MCE>Sage: Am I on the right track?

[bobhaze]

Hi everybody,
I've been doing a lot of reading on this, and have experimented with the Sage trial SW. I think I want to make the switch from MCE to Sage, but before I spend the bucks I just want to make sure I didn't miss anything that will make me sorry I made the change. It's happened in the past despite thinking I had everything covered, so I'm hoping someone here can confirm that what I want to do will work.
Right now I have a mix of 6 MCE PC's. Three are running Vista32, two are running MCE2005, and one is running Win 7 Home Premium.
My goal is to set up a headless Sage server with one R5000 Dish 211, a second 211 using the Hauppauge HD DVR or Aver Media equivalent (any preference?), and two two-tuner HD Home Runs as sources. I will replace three of the PC's with HD300 extenders, and keep three PC's as Sage clients. I'd like to save everything on a raid5 box (which I already have) attached to the server via eSATA. Currently I have a number of DVD's and BluRay ISO's ripped with AnyDVD and DVD Shrink. I am not too concerned with saving the recorded TV shows I have in MS formats, so that isn't a concern. Am I OK so far?
My understanding is that each of the locations should be able to watch live and recorded TV with no issues. I read through the network encoder setup, so it seems that should be OK for the R5000. I haven't tried this since I have to buy the sage driver from Nextcomm to try it, but it looks easy enough. Some people seem to have issues with blu-ray playback on the extender, but everyone says DVD playback seems to work OK. How functional is Blu-Ray on the HD300? It seems some people have issues but others don't. Not having Netflix integration is a concern, but I suppose I can live with play-on in the rooms with the extenders.
According to a thread somewhere on this forum, Win7/32 bit is the OS of choice for the server, correct? Does the server require great HW, or will a simple Atom box do? I think the clients do the hard work, am I correct with that assumption?
So am I on the right track here or did I miss something critical?

Thanks in advance for your feedback.
Bob H.

[PLUCKYHD]

I would go Linux or 7 for the server it won't require allot of hp unless you plan on skipping those commercials recorded from the hdpvr. I would wait for the new hdpvr to come out suppose to be out in about a month.

I have 0 issues with native blue ray rips and hd300.

Sounds like you understand and are onthe right track.

Good luck I did this over two years ago and had used wmc since 2002 before that. You wont regret the switch!!

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by bobhaze

...or Aver Media equivalent (any preference?)

I don't think the Aver Media box is supported. Make sure you double check before you buy one.

[bobhaze]

Thanks to both of you for the feedback. I always hate it when, despite my best efforts at research, I miss something that makes the whole plan fall apart!
I have no Linux experience, so I guess I'll stick with 7 just to play it safe since the family isn't going to tolerate a long learning curve through the transition. Is there any benefit to 64 over 32 bit 7 in the server?

Bob

[Spectrum]

Benefits of x64 for Sage are debatable. The only thing that really won't work if you go with x64 is using firewire for channel changing or capture because the drivers are only written for x32. Sage itself is a 32bit app so it won't get any direct benefits from an x64 OS, but using an x64 OS gives the system as a whole access to more memory assuming you install it. At this point unless you need to use Firewire or have a device that doesn't have x64 drivers, I would recommend going with x64 unless you just have an x32 license lying around that is unused.