Have I been a moron for the last 8 months?

[iamnaeth]

It just dawned on me, I don't know why it took me so long, that I may have been remarkably inefficient with my computers and recording practices.

Just a quick setup description:
I have sageTV installed on my HTPC in my living room. This PC is networked to my Server HTPC. I have my PVR card in my HTPC as well. The HTPC records the shows through the network to the server PC, no files stored locally. This setup requires me to leave both computers on to record a show.

What recently dawned on me was the following:
If I moved the PVR card to the HTPC and setup sageTV on it, I could leave the HTPC off until I wanted to use it. Is this possible? Is this better? If I installed sageTV on both computers, how would the EPG and favorites work? Would I be better off switching to sageClient and Sagerecorder? Thanks for any help you might have.

[stanger89]

Don't you mean put the PVR card and SageTV on the Server and SageClient on the HTPC?

[salsbst]

Anything involving SageRecorder is likely to be suboptimal from a network bandwidth standpoint.

how would the EPG and favorites work?

You cannot tell the difference between SageTVClient.exe and SageTV.exe in normal every day use.

The best reason I've heard to do something other than the optimal configuration (the one stanger89 mentioned) is the case where you cannot feed your TV signal to the machine with the big hard disk(s) and PVR card. For example, if you have no way to route a cable TV line to the server box.

[Crashless]

It sounds like you have a standard client-server setup, and it would stand to reason to let the server be on all the time, and the client (the HTPC in the living room) only be on when you use it.

It'll save you an instance of sage recorder.

You would simply have the main sagetv application on the server, and a copy of sage client on the HTPC in the living room. This way, you don't need both Sage Client AND Sage Recorder on the HTPC because the main SageTV application doesn't require a copy of Sage Recorder - it allows you unlimited recording cards on that machine.

Make sense?

[salsbst]

I understood that he has been recording to a regular file server using a single instance of SageTV.exe. This would be about the same traffic as using Sage Recorder and SageTVClient.exe on the "client" and SageTV.exe on the server. Neither is ideal.

[iamnaeth]

I guess I wasn't really clear. I have the sageTV on my HTPC and nothing on the server PC. I was proposing moving the Hauppage PVR card to the server and installing sageTV on the server. I would still keep sageTV on the HTPC. By sageTV I don't mean client or recorder.

As for running the cable to the server, it actually easier for me to do that. That is also what caused me to think of this change.

As I understand it, having the PVR and the HD space in the same place is more ideal than the way I'm doing it?

[Opus4]

You would need 2 licenses to run SageTV on 2 computers. The least expensive way for you to do that would be to buy SageTVClient. (I think you can get SageTV to act as a client, but you would still need 2 licenses, so the client costs less for this.) [Edit to clarify: SageTV + tuner on server; client on HTPC.]

I think it would be better to have the recording go to a lcoal drive -- plus you can then shut off the HTPC when you want to & just leave the server running, as mentioned above, I believe.

- Andy

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by iamnaeth

I guess I wasn't really clear. I have the sageTV on my HTPC and nothing on the server PC. I was proposing moving the Hauppage PVR card to the server and installing sageTV on the server. I would still keep sageTV on the HTPC. By sageTV I don't mean client or recorder.

That would not work well, there would be no way (well technically you could*) to control the PVR card in the server. What you want is SageTV+PVR on the server, and then access it via Sageclient on the HTPC.

*You could setup SageTV on the server as and encoding server with the 250, but you'd still need to leave both machines on that way.

[iamnaeth]

Seperate follow up question then, I have the server HD mapped to my HTPC. The newest install of sageTV allowed you to run it as a service but this caused me a problem for some reason so I shut it off. Does sage client have the ability as well?

[salsbst]

SageTVClient has no business running as a service, since it's whole purpose is to present a user interface.

When the service works properly (and it always has for me), it is a good way to run SageTV (server), since it can be automatically restarted on failure, does not require a user to be logged on, and does not run the user interface.

If you rearrange your setup to the one that we're recommending, it would be a good time to change the path to the video directories to a UNC path.

[edit: removed recommendation for local drive letter usage -- see below for why]

[heffe2001]

As to what salsbst above me says, you may want to rethink not using UNC pathnames, alot of the newer STV files require access to the actual drives for things like Comskip files & such.

[salsbst]

heffe2001, could you explain this? I'm not familiar with features that require UNC paths to drives that are local to the server. Does the client need access to the files directly?

[iamnaeth]

And while you're explaining it....what is a UNC? As of right now, I have comskip running on my HTPC on files in the server HD. So it runs comskip through the network.

