can't get SageTV7 running in Parallels Desktop 5 with Windows7 to see my 2 HDHomeruns or the Hauppauge HDPVR. The lights on the front of the HDPVR (Blue, Red, Orange) all light up and stay lit as soon as the VM is started. The power button on the front of the HDPVR does nothing, almost like the unit has completely locked up. The HDPVR works fine in OSX using HDPVRCapture on a different machine.

[flavius]

Does that mini run OS X server? If not, I'd use that Win 7 license with boot camp. Or build some wintel system if you intend to keep Sage.

Not to add insult to injury, but I have seen good results with running the v7 win placeshifter in parallels - works a lot better that the OS X v6 version.-

[hotwire]

I wanted to try and keep OSX and do Parallels because the Mac mini already stays on all the time running SecuritySpy and iTunes. Plus the energy savings from not having another pc running 24x7. After searching the forums I know I'm not the only person who has tried to run SageTv in Parallels. Forum user astraub says they have done it.

[hotwire]

I was able to get SageTv to see the HDHomeruns by changing my networking mode in Parallels from shared to bridged mode, and selecting the default adapter. Now to troubleshoot the problems with the HD-PVR.

[hotwire]

Well, I have come to the conclusion that the HD-PVR just does not like to be run in a VM. I have tried Parallels 5 and 6, VMware Fusion 3, and VirtualBox. With each one the HD-PVR would lock up in Windows 7 as soon as the driver was installed. I've tried multiple driver versions just to make sure that it wasn't a driver problem. Running boot camp was the only way to make the HD-PVR work in Windows on my Mac Mini. The Mini is used to record security cameras in OSX so I cant run Windows 7 without changing camera software.

At this point I'm giving up on SageTV for now, I may revisit SageTV if I can't stand the Dish Network 722 I just ordered.

[nspindel]

Waking up this old thread. I'm looking to do something quite similar here, hoping the kinks have been worked out.

I currently run a Windows machine as my server. In addition to running Sage, this machine is also my server for my Logitech Squeezebox. I am looking to retire this large server and migrate to a Mac Mini.

All the other computers in my house are Macs, and I have several Apple TV's, so I am really looking to run OSX on this machine so I can run iTunes on it for the other devices in the house. So I don't want to run Windows in boot camp to host Sage, I'd really like to have Sage running in a Windows VM via Parallels.

I also have an HDPVR for the cable box along with an HDHomeRun. Wondering if anyone has been successful at getting the HDPVR to work in a Parallels Windows VM?

Thanks.