STV Import: SageMC Video Tools v3.0

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by mikesm

Anyways, I would recommend a good P35 based motherboard that can overclock well. I stuck another Q6600 into my desktop this weekend and it overclocked with minimal voltage increase to 3.5 Ghz. For the Sage server, which is currently an AMD X2 3800, I ordered this MB from newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128059

Its worth noting that that board only has 4 SATA slots and when you subtract 1 for the OS drive, you're left with 3 recording drives before you need to add a PCI-e SATA card. I know that's fine for mike as he uses a NAS, but if you want to keep all your storage local to your server you shouldn't be looking at anything with less than 6 SATA (I've got 8).

I know that seems like a lot with 1 TB drives being so cheap, but for performance reasons (especially if you plan on encoding/comskiping while you are recording) I like to keep a 1:1 ratio between my recording drives and recording sources. Which is to say i'd prefer to have 4x500 GB drives than 2x1TB drives.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Its worth noting that that board only has 4 SATA slots and when you subtract 1 for the OS drive, you're left with 3 recording drives before you need to add a PCI-e SATA card. I know that's fine for mike as he uses a NAS, but if you want to keep all your storage local to your server you shouldn't be looking at anything with less than 6 SATA (I've got 8).

I know that seems like a lot with 1 TB drives being so cheap, but for performance reasons (especially if you plan on encoding/comskiping while you are recording) I like to keep a 1:1 ratio between my recording drives and recording sources. Which is to say i'd prefer to have 4x500 GB drives than 2x1TB drives.

Absolutely fair, and if you have an SATA optical drive, that will take up a port as well. If you have a lot of storage in your SageTV server, you will need more SATA ports. If course, at some point, if you have a LOT of disks, I recommend putting them in a seperate box, but then you've heard me say that before. :-)

On the issue of separate drives for recordings and sources, I thank that all depends on how good the I/O is and how much recording and sourcing is going on. But I am planning to move all my commercial harvesting and compression to the NAS system as well.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Its worth noting that that board only has 4 SATA slots and when you subtract 1 for the OS drive, you're left with 3 recording drives before you need to add a PCI-e SATA card. I know that's fine for mike as he uses a NAS, but if you want to keep all your storage local to your server you shouldn't be looking at anything with less than 6 SATA (I've got 8).

I know that seems like a lot with 1 TB drives being so cheap, but for performance reasons (especially if you plan on encoding/comskiping while you are recording) I like to keep a 1:1 ratio between my recording drives and recording sources. Which is to say i'd prefer to have 4x500 GB drives than 2x1TB drives.

Originally Posted by mikesm

Absolutely fair, and if you have an SATA optical drive, that will take up a port as well. If you have a lot of storage in your SageTV server, you will need more SATA ports. If course, at some point, if you have a LOT of disks, I recommend putting them in a seperate box, but then you've heard me say that before. :-)

On the issue of separate drives for recordings and sources, I thank that all depends on how good the I/O is and how much recording and sourcing is going on. But I am planning to move all my commercial harvesting and compression to the NAS system as well.

I would put the OS on a PATA drive as well as the optical then you have 4 SATA drives free for recording drives - at least for the board mikesm pointed to anyway.

[toricred]

That is exactly the board I just bought. I'm set up with PATA for CD and the OS. It works great. I love this board.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

I would put the OS on a PATA drive as well as the optical then you have 4 SATA drives free for recording drives - at least for the board mikesm pointed to anyway.

Most newer MB's only have one IDE port and I was always taught that having a hard drive and DVD drive as master/slave on the same cable was bad... but I never verified that info, though, so it may just be an urban legend

[Brent]

Anyone have any help for my question on post #457 above? Just wanted to be sure my question didn't slip through the cracks here

Thanks!

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by toricred

That is exactly the board I just bought. I'm set up with PATA for CD and the OS. It works great. I love this board.

It's a favorite in the overclocking community, but as EP pointed out, if you need a lot of storage, you'll need to an some sata ports via a pcie card or pick a another motherboard.