[iamnaeth]

Oh yeah, i asked this a while a back too but never got an answer, not on topic at all. Is there any way to schedule a time for comskip to run? Like between 2-6AM? I hate when it runs while i'm watching a movie on zoomplayer because it makes my audio and video unsync. It also makes my sageTV freeze up because I'm using FFDshow maxed out on both pieces of software. Oh yeah, that makes me think of another question, how to decoders filters work through the network? Will I still be able to use FFDShow on my TV recordings?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by iamnaeth

Seperate follow up question then, I have the server HD mapped to my HTPC. The newest install of sageTV allowed you to run it as a service but this caused me a problem for some reason so I shut it off. Does sage client have the ability as well?

As mentioned above, the client can't even run as a service. But, I wanted to point out that you can't use mapped drives with the service, so that is may be why you had problems -- you have to use local paths or UNC paths. See p. 14 in the v2.2 manual regarding accessing network drives with the service.

You would need to use UNC paths so the client can access the files directly for some of the customizations, such as ComSkip. If you are not using any customizations, I don't think the client needs any sort of direct file access since all video playback is streamed through the server. (One caveat: I can never remember if playback of ripped DVDs needs direct access by the client, since I never do that.)

- Andy

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by salsbst

heffe2001, could you explain this? I'm not familiar with features that require UNC paths to drives that are local to the server. Does the client need access to the files directly?

Things like Comskip require access to the comskip files on the HDD. It works fine for the server (if the drives are local) but the client needs access to that drive/path as well to see the comskip files. UNC paths make that really easy.

[heffe2001]

Ok, UNC pathnames are basically in this format: \\server\share, not a drive letter like D: or E:.

Most of the STV files that use comskip have to by physically able to see the comskip file that is associated with the mpg file, usually they have the same name as the mpg but with a different extention.

I'm going to assume that you have your server's drive/drives mapped to drive letters on your client machine? If you have that working, you can either:

A. Change the drive letters on your server machine to match (can't do that with the C drive, but any other drives can be moved around with the disk manager snapin)
B. Use UNC names for the recording directories (don't use D:\sagetv, use \\server\sage_d or whatever you set them as).

If you don't do this, your STV file won't be able to find it's comskip files, and you'll loose that functionality. You'll want to run the comskip program on your server for speed, so it will need the same drives for your mpg storage, or it's not going to work correctly either.

I think Cayars is working on a new Comskip manager, which you can run stand-alone on your sage server, and it should not interfere with you using FFDShow, Zoomplayer or any of that, since it's running on another machine.

PS: If I'm wrong about any of this, please feel free to chime in guys .

[mdmint]

Well, I'm fairly certain that an app' like Comskip vs SageTV in service mode seeing video drive/dir is apples and oranges. Just because SageTV in service mode can see the video dir via UNC paths in Sage setup doesn't mean Comskip can see the dir, I believe the dir must also be mapped for Comskip to see it. This is the actual behavior I have observed. A Sage Client can see files within SageClient for playback from the SageTV Server and not see the same files for Comskipping and not see the created files for use during playback if not also mapped. That said, Comskip runs just fine from a Client, doesn't matter if SageTV is in service mode on a Server or not, doesn't even matter is SageTV running at all. Comskip is (usually) processing files already recorded to the HD, wherever it may be, just needs to see the directory.

[heffe2001]

From what I understood, when your STV file calls the comskip app (from the old way of doing it that is, not sure about Cayars newest skins), it would pass the UNC path to the comskip app, and comskip would work on it that way. Not sure about the newer versions.

Now the stand-alone version should work either way, as long as your STV drops the appropriate file in the video directory.

Now as for client, most likely the problem you'll see if you don't have the drives mapped is it won't authenticate to the server if it's not already mapped. The client pulls the pathname for the mpg from the server, and puts the comskip's extension on the filename with the same path as the server sees the file. Otherwise the client is not going to know where to find the file.

[mdmint]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

Now as for client, most likely the problem you'll see if you don't have the drives mapped is it won't authenticate to the server if it's not already mapped. The client pulls the pathname for the mpg from the server, and puts the comskip's extension on the filename with the same path as the server sees the file. Otherwise the client is not going to know where to find the file.

Nope, SageClient PC does not need video dir mapped at all to see recorded files. SageClient sees what SageTV sees. Not speculating, try it. I just did to confirm what I remembered. As for SageClient being able to utilize Comskip function during playback of previously Comskipped files this requires SageClient PC to have video dir mapped, also not speculation. As for Comskip being able to process recorded files from Client PC, when running Comskip externally video dir must be mapped. Haven't run Comskip internal to Cayars STV for sometime now so cannot confirm though if memory serves correctly held true then too, but like I said cannot confirm at this time.