Results so far on a P2-400

[Opus4]

I had asked about using SageTV on a P2-400 and saw a few comments from people regarding a desire to possibly use such a slow machine also, so I thought I would comment on my results so far...

Current configuration: input to a Hauppauge 250, output through an xcard to a TV via svideo cable. Storage: 200Gb HD.

With a recording rate of 3GB per hour, I would be hard pressed to tell the difference between this and a direct cable input into the TV. At 2Gb per hour, I could see some blocks in the video.

While recording a show, watching TV, and streaming to the SageClient on my faster office computer, the P2-400's cpu usage ranged between approx. 17% and 33%. Most of that is probably the HD/network throughput.

Without the xcard, I was able to record/watch at 2GB/hour, but CPU ranged from 70-100%. 1GB & 1.5GB per hour kept cpu usage adequate, but the video was quite blocky, of course.

Problems along the way:
1) Using the 250 required that I completely disable Windows Messenger, using the instructions posted by humphrep near the bottom of this thread (otherwise the audio would stop after a few seconds):
http://forums.freytechnologies.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=977

2) When I installed the xcard, I had to change the rendering filter to "default", instead of "overlay" in order to prevent a problem regarding "failed connecting video stream to the overlay mixer". Also, before I made this change, SageTV crashed when I tried to change the channel.

Oh yeah... of course, there is no OSD on the xcard, yet. But that isn't too much of a problem for me -- I could either: 1) look at the PC monitor, on a table next to the TV, or 2) output the PC to another TV input & switch channels to see the Sage output. I mostly plan to watch recorded shows, so once the show starts, rewind, FF, pause, play, & stop are about all I need. :)

Still to be determined: For a 2nd tuner, I decided to try the Hauppauge PVR-USB2, so I don't use up _all_ my PCI slots. What remains to be seen is how much cpu usage is required for the USB2 throughput, especially when recording 2 shows at the same time.

Hopefully, someone out there will find this info useful... Don't expect all your programs to be as responsive as they would be on a more modern system, but the system is perfectly usable for email, music, FM, TV, DVD, etc.

- Andy

[batorok]

Thanks for the info- I'm curious about a few things as I"m trying to get an under spec (ie, less than 600mhz) laptop to act as a client.

What video card do you use? Not the xcard, but the vga card?

What software decoder were you using? The standard sagetv one? I've read that the nvidia codecs from nvdvd are less cpu intensive, but I can't recall if that's only with nvidia cards or not. did you try any other mpeg2 decoding codecs before getting the xcard?

thanks

[Opus4]

Re: video card -- Well, I had _planned_ to try out my Matrox G400 since I had heard it had excellent TV out, but it stopped working in the middle of all this. (PC would no longer get past POST at power-on until I changed the video card.) I had an nVidia GeForce 2 MX on my shelf w/TV out, so I put that in.

But, even if the G400 had worked & had great output, it still would have used quite a bit of the cpu for decoding. That card would work better on a much faster system.

I did not try too many of the software renderers, since I knew I would be going w/the xcard for both its output quality and to free up the cpu. I mentioned elsewhere that I chose to use the xcard instead of the Hauppauge 350, since the xcard can be used to play DVDs.

In terms of that laptop... I'm not sure what could be done, since you can't add in either of those hardware renderers, nor, as far as I know, change the graphics card it uses. I think hardware rendering is really what makes a slower system usable as a PVR system. My guess is that you will have to use a lower bit rate on that laptop for acceptable playback performance.

- Andy

[Opus4]

To follow up on one thing I said in the original post:

Originally posted by Opus4
Still to be determined: For a 2nd tuner, I decided to try the Hauppauge PVR-USB2, so I don't use up _all_ my PCI slots. What remains to be seen is how much cpu usage is required for the USB2 throughput, especially when recording 2 shows at the same time.

I received and installed the USB2 tuner... talk about easy! As mentioned in this thread: http://forums.freytechnologies.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1363

Stop SageTV, insert installation CD, plug in the tuner, connect it to a USB2 port, click OK for the driver install, start SageTV, add the 2nd tuner. (OK, the above link left out that last part, but I didn't see the 2nd tuner in Sage until I added the tuner through Setup.)

So far, there has been no problem on the P2-400 using both tuners set to 3GB/hour, recording TV on both tuners, and watching TV on the the SageTV system and my SageClient system, all at the same time. When doing all that, cpu usage seems to stay in the vicinity of 20-35%, with a few higher spikes at times. I'll update here if I do run into any problems.

So much for my 2 VCRs...

- Andy

[dkardatzke]

Andy,

I noticed that there are some driver updates on Hauppauge's website for the PVR-usb2 if you start to experience any problems.

[Opus4]

Dan,

Thanks. Actually, I already downloaded all the updates while waiting for the tuner to arrive. Everything worked just using the drivers on the CD, as I reported above, but I updated to all the latest stuff anyway... and it still works. :) (Figured I might as well get the latest drivers, just in case.)

I don't know how often you get asked about using SageTV on an older computer like this (I saw a few such questions on the forum), but with the right upgrades it certainly works.

Currently, the only thing I'm trying to decide is whether the USB2 FM tuner is better than the old ISA FM card I have. (Yes, that computer is old enough to still have a couple ISA slots!)

This setup makes me wish I had done this quite some time ago...

- Andy

[Opus4]

It seems that the question of which FM tuner to use has been decided, since the PVR-USB2 doesn't seem to allow simultaneous use of both the TV tuner and the FM tuner: SageTV can't record if the radio is in use, while the radio can't run if SageTV is recording. If further research shows this to be true w/no work-around, the FM tuner on the USB2 device isn't overly useful. :(

- Andy

[SHS]

There not as new as the one I have shspvr FTP

[Opus4]

SHS -

Are you sure about that? The USB2 drivers on the CD image downloadable from your site are listed as version 21196, which is higher than the CD in my package, whose driver has a version number of 21190. However, the driver from the Hauppauge site is version 21234 and has a release date of Aug 22, 2003.

- Andy