Looking to upgrade - suggestions?

[wolverines]

So the HDD in my tivo series 3 bit it (I'll get a new one to revive it) but it got me back to wanting to make either sage or some other whole house dvr really get working, and more consistently. My existing server locks up once in a while and I sometimes run into issues playing from the HD200 and HD300 over ethernet (needed a server reboot). So I'm looking into upgrading what now feels like an ancient PC I keep in my basement as my server. It pretty much does nothing right now other than act as the Sage server.

Here's what I have:
Windows XP Pro
AMD Athlon Dual Core 4450e 2.3ghz
2 GB RAM
BD Drive
plenty of HDD space (some internal, some external) for recordings, movies are on the HP Mediasmart server
Hauppage HVR250 and HD PVR for tuners (primarily recording HD content)

I'm looking to go to Windows 7, to speed things up and also to possibly introduce either an HD Prime or Infinitv 4 (USB or possibly PCI if I can squeeze it in the box) into the system so I can get 3-4 tuners with cable cards going.

Knowing what I've got and what I'll be using this for, any suggestions on some minimum specs I should consider? I'm assuming that in the upgrade I'll be able to back up a copy of Sage and then restore it on the new Windows 7 machine.

Thanks!

[KeithAbbott]

Before you invest in a HD Prime or Infinitv 4, I would definitely check whether the channels you are interested in viewing/recording are flagged as "copy freely". From a quick search on the internet, it looks like many of Cablevision's channels are not. You will not be able to record or view channels in SageTV unless they are flagged copy freely.

Of course, the HD-PVR circumvents this requirement...

[jlmdxtv]

If you can access the cable stations you watch as "copy freely" (with Comcast I get everything but the premiums like HBO and Showtime), you can use a HDHomeRun Prime box with a single M-Type Cable Card to record 3 shows at once. (Silicon Dust does have a 6-port unit, but I haven't read about it much in these forums).

You'll need to use Sage-DCT with the Prime unit since SageTV doesn't support it directly. I've tried Sage-DCT under Window XP and don't recommend it -- too many recording "halts". It works 100% reliably for me under Windows 7.

I'd add two more gig to your server if it will support it. I think your properties file will need to be recreated if you're switching operating systems.

john

[Telecore]

You might want to consider getting the Ceton InfiniTV over the HDHR Prime. I have both (one in each of two different servers) and the Ceton seems to be less trouble because it doesn't add network traffic to capture video. Sometimes I have network related issues with the HDHR Prime and although it has worked very well for the most part, I have had to "tune" some network settings, replace an ethernet switch and install a NIC card recently to eliminate errors under extreme conditions (recording many shows while watching others).

[Dargason]

If you end up going with a cablecard tuner, be aware that SageDCT sometimes has troubles if there isn't enough "headroom" on the CPU. Probably not much of an issue with any new CPU if you're not doing anything else, but if you end up running a bunch of comskipping or something at the same time...

For reference, my i5-750 (4 years old?) works without issue even while running comskip on 2 shows.

[wolverines]

Thanks guys for the suggestions. I'll need to do some more digging with regards to the cablecard tuners. In the end, they are the direction I need to go in, especially since we can't count on Sage to keep working forever. I'll report back with my findings. It does look like I could get away with keeping the bones of my current system and simply upgrade the mobo/cpu/memory. I may end up skipping windows 7 and going right to 8 given the upgrade costs (I've seen 8 will have an intro upgrade of $40, a fraction of the current 7 cost)