BTW, these cheap Q6600's overclock like mad...

[toricred]

I've been trying to overclock my E4500, but I can't seem to get past 2.86GHz and that is with a fair amount of extra voltage. I'm waiting for the Q6600's to drop below $200 before I go for one of those.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by toricred

I've been trying to overclock my E4500, but I can't seem to get past 2.86GHz and that is with a fair amount of extra voltage. I'm waiting for the Q6600's to drop below $200 before I go for one of those.

They won't be dropping below $200 for a long long time. I was shocked by the MC price. The tray price (wholesale) is $266 today, and no quad will be below $200 for 2008, at least as far as the Intel pricesheets show. If you want a quad this year, I think the current MC price is the best you will see.

E4500's can OC well, but it really depends on which rev you get. The 2180's almost seem to do better than 4500's on whole. And 8400 should work nicely in that motherboard too, but for that money you might as well get the quad now.

[toricred]

The price at MC is $200, but only for in-store. The closest Microcenter is ~7 hours drive one-way from here. If I could get somebody near one to buy it and ship it to me that would meet my pricing, but I don't know anybody that lives near one.

[xj-boonie]

How do you know what the in-store price is, and how long will it be there?

I haven't built a intel machine before (actually never owned one... Amiga's and AMD pc's ) . Anything to know before diving into it?

[toricred]

That's the price they show on their web page, but it says in-store only.

[toricred]

Which is more important for transcoding, memory or clock speed?

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by xj-boonie

How do you know what the in-store price is, and how long will it be there?

I haven't built a intel machine before (actually never owned one... Amiga's and AMD pc's ) . Anything to know before diving into it?

I think today or tomorrow is the last day - the sale has been running for almost a week.

Call them and ask if they have any in stock and the price.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by toricred

Which is more important for transcoding, memory or clock speed?

I think clock speed in general, though you have to have a reasonable amount of ram to avoid swapping. More cores also are better than fewer cores, even if fewer cores are at higher clock speed.

[toricred]

mikesm,

Thanks. That was what I thought.

EP,

When I use version k with SageMC 6.3.7a, the automatic compression doesn't happen. Flachbar recommended I check with you on this. He thought maybe the changes you asked for in MC were for the next version. It definitely works fine with MC 6.3.7. Any clues?

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by toricred

mikesm,

Thanks. That was what I thought.

EP,

When I use version k with SageMC 6.3.7a, the automatic compression doesn't happen. Flachbar recommended I check with you on this. He thought maybe the changes you asked for in MC were for the next version. It definitely works fine with MC 6.3.7. Any clues?

I actually haven't had a chance to load 6.3.7a yet - hopefully this weekend I'll have time to try it.

[evilpenguin]

Sorry, i've been sick/busy/useless for the last week or so, but i'm starting to feel better now so i'll try and look the autoCompression issues ASAP.

@Brent - "Output Mode" in the profile files doesn't do anything anymore except indicate that there are no more encoding commands. What you should do is make your profile that encodes to the format you want and then inside SageMC, create a custom version of it, and modify the advanced options to "Output Mode = Path", and specify the folder there.

As for DVD's right now Sage is setup to automatically pick my Handbrake profile if you select a "VIDEO_TS" folder so getting that working would require moding some of my profiles. I'll try and loose this restriction in the next version.

Also, its worth noting that I'm working on some new smart profiles for devices (iPod/PSP/etc.) as well as a streamlining the Advanced Options to simplify non-"In Place" compression.

[opy01]

just upgraded form the tools 2.0 and this seems so be better but the 2-pass xvid is now 500MB instead of the 350MB that they were before. Any clue why?

Edit: I think I know why, my old one was 512x384 by default and the new ones are 640x480. I need to play with it and try to set some different defaults. But other than that its awesome!

[Brent]

Looks like a new version of Handbrake was released this week and in my first test it seems to be working much faster than in the past. Worth a download to update handbrake!