FINALLY - New / first SageTV build

[sumrtym]

CASE: Silverstone GD05B (purchased)
PSU: PC Power & Cooling MK III 400W modular (purchased)
CPU: Ivy Bridge i3 3225
MOBO: GA-Z77MX-D3H
RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Low Profile Desktop Memory Model CML8GX3M2A1600C9
TUNERS: Silicondust HD Homerun duel (purchased), Hauppauge Colossus
Wi-fi: ASUS PCE-N15
HDD: Probably two 3TB drives undetermined on which yet
Remote / Control: USB-UIRT, and a Logitech Harmony One (purchased)
Blu-ray drive: LITE-ON Black 12X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal Internal 12X Blu-ray Combo Model ihes112-04 - OEM
OS: Win 8 Pro upgrade

I'll be plugging either the Colossus or Wi-fi card into a PCIe 4x slot. The audio chipset on mobo is Via, but since I'm just using the optical out for DD / DTS, and later the HDMI for high-def audio formats, shouldn't matter. The nic to plug the HDHomerun into is an Atheros, but I'm hoping this won't cause any recording issues?

Colossus is for Time Warner STB, OTA tuners for priority NBC / CBS / ABC / FOX watching / recording given better HD signal than supplied by Time Warner. UnRaid server as upgrad sometime, but till then, one HDD as PVR drive, other w/ 120 GB partition for Windows 8 / SageTV and rest partitioned for archive TV / Movies / Music. Wifi necessary given in an apartment and cant hardwire to other room so used for guide updates / fanart / etc. HDHomerun plugged into the Atheros nic on the mobo.

Blu-ray will be ripped on this system and drive also used as player for rented blu-ray movies. No gaming EVER on this system, so not doing an SSD (plus want the additional room on the OS / Sage drive for small local media storage till I can run a hardwired NAS at later date. The CPU / MOBO I can get a good price combo at Microcenter.

Feedback?

[sumrtym]

Since I'm just controlling the one STB, and needing a receiver for the Harmony One on the Sage box, is there any problem just using the one that comes with the Colossus? It comes with blaster / receiver, correct for working with SageTV?

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by sumrtym

Since I'm just controlling the one STB, and needing a receiver for the Harmony One on the Sage box, is there any problem just using the one that comes with the Colossus? It comes with blaster / receiver, correct for working with SageTV?

Should work just fine if your remote is compatible.

[sumrtym]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

Should work just fine if your remote is compatible.

I don't know, it's my first HTPC build. It's a Logitech Harmony One? But I guess that would necessitate me choosing something other than the Sage extender profile in the Harmony One which might make things more complex / difficult than getting a USB-UIRT?

[uberpixel]

Is cablecard an option for you on Time Warner?

I lived with an unstable Colossus setup on Comcast for the last year or so. I had digital audio sync problems, failure to load capture device, and needed to do nightly reboots to prevent video stuttering. It worked about 97% of the time, but the audio sync was present 100% of the time on long recordings.

I just setup an HDHR Prime on Comcast cablecard and can't believe how nice it is! Zero problems and 3 extended cable tuners. I can hardly wait to finish my unofficial evaluation period so that I can rip the Colossus from my rig and put an end to that frustrating period of my SageTV life.

Caveats - I can't record from Encore or HBO ( I'm guessing), and the Prime may some day be shut down with an arbitrary cableco decision unlike the analog hole solution that the Colossus exploits. But until that happens, I'm loving the HDHR Prime and SageDCT.

-uberpixel

[sumrtym]

Time Warner has absolutely nothing set copy freely. I've asked several questions in the Colossus thread over the months. It didn't seem like problems with the card are universal every time I talk about either HD-PVR or Colossus for which to get.

Someone said there's was a LOT more stable and problem free when they went to Windows 8. So, I've got an upgrade copy of that since it was only $15.

Were you capturing 5.1 through the optical when you had your problems? I definitely want 5.1 working on captures. Audio sync would drive me nuts though.

[uberpixel]

Originally Posted by sumrtym

Were you capturing 5.1 through the optical when you had your problems? I definitely want 5.1 working on captures. Audio sync would drive me nuts though.

I tried both optical 5.1 with component video and hdmi with the monoprice hdcp scrubber box. Both had the same audio sync issues. Watching interviews at the end of a 3 hour football was almost comical. The cumulative effect of the audio signal switching from program to commercial was likely to blame. It may be that different STB's handle this differently so you might get lucky. I tried a couple of different boxes with no luck.

