Video Archive Question

[SoonerToucan]

I am new to Sage TV (about to purchase) and I have a question regarding archiving recorded programs.

My plan is to have a central Media Server with a few large hard drives that acts as a central repository for the shows I wish to keep forever. One or more client PVRs that each have a hauppauge 350 card and sage 2.0 installed.

I was wondering if I am able to record a show I want on the client machine, transfer it over to the server, edit out the commercials and then archive it on the server. In doing this the show will rest on the server for the remainder of its life. I am curious are there any problems in doing this? Will I still be able to access the show on the client machine via. shared folders on a windows network?

In reading countless posts there seems to be some difficulty moving shows to different locations. I am afraid my client/server network model may not retain all the information of the current recording or have other problems.

I would appreciate any help on potential pit-falls or tips on the best way to achieve my goal.

Thanks,
-ST

[stanger89]

First, the Clients don't do any recording (the client machines can via network encoders), but it's all managed by the server and stored on the server (or wherever the server stores stuff).

Now, about the editing, that's somewhat tricky. Basically you can't move recordings and have Sage remember the info now. Meaning if you take a recording, and put it in a different directory or change the name, Sage will see it as a new media file with no info. However, some have reported success with editing the files and replacing the original (edited file has same path/filename as original).

[SoonerToucan]

Thats a bit of a pain. Let me clairfy my proposed setup a bit.

The server will have 500GB worth of HD space , reserved to archive movies and shows, as well as 80GB partitioned for recording via the H350 Card installed on the server. So the server will act as a stand alone PVR with sage 2.0 installed as well as an archive for shows I want to keep forever. (living room)

The client will be an old pc of mine with an H350 card and an 80gb HD running sage 2.0 as well. (bedroom)

The computers will be connected over the local network and have access to the mpeg2 files on both machines via shared folders.

I was thinking that if I recorded a show in the livingroom and wanted to watch it in the bedroom, I could just point my bedroom sage to the shared folder on the living room Sage PVR and watch the show. I was also hoping that if I loved the show I could then move it from the recording folder to an archive folder on the 500gb partition to keep it forever.

From what I am reading this may be a more difficult task than I thought. I hope this clears it up and someone can give me some more help.

Thanks
-ST

[Opus4]

First, you want to use SageTV + SageTVClient, not 2 copies of SageTV. Then, if you want one of the networked PCs to also be able to record from its own tuner, you would use SageTVRecorder to make use of the tuner with SageTV on the server controlling SageTVRecorder to tell it what to record.

SageTV will record to the location you tell it & both PCs can access those recordings -- server via SageTV & client via SageTVClient.

Currently, you can move files to another Video Directory (defined in Detailed Setup) while SageTV is closed, but I'm not sure if you can move it to an import dir & retain the detailed show information. I haven't tried that last bit.

- Andy

[stanger89]

I think part of your problems is a misconception of how Sage works:

SageTV - Controls tuner cards, schedules recordings, manages disk space, provides user interface, view recordings
SageClient - Does nothing but provide a user interface to the server and view recordings
SageRecorder - As a network encoder - controls tuner card according to instructions from SageTV server, that's it.

OK, so in your described setup, you'd have SageTV running on your server, then on the client you'd have SageClient and SageRecorder. SageClient would provide the UI and recording viewing through the 350's output, SageRecorder would run the recording portion of the 350, however the SageTV server would control all the recordings, all the disk space. Sage Recorder (as a network encoder) doesn't store recordings local, it stores them in the same place your SageTV server would.

You don't want to run SageTV on both client and server since that prevents them from interacting, what you want is one SageTV server that controls everything (scheduling).

[SoonerToucan]

Ah, thanks for the clarification guys. With this clarification it seems my best bet would be to save some money on the client Harddrives and just use 20-40GB drives for the OS and sage. Then use that money to buy another 300gb drive for the server... correct?

This leads me to two other questions.

1.) Lets say I have 2 300gb drives on the server and 2 clients hooked up. It looks as if all three recorders (server, client1 and client2) will all be recording to the HDs on the server. Will I be able to record to multiple drives or would I have to combine the drives in a RAID setup?

2.) Does Having two clients recording a shows at the same time create a network problem, that seems like a lot of network traffic. One the same note if I am recording shows on 2 clients and the server at the same time I would think that would kill the HD with some much writing, is there a problem with this?

3.) Seeing all the data is stored on the server machine I assume I can designate one drive on the server as the recording drive and another drive as some sort of archiving drive?

Thanks so much for the clarification it really changes how I am going to approach this setup.

-ST

[stanger89]

Originally posted by SoonerToucan
Ah, thanks for the clarification guys. With this clarification it seems my best bet would be to save some money on the client Harddrives and just use 20-40GB drives for the OS and sage. Then use that money to buy another 300gb drive for the server... correct?

This leads me to two other questions.

1.) Lets say I have 2 300gb drives on the server and 2 clients hooked up. It looks as if all three recorders (server, client1 and client2) will all be recording to the HDs on the server. Will I be able to record to multiple drives or would I have to combine the drives in a RAID setup?

Yup, you just add both drives as recording directories in Sage. No RAID, needed, in fact IMO RAID has no place in a normal or HTPC, unless you've got a large media server and are using RAID-5.

2.) Does Having two clients recording a shows at the same time create a network problem, that seems like a lot of network traffic. One the same note if I am recording shows on 2 clients and the server at the same time I would think that would kill the HD with some much writing, is there a problem with this?

With a wired 100TX network you shoudl be fine, the streams are about 6-8Mbps depending on quality. And new HDDs can do over 50 MB/sec (thats 400Mbps).

3.) Seeing all the data is stored on the server machine I assume I can designate one drive on the server as the recording drive and another drive as some sort of archiving drive?

Yes and no, if you don't mind loosing your guide data associated with the recordings you can move them out of the recording dir, but if you want to keep it you can't.

You can however "archive" shows in Sage, it doesn't actually move them though, what it does basically is mark them as "never delete ever" and they show up in a different menu in Sage.

Thanks so much for the clarification it really changes how I am going to approach this setup.

-ST

Not a prob.

[kny3twalker]

becareful with the pvr 350
I have never heard of anyone that had it running without any problems

the pvr 250s are much more stable

if you want hardware decoding maybe Opus4 can update you on the X card and SageTV