Building a new multimedia server

[AirJunky]

I'm just looking into building a multimedia server for my place, looking at a few of the various products available & have a few observations to bounce around. Please throw in your 2 cents if you see fit.....

First of all there appear to be at least 3 or 4 products that fit the "multimedia server" mold. MS's XP MCE, SnapStream & SageTV. Of these three, ALL 3 use the Haupaugge PVR-250/350 capture cards, so regardless of what I do, one of these two cards are the one to get.

Of these 3 multimedia platforms, MCE appears to be the least flexible since you have to buy an OEM computer. I've been building boxes for 10 years & it isn't likely I'm going to start buying from HP anytime soon, especially after reading some of the hellish experiences a few of you are going thru! Besides I have a brand new P4 2.4 gig. with 100 gig HD & 512 meg. RAM sitting in the living room full of MP3s & hooked up to the stereo right now.... just beggin to be hooked up to the TV & setup as a TIVO.

Of the forums for each of these platforms, SageTV appears to be the only one that is NOT full problems. The MCE group is even full of hostility & threats! Is this because Sage is the smaller of the three? Or because it's a clearly better product with happier users?

Haupaugge actually has a pretty cool application themselves, including the new thin client box for remote TVs. I'm hoping that one of these 3 media server platform manufacturers will jump on this baby as it would be great to use for TVs where I'm not likely to have a PC nearby.

Love to hear your thoughts.....

[jptaz]

Bill,

I live by SageTV and can say that of the mentioned products it has the most repsonsive
developers and at this point the most scalability. Jeff is the one and only developer. He
responds to support e-mails quickly. I have personally had him send me several patches
ahead of release.

Why SageTV is not so full of problems?

1. They focused on Functionality before making a really pretty GUI. I have not had any
crash that caused a recording to fail.

2. Only one developer so errors can be found quickly and resolved quickly. I work on a
team of software developers and we have to plan every build coordinate and it can
a day to get a compiled build and a day or two find a problem. MS and SnapStream
both have large teams and it takes a long time for them to find a bug and even longer
to get a patch.

I only use SageTV for watching TV and previously recorded shows. In fact I only watch
TV through SageTV because of Time shifting. I went a bit over board on my set up as I
4 PVR 250 cards, but it is worth it since I have not used my VCR except to play old
Tapes. SageTV can also Play DVDs, but I usually us my DVD Player.

I have not used the MP3 play back feature much, but I have heard that it will be greatly
improved in the 2.0 which will add important features like playlists.

If you have any intention of recording more than one show at once then the only show in
town is SageTV.

The GUI is going to be much improved in 2.0 so if you are concerned about the appearance
or behavior it will improve things greatly.

Just my thoughts,
John

[Ralphjb]

I can not comment on the alternative products you mentioned, but I can highly recommend SageTV. It is rock solid stable. I have had a single PC on for days and days, recording multiple programs each day, and playing those programs back with nary a problem.

[padre]

I can attest to Sage's excellent ability to stay running, versus SnapStream. I've had my SageTV systems running for weeks upon weeks, while I'm on the road throughout the world. When I come back, I have tons of TV I can choose from, without having to worry if my system crashed while I was away. I tried that with SnapStream, and the system was crashed by the time I came back.

SageTV is awesome now, and with what I hear about SageStudio is going to do, it's going to be every better!

I'm like you, been building my own PCs, for me ever since the 8088 (actual the z80), but I digress. This time, I bought an 'off-the-shelf' Compaq lowend Presario ($500), slapped a larger hard drive in it, Haupaugge card and installed SageTV and off it went! Worked so good, I just did it again for my 2nd system (I'm using DirecTV, with receivers throughout the house).

[Ralphjb]

Did the same with a Dell 2350. It was $399 delivered. Slapped a Hauppauge card it and off I went.

[robn]

The only two PVR software packages worth a glance are SageTV and MythTV. I would say MythTV is slightly ahead of sage in terms of look and feel and equal in functionality, however, you had better be well versed in Linux - or you will just end up installing sage anyway .

[andrewswright]

I've found SageTV to be much more robust than either Snapstream or Showshifter. I haven't used XP MCE. It has not given me any problems whatsoever, and the tv quality is great. Although the user interface isn't the most elegant, it works very well and is easy to learn.

I personally use myHTPC (www.myHTPC.net) as my front end, as it handles much more then SageTV. It's control over my 300+ albums encoded in WMP lossless is great, I can use zooplayer for DVDs seamlessly, and you can set up radio, web browsing, and games within the interface. I have the applications tied together using Girder and a remote control.

When Sage2 comes out, I may be able to switch my front end to SageTV entirely.

Andrew

[shodge]

Much depends on your anticipated use of the software. I waited for over a year for snapstream to release version 3 and to provide madding little support through thier forums. When I found Sage, we were exposed directly to the one and only developer. Immediate feedback, quallity concern, and feature enhancement.

Sanpstream has its netowrking feature, but if you look close, its not an architecture which can be expanded. Sage was built from the ground up with mulitiple tuners, mulitiple servers, and mulitiple clients. It all works.

I personally use only one tuner (but plan on another), and 2 clients. I have had all three watching different shows and it just plan works.

Enugh said.

-Stan

[Beelzebub]

Snapstream hasn't evan scratch the surface. Snapstream will have to be completely re-engineered to support Multi-Tuners, and Hardware Decoding. As for MCE, don't evan bother. It is great for complete novices, that just want to turn on the PC, pause TV, and record a few shows.

As far as I'm concerned no product beats SageTV or MythTV. That includes Tivo and ReplayTV. Looks & Feature wise I would say MythTV is the best, but extremely hard to configure. Of course with some of the promised features of V2, nothing will touch SageTV. Support for Hardware Decoding, fully customizable Interface, and a whole lot more. Not to mention Frey works closely with Hauppauge. I would predict in the near future you will see SageTV Client on the MediaMVP. Think about it, a Client machine for $99, that has pefect TV quality. For around a $1000 you could wire your entire house.

[salsbst]

I know this is OT, but the problem with SageTV on the Media MVP is that the MVP runs on Linux. Now, granted SageTV is a Java app, but it is a Java app that relies heavily on DirectShow filters. I'm no expert on the subject, but I think that porting the client to Linux would be a bit of a branch on the development tree.... nonetheless, I support the idea.