The external HDPVR sounds like it has plenty of problems too, but it might be worth a shot if the Colossus lets you down.

Good luck.

-uberpixel

[sumrtym]

Ya, I was just reading your post in that thread. I was thinking I might order that box (provided it hasn't been "fixed"). I thought it might eliminate audio sync problems, but in your case, apparently not. Plus, I like the idea of proactively attacking the problem of downgraded component outputs. Trust me, if they're doing it on blu-ray players now or eliminating them, it's only a mater of time before Crime Warner does too....

[panteragstk]

For the remote, just use an MCE remote profile (IIRC the harmony remotes have that) and you should be good.

As far as the colossus goes, I have two and they have been great. Never had a single audio sync issue with optical or HDMI.

[sumrtym]

Awesome, hope I'm that lucky. I just ordered the Colossus last night from Newegg for $99.99 after a $30 MIR. That deal is good through tomorrow, provided they don't eliminate their current $15 off that's on it as well right now.

I hate to spend the money, but I'm kind of leaning toards ordering the USB-UIRT and a 5' IR extender sender cable from Monoprice http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...seq=1&format=2 . Then I could use the extender box profile on Logitech site for the Harmony One, use the USB-UIRT as my remote receiver on the HTPC, and plug the extender into it to run over to control the STB via Sage. Since I'm also planning on using the HTPC for blu-ray disc playback. I'm assuming I could set up a way to control the blu-ray disc playback by remote as well with the USB-UIRT.

Can you tell I'm going to have questions / need assistance once I start installing everything and setting it up? I'm anticipating a lot of .

Do the hardware choices look good? I'm assuming running internet via wifi card and HDHomerun plugged directly into motherboard nic isn't going to be an issue.

[panteragstk]

Hardware looks good. EventGhost will help you control everything with your remote. Works very well for me.

[sumrtym]

CASE: Silverstone GD05B (purchased)
PSU: PC Power & Cooling MK III 400W modular (purchased)
CPU: Ivy Bridge i3 3225
MOBO: GA-Z77MX-D3H
RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) CMZ16GX3M2A1600C10
TUNERS: Silicondust HD Homerun duel (purchased), Hauppauge Colossus
Wi-fi: ASUS PCE-N15
HDD: Probably two 3TB drives, green or red
Remote / Control: USB-UIRT, and a Logitech Harmony One (purchased)
Blu-ray drive: ASUS Black 12X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 12X DVD-RAM 8X BD-ROM 8MB Cache SATA Blu-ray Burner BW-12B1ST/BLK/G/AS
OS: Win 8 Pro upgrade
USB-UIRT

Ok, I've made two changes to the above. I got 16GB of RAM during a sale or price mistake (not sure even they know which) for just over $38 out the door, and grabbed the Blu-ray burner on sale for $40 after rebate (on it's way).

Here's a couple questions. Looking at the above, the server is going to be in the living room and probably eventually pull from an UnRaid server, though not now. Currently there will be no client pcs in other rooms.

I discovered I actually have room for an SSD and 2 3.5" drives in the case. So, tell me would I see much improvement (boot times not really important to me since it will be on almost constantly)...

1) SSD, with one 3 TB drive for local movies / music / tv, one 3TB for pvr drive, or
2) One 3TB drive partitioned to 120GB for OS / sage, rest for movies / music tv, and another 3TB for pvr.

In option one, would there be much benefit when it comes to fanart loading? Or would I not notice much difference if using option 2? Especially given I have 16GB ram in this system. Also, would using a green or red drive be too slow as an OS / sage drive?

[panteragstk]

The green drives are very slow when used as an OS drive. A general rule is to have a small, fast drive for the OS (an SSD will always be my first choice) and then use the larger/slower drives for storage. The red drives are faster than the green, but I still wouldn't use them for the OS.

[snipeman]

What difference does it make if it is slow? We almost never reboot Sage servers anyway. Slow is a relative term anyway. A new system with no bloatware boots fast enough for the once a month (or longer) time periods.

I look at an SSD in a server as just another device to break. We can't eliminate the need for large storage on a server, so we're stuck with big hard drives. Might as well stick the OS on one of them as well.

Other than speed, does an SSD bring anything else to the table?

