WHS question - Acer H340 adequate?

[eyebomb]

First time poster. I've been doing a TON of research with the intention of dropping our satellite TV and replacing it with something cheaper (at least in theory - something that doesn't require a monthly bill for a bunch of channels we never watch) that has DVR functionality for OTA and media streaming capabilities for ripped DVD's.

SageTV keeps coming up as one of my best options. If we go the SageTV route, my plan would be to run SageTV on a central PC (or WHS unit) and use multiple HD Theaters as extenders. I would use two extenders initially, possibly adding a third at a later date, although it's just my wife and me, so I can't see how more than two extenders would ever be in use at one time.

My question: is something like the Acer H340 adequate for running SageTV for recording and streaming to multiple HD Theaters?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...0home%20server

It only has a 1.6GHz Atom CPU and 2GB of RAM. I would only use it for it's intended Windows Home Server uses and for SageTV. I don't think I would attempt compskip or anything like that. I would most likely get a HDHomeRun for a tuner and (I guess) plug that into my Apple Airport Extreme base station (or maybe the WHS box?).

My current PC is a several years old Pentium D @ 2.80GHz. I'd love to replace it with something newer, but money is an issue. If I did get a new PC I could use the old one as my SageTV server, but then I'd have to use external hard drives and such, plus I imagine it would draw more power than a WHS box like the Acer.

The cheapest route seems to be to simply get a couple of extenders and use my existing PC to run the SageTV software. However, I'd really like to only have to set everything up once and I'd feel better if my SageTV "server" wasn't also my general use PC, so getting a WHS box from the beginning has some definite appeal.

Is anyone running SageTV on one of these Acer boxes or one of the similar HP Mediasmart servers?

I have to add that the very active, helpful forums at Sage are one of the things that have helped make SageTV one of my top options. Thanks in advance for any and all information!

[gplasky]

For all the basics of SageTV including streaming DVDs and HD recording and streaming to multiple HD Extenders this will handle it. Just have no intention of trying to use it as a client. That being said if you intend on doing comskip for any h.264 recorded shows or try doing any transcoding of recordings for an iPod then it probably lacks the horsepower. Not that it couldn't do it but you may notice a sluggish interface or longer waits to access the recordings. But the option is you can always run comskip from another more powerful PC (I do) and do your transcoding there too. (If you intend on transcoding. I don't)

Gerry

[eyebomb]

Gerry, thanks for the reply - that's what I was hoping to hear. I would use a standard desktop PC for any transcoding, DVD ripping, etc., so no worries there.

Our current desktop PC stays on most of the time, but obviously if I'm running SageTV I'll need something that's on all the time, and a little WHS box running all the time has got to be better for my power bill than a full desktop PC. This is also one of the reasons the HD Theater extenders are compelling vs. a HTPC at each TV location - power usage.

Thanks again!