XP to Windows7 upgrade... thoughts?

[Eckwell]

I am considering moving to Windows7 from XP, which is working well, but I need more memory and the 32-bit install is no good for that.

I was wondering what everyone's thoughts are on that? what hardware challanges might I face with my two Directv boxes, HD-PVRs, and one HD Homerun?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Eckwell

I am considering moving to Windows7 from XP, which is working well, but I need more memory and the 32-bit install is no good for that.

I was wondering what everyone's thoughts are on that? what hardware challanges might I face with my two Directv boxes, HD-PVRs, and one HD Homerun?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

I have Win7x64 with DirectTV and 2 HD-PVR's and 1 HDHR currently. I upgraded from WinXP to get the HD-PVR's more stable. They have been - but I also added a separate NEC USB card at the same time. The only bad recordings I get now are from Transmission glitches which could be from the neighbors trees too I guess. I use HTTP tuning on another Server haven't gotten the 2 DTV boxes on the HD-PVRs setup that way yet however. Still using USB-UIRT with zones to tune them. Eventually I plan on going all HTTP tuning. Locals on the HDHR of course. Can't really say I had any problems upgrading. If there were I don't remember them so don't think I had any major problems or I would remember that. I did upgrade to SageTV 7 from V6 before I upgraded the OS but other than that it was mostly a change everything all at once. NOTE I only kept my Wiz.Bin file as I set everything up from scratch and then just copied the backed up Wiz.Bin once I had all the recording and import drives setup with the correct UNC paths after the OS upgrade. Also don't forget to install 32 bit version of Java for Sage to use.

[Eckwell]

Great information thanks! I have two LAN card in my server now, with one of them dedicated to the HD Homerun. I tune the Directv boxes via HTTP as well. I have two SanDisk four bay esata drive boxes... do you have anything like that and did it cause you any glitches?

Thanks again!

[sflamm]

The question to ask is why you want to upgrade to Win7?

More memory is not much of a good answer... as most application will not make use of the extra memory..

And there is no need to run SageTV (server or client) with more than (768Mb)..

I've been running a network with multiple SageTV XP and Win7 software clients and H300s for years..

Win7 does not make the HDPVR any more stable... installing the NEC USB card does.. (I have HDHR, HDPVR and Ceton tuners).

So bottom line - unless you like to rebuild you should ask yourself why would you do it?

On the flip side, easy to get Win7 with DXVA for H264 and VC1 working. I do that great with both CoreAVC and Arcsoft TMT5 codecs..

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Eckwell

Great information thanks! I have two LAN card in my server now, with one of them dedicated to the HD Homerun. I tune the Directv boxes via HTTP as well. I have two SanDisk four bay esata drive boxes... do you have anything like that and did it cause you any glitches?

Thanks again!

Nope I'm not but if you are connecting them to a SIL3132 card you can get drivers here.

I wouldn't say Win7 didn't improve the HD-PVR stability but it didn't completely fix it until the NEC USB card I added. That was the only thing I added after the fact when going to Win7/SageTV7 didn't fix it. Of cource just upgrading to SageTV7 may have had more to do with stability than Win7 did. I didn't run more than a few hours on WinXP/SageTV7 before I upgraded to Win7. I mostly did that just long enough to get Sage to create the metadata in existing recordings before I upgraded the OS or they would have been at the same time.

[panteragstk]

I recently upgraded from XP to 7 and have not had a single issue.

[sflamm]

Also have Win7 clients with no issues.

But my WinXP clients have no issues either.

Question is whether it is worth upgrading - general good rule dont fix what aint broken.

[Eckwell]

My SageService routinely runs at 1.3-1.4gigs in size and eats a lot of memory. if I could find the reason for that, if it is abnormal, then I would consider leaving things as is. Maybe put my building behind a new client, although I can't by a license...

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by Eckwell

My SageService routinely runs at 1.3-1.4gigs in size and eats a lot of memory. if I could find the reason for that, if it is abnormal, then I would consider leaving things as is. Maybe put my building behind a new client, although I can't by a license...

Sage is a 32 bit app so more memory will not help unless you are running other things on the Sage server. I've also thought about upgrading from XP to 7 but at the end of the day I have no compelling reason to do so. IMHO if you can't get Sage to work smoothly in 4GB of RAM there is something else wrong that needs to get solved.

[sflamm]

Sage is a 32 bit app

Exactly the point I made above.

An upgrade will not do anything to address that issue.

If you put a 32-bit app running as a separate process on a 64-bit OS (i.e. Win7 x64) then in theory you could allocate up to a full 4GB per process assuming you had enough memory.

It is almost impossible to get the JVM to allocate a continuous 1.1 - 1.4 GB memory segment (necessary for the heap) on a 32-bit XP with 4GB machine... typically folks can reach around 1.2GB max. The known limits (for Sun's Java implementation):

1. maximum possible heap size on 32-bit Java: 1.8 GB
2. recommended heap size limit on 32-bit Java: 1.5 GB (or 1.8 GB with /3GB option)

Moreover, SageTV should not need 1.1 - 1.4 GB ... my server for instance runs comfortable with 768MB and multiple HD300 clients ...