[Fuzzy]

I would rethink your drive arrangement. You would end up having better performance if both drives were used for both purposes (PVR and Library). This, primarily, will allow Sage to spread the bandwidth load across the drives. If you have a single recording path, and record two shows, both are being written to the drive at the same time, resulting in a lot of seeking back and forth. Go up to 3 or 4 recordings at a time, plus something playing back, and you can quickly see how the seek time itself is going to kill performance. Now, if you instead have 2 recording paths, and set sage's storage setting to 'Bandwidth', then when recording 2 shows, it will force one to record to each path. This will allow, recording with much less drive seeking. I have 5 drives in my server, and a recording folder on each, each set to 'Keep Free' 50GB. The larger of those drives also contain 'Video' folders, that I populate with various imported media. As i add media, I try to keep it spread across the drives somewhat evenly, and sage, being set to keep free, will delete older, watched, non-archived recordings to make the room. The 50GB value is enough to rip most blurays, and not run out of space, which sage, next time it assesses free space, will free back up through it's deletion mechanisms.

[wbarber69]

I might be wrong but I think he mentioned using the usbuirt to receive and send ir simultaneously, Event Ghost may allow this but I am not sure you can do both at the same time. Please correct me if im wrong and ill go buy Event Ghost today

[sumrtym]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I would rethink your drive arrangement. You would end up having better performance if both drives were used for both purposes (PVR and Library). This, primarily, will allow Sage to spread the bandwidth load across the drives.

Ah, good point. The most i might end up recording simultaneously would be 3 programs, though I don't see that happening often. I don't think I want to use the "keep free" option as I prefer to choose what I don't want to keep anymore (sacrificing being full, but don't see that happening either unless had to leave town for extended time), but I can see the point of using that Bandwidth setting and recording as PVR to either drive. I kind of thought most people only put one drive in as a PVR drive in their systems though?

I'm still kind of leaning towards sticking OS and Sage on an SSD if it makes the fanart a lot faster loading.

Ended up nixing the Asus network card and ordered a Rosewill USB one instead (provided it doesn't get cancelled...not sure they actually have it though Amazon took the 3rd party order, and it was just discontinued). Read conflicting statements on Asus site about the card and whether it would work in other than a PCIe x1 slot. Main product page says yes, but technical info said no, as well as a review on Newegg. I couldn't find anything about sticking a Colossus into a PCIe 2.0 x16 operating @ x4 as to wheter that would work or not...so thus, USB wifi seemed the way to go. I was worried about Sage waking up from sleep and the wifi on USB coming back up without error, but seemed like reviews on the one I ordered didn't mention this as a problem (being there after sleep).

I was talking about using the USB-uirt to receive for SageTV, and plugging an ir transmitter into the USB-uirt for channel changing on the cable box (already have the ir transmitter from monoprice). That may be different then what you're referring to since you mention eventghost in particular, wbarbar69.

[macsupergeek]

I only have the 1 - 2tb drive for all my recordings and I have to say it is plenty fast being a 6gb SATA to handle recording 8 simultaneous recordings from ceton cards and 1 HD-PVR. The difference is that after recording I transcode and then archive to an UNRAID box. So when the system is busy recording to the SATA, the 4 extenders have no issue playing any files as they getting the files from the UNRAID. Sometimes we may watch a show before it is transcoded and moved out to the archive and I know the system has handled 3 simultaneous records while 2 extender were playing either on of the streams being recorded or another recording that was still a .ts. The menu system may get a little sluggish, but I don't know that balancing the recording directories would help that - maybe an i5 or i7 would. So with new SATA hard drives and a new rig and mine is a bit aged at this point I don't think anyone should have issues with accessing data quickly.

[sumrtym]

Ah, cool macsupergeek! Thanks for the info!

What do you think in terms of pulling up fanart? SSD helpful?

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by sumrtym

Ah, good point. The most i might end up recording simultaneously would be 3 programs, though I don't see that happening often. I don't think I want to use the "keep free" option as I prefer to choose what I don't want to keep anymore (sacrificing being full, but don't see that happening either unless had to leave town for extended time), but I can see the point of using that Bandwidth setting and recording as PVR to either drive. I kind of thought most people only put one drive in as a PVR drive in their systems though?

I have 4 SageTV servers with 5, 6, 7 and 17 recording drives respectively. But I'm not most people either. I always add drives in pairs so that I have two drives to record to at a time. The most I've had recording at one time is 6-7 could go to 6-9 (depending on server) but that was for short periods of time because of padding overlap. The most I try to record at a time for extended periods is 3-4.