Need video card for server?

[pstockha]

I'm setting up a new system. Plan was headless server with HD Extenders at each tv. Because the server was to be headless, it has no video card (nor a convenient open slot for one) and i was planning on using the onboard video (ATI ES1000 server graphics) just for the initial setup and then never touching it again. Running setup, I get an error trying to setup the video sources saying that there was a problem rendering the video portion of the stream. I expect this is because the onboard graphics have no compatible MPEG2 decoder/renderer and that the software needs a better video solution. If possible I'd like to avoid having to get a video card for the server just for this setup since the server will never again need it. Is is possible to let the sagetv server software run on the server and setup the video sources from an extender or from a client computer that has the requisite video card? Any other solutions or suggestions? Thanks in advance for the help.

[korben_dallas]

I believe you can skip the rendering portion and go along to channel selection, though you will have to know from some other method which channels are valid and which are not.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by pstockha

I'm setting up a new system. Plan was headless server with HD Extenders at each tv. Because the server was to be headless, it has no video card (nor a convenient open slot for one) and i was planning on using the onboard video (ATI ES1000 server graphics) just for the initial setup and then never touching it again. Running setup, I get an error trying to setup the video sources saying that there was a problem rendering the video portion of the stream. I expect this is because the onboard graphics have no compatible MPEG2 decoder/renderer and that the software needs a better video solution. If possible I'd like to avoid having to get a video card for the server just for this setup since the server will never again need it. Is is possible to let the sagetv server software run on the server and setup the video sources from an extender or from a client computer that has the requisite video card? Any other solutions or suggestions? Thanks in advance for the help.

Ignore it. You only need basic video to setup sage. Any video rendering errors can be ignored. Any onboard video is fine for a headless server.

[pstockha]

Thanks for the responses guys. I'll go ahead with the setup as you suggest.

[pjpjpjpj]

Yeah, pstockha, when I got to that point in my setup, my server actually crashed completely (trying to render video). I rebooted and did the setup again, and when I got to that screen, hit escape (I think?) immediately, and it sorta skipped that screen... anyway, I got past the crash point and was able to complete the setup, and it worked fine.

[ybrew]

I don't remember exactly what I did when setting mine up, but I too only use the onboard video.

[pstockha]

Thanks all - I followed the advice and setup worked fine (except for my audio problem noted in another thread).