Info Needed for Whole House Setup...

[Lonc_25]

I am looking into a "Sage" solution for my audio/video needs.

I have a media server that will be hooked up to my 65' Toshiba HD Ready TV,

I also have a SDTV in the living room and another one for the kids. Could someone please help me figure out what I need. I was looking at the MCE 2005 w/ extenders... But Sage and the MVP's look more cost effective and vesitile.

Can I play DVD's (ripped or otherwise) to the MVP clients.

What Sage software will I need, client licenses and such. Please let me know what I will need to get this running. Mt wife needs my x-mas list soon and I want a full Sage solution to be one it, I just don't know what I need.

Thanks in advance.

[rich_l]

I dont have a full house set up, but here is what i would do:

2 hauppage pvr-500's. Total of 4 tuners. Some people would say get 3 pvr-500s so each can record and watch at the same time, but i think that is a little overkill.

Ethernet cable needs to be at each spot. Wireless just isnt fast enough yet in my opinion, although some people might say it is okay. Theoretical speeds it would be, but realistic speeds are way way off.

I would do the sage/ mvp set up. Mvps do run divx/xvid to them. Im not sure about straight from dvds.

You will need one full version ($80) and 2 sage clients for the mvps (2@$30 each)

I know i am missing something....



Oh yeah, Hard drives. With that many tuners, you will need tons of hard drive space since it does fill up fast. Seagate started selling 400gb drives and i know hitachi sells those too. I would go with seagate since they are a bit quieter.

[GbrNole]

the clients using the plugin and custom stv's wont do divx/xvid or i was under that impression at least?

i'd like to see a pinnacle showcenter or similar unit be ported to client use. preferably the unit would be based on a networked dvd player though rather than just a portal box but i'd live with the box for right now!

[Lonc_25]

can you use the MVP's for any kind of DVD .iso playback? I will need to be able to access stored DVDs from the media server using the MVP's

[stanger89]

No, the MVPs can't deal with AC3 audio so no DVDs.

[Lonc_25]

Man, that blows that idea out of the water... am I back to MCE2005 w/ extenders? That's if I do not want another pc in the living room.

[GbrNole]

the mce2005 extenders wont play back xvid/divx and it can be a royal pain to make them play back ripped vob's.

i believe you can fake them into playing iso's though.

the mvp should downmix the ac3 to stereo though shouldn't it?

[Lonc_25]

yeah, if anyone knows how I can store my DVDs on the media server and play them through the MVP... PLEASE let me know. This is essential for my setup.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Lonc_25

yeah, if anyone knows how I can store my DVDs on the media server and play them through the MVP... PLEASE let me know. This is essential for my setup.

You can convert them to MPEGs with standard MPEG audio.

[Lonc_25]

Can you list some software packages that will do this...

And I guess the most important question is... is this something that is tolerable to do? It doesn't take 6 hours for one movie or anything does it?

[SidKnee]

I've been playing around with the DVD/MVP issue a little and have had some success.

You can use DVDx v2.3 to convert the DVD content to an MPG that the MVP will play (just like it does with an ordinary recording), I've also been using DVD Shrink to rip the DVD to disk so that I can pull out specific video tracks etc. for DVDx to work with. Both of these are freeware so there's no cost invovled. I think that you can also set DVDx to work with the TMPeg (not sure of the spelling) encoder which is supposed to improve the encoding speed (and quality?) but I've not tried this.

The only drawbacks that I've seen so far are...
1) the transcoding takes quite a while. About 3 hours for a 90 minute film on a 3GHz machine (if I remember correctly).
2) there's no film information in Sage as it is brought in as an imported video. I think that you can get around this with some of the STV's though.
3) there's not a lot of customisation for the MPG encoding available in DVDx. You can either select a VCD or SVCD as the target MPG to change the transcoding resolution/bandwidth etc. but you can't specify your own settings.

Cheers,
SidKnee

[Lonc_25]

So it is possible... just time consuming... Has anyone tried the Actiontec Media Player. It looks like there are more formats supported using this.

[GbrNole]

do a search on pinnacle (in the sage forums) - anything you find on that will be the same as the info for the actiontec.

[akenis]

Originally Posted by stanger89

No, the MVPs can't deal with AC3 audio so no DVDs.

Actually there are some hacks to add both optical/coax digital out. One post claimed the digital out was better than the "crappy" D/A converter in the box. The SHS forum talks about what seems to be a straight solder to the board and voilla! They have also confirmed AC3 pass through capability, but it's real high level stuff. Also a serial port.

When they get the detail figured out, maybe one of the guys here can get it set up in the SAGE MPV client software. Then you'd have the perfect cheap client.

[Cayars]

I've got both MVP and ShowCenters in my house. While the ShowCenter doesn't share the SageTV interface (yet), I still like it better (using watched folders) then the MVP players.

It's a far more versitile box overall but of course does cost more. What really sold me on this box is the outstanding DivX playback support and the fact that it uses pure HTML as an interface which can be easily modified.

A couple of STV releases down the road and I'll be tackling a better ShowCenter interface.

[dvd_maniac]

Well I have Sage setup in 4 rooms right now. I have about 1.3TB's on main HTPC, I am in the process of converting my entire dvd collection to H/D using Nero Recode. The new H.264 compression gives out Unbelievably Excellent quality at 600MB average size, however the encodes take 8+ hours on 3Ghz and Sage can't play them. However the Non H.264 nero encodes play fine and are only slightly less quality, take under 1 hour to encode, and play fine in Sage. I am devoting 500GB to dvd movies so I can fit over 800 movies. I would like if somebody could confirm that I can input info for these using a custom STV? Which STV would do that?
only have to change two lines in property file for Sage to see the mp4 files. So for me, no worries about AC3 or Divx support...

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by dvd_maniac

The new H.264 compression gives out Unbelievably Excellent quality at 600MB average size, however the encodes take 8+ hours on 3Ghz and Sage can't play them.

Have you tried the Elecard/Moonlight decoders I linked to in the other thread? Sage can (AFIAK) play anything that has the appropriate Dshow filters.