Brian
11-15-2004, 10:56 AM
Requesting help from the SageTV experts out there to design an optimal solution for my home...
I have three locations that require full SageTV functionality:
1. Den PC
2. Living Room TV (50")
3. Bedroom TV (27")
All three locations have Ethernet and Cable TV access. I do not want to use MediaMVP at any of these locations. I tried MVP with Matt's plugin but just don't feel it's ready for prime time (yet).
In the Den, which is my primary viewing location, I currently have a dedicated PC running SageTV with one PVR250 and a 250GB HDD. I'd like to use this PC to run SageTV as a service/server for the other two locations without losing my "local" viewing capabilities. If necessary, I could install an additional PVR250 to support watching and/or recording multiple shows at once. I could also, if necessary, run SageTV Client on another PC (4 available) in the den for local viewing.
In the bedroom, which is my wife's primary viewing location, I'm hoping SageTV Client running on a networked bare bones PC with (svideo) TV Out will do the trick. This PC would use the server in the den for encoding/decoding as well as for storage on the 250GB HDD.
In the living room, the same as above.
Assuming this is a sound configuration, I would build the two client machines from scratch, so obviously I'd like to keep the cost as low as possible on those (wife will want TiVo if this gets too expensive).
Outstanding questions:
1. Given the configuration above, does SageTV decode recordings on the server, or do the client machines require decoding software? If the latter is true, any decoder recommendations?
2. With two SageTV Client instances using the server, will my Athlon 1.33GHz with 1GB of RAM provide enough horsepower to run a local client (for the Den) directly on the server, or will I need to run my local client on another machine?
2. Should I expect any performance issues with client viewing/recording/playback over the LAN versus using local storage on each client?
3. What video cards have good TV Outs? Or, are there any motherboards that have good integrated TV Out capabilities? PVR350s would seem to be overkill since I would not be recording directly on the clients, and I'm weary of all the 350-related issues I have read about in other posts.
4. Ideally, I'd like the client machines to fit horizontally in a standard A/V cabinet and look like they belong there. Without spending a ton of cash on fancy stainless steel cases, is there anything available that would suit the budget-minded?
5. Related to above, what should be my target form factor? ATX? Mini ATX?
6. Will the clients require sound cards? Or, will audio make it to the TV via svideo without a client sound card?
If I'm totally off base here, or if another configuration would be better and/or cheaper, by all means please say so. Thanks in advance for the help and advice!
Brian
I have three locations that require full SageTV functionality:
1. Den PC
2. Living Room TV (50")
3. Bedroom TV (27")
All three locations have Ethernet and Cable TV access. I do not want to use MediaMVP at any of these locations. I tried MVP with Matt's plugin but just don't feel it's ready for prime time (yet).
In the Den, which is my primary viewing location, I currently have a dedicated PC running SageTV with one PVR250 and a 250GB HDD. I'd like to use this PC to run SageTV as a service/server for the other two locations without losing my "local" viewing capabilities. If necessary, I could install an additional PVR250 to support watching and/or recording multiple shows at once. I could also, if necessary, run SageTV Client on another PC (4 available) in the den for local viewing.
In the bedroom, which is my wife's primary viewing location, I'm hoping SageTV Client running on a networked bare bones PC with (svideo) TV Out will do the trick. This PC would use the server in the den for encoding/decoding as well as for storage on the 250GB HDD.
In the living room, the same as above.
Assuming this is a sound configuration, I would build the two client machines from scratch, so obviously I'd like to keep the cost as low as possible on those (wife will want TiVo if this gets too expensive).
Outstanding questions:
1. Given the configuration above, does SageTV decode recordings on the server, or do the client machines require decoding software? If the latter is true, any decoder recommendations?
2. With two SageTV Client instances using the server, will my Athlon 1.33GHz with 1GB of RAM provide enough horsepower to run a local client (for the Den) directly on the server, or will I need to run my local client on another machine?
2. Should I expect any performance issues with client viewing/recording/playback over the LAN versus using local storage on each client?
3. What video cards have good TV Outs? Or, are there any motherboards that have good integrated TV Out capabilities? PVR350s would seem to be overkill since I would not be recording directly on the clients, and I'm weary of all the 350-related issues I have read about in other posts.
4. Ideally, I'd like the client machines to fit horizontally in a standard A/V cabinet and look like they belong there. Without spending a ton of cash on fancy stainless steel cases, is there anything available that would suit the budget-minded?
5. Related to above, what should be my target form factor? ATX? Mini ATX?
6. Will the clients require sound cards? Or, will audio make it to the TV via svideo without a client sound card?
If I'm totally off base here, or if another configuration would be better and/or cheaper, by all means please say so. Thanks in advance for the help and advice!
Brian