Ideas for Home Setup?

[kelemvor]

Not really sure which forum to post this in so hopefully it will get some views here....

I'm brand new to SageTV (haven't bought it yet but ready to in the next week or so). Anyway, I'm looking for information on how to incorporate a SageTV computer into my home network and TVs and such in the best way.

I do currently have an Audio Server setup that pumps music to my two stereos and my computers using Command Cubes (www.commandcubes.com). But I don't have anything setup with regards to video.

Do most people just have their SageTV computer hooked up to one TV so they can view the shows that way or can you hook it up to multiple TVs? I think I'd be more likely to burn shows to DVD or FTP them to my XBox and watch them there and use the Sage box just to do the recording and that's about it.

I'm looking to not spend any more money than I have to but am new to HTPCs and what all they can do so am just looking for indeas.

My current home is setup with two TV/stereo locations (upstairs and downstairs), wireless network throughout the house, wired network available anywhere it'd be needed.

Any ideas would be great. Feel free to post your setup and how it works and that might give me good ideas. Or maybe I should just make a thread called "Post your Setup Specs" or something and everyone could just post how they use their system.

Anyway, thanks for anything anyone offers.

[stanger89]

There are a few ways to do it, but (especially if you've just got SDTVs) the easiest way is probably to build a Sage box (or convert an old box), and then get a few Hauppauge MediaMVPs and use them as clients. With Matt's plugin, you get the full Sage interface and all* the features, without needing a PC at each TV.

Now if you've got an HDTV, I'd go and build a client so you can take advantage of the deinterlacing and scaling capabilities of the PC.

*Well, not quite all the features, it doesn't support DVD playback or non-MPEG playback (not sure about music), but as far as PVR features (recording, scheduling, viewing, etc) it does everything.

Just as an FYI, My setup:
In the computer room, I have a dedicated Media Server, that runs SageTV with a PVR 250 and ~180GB devoted to Sage, and about 1.75TB for DVD rips. It's an Athlon XP running at about 1100MHz (underclocked 1800+), 512MB of RAM.

In my HT I've got a client with a 2.4GHz P4, Geforce 6800 (passive), 512MB Ram, Antec Phantom PSU (passive), Zalman CNPS-7000AlCu, M-Audio Revolution, MyHD MDP-130, and a laptop HDD for booting, in an Ahanix D.Vine 4, with an mCubed T-Balancer monitoring the thermals and controlling the fans for a Silent HTPC.

[davin]

However you set things up, I would definitely recommend having a wired connection between the Sage server and any machine you expect to transfer mpg files to (for viewing, DVD burning, etc). Even with a 11g wireless network with good signal, it takes quite some time to pass the huge video files back and forth (you'll be looking at 2-4 GB per hour, depending on quality level... 3 is typical). if you've got a 100mbit (or even better, gbit) wired network just plan on using it from the start... you'll be happy you did!

FYI, my setup is a single dedicated machine. MSI microATX board running an Athlon 2200+ with a 160gb hard disk (will be adding more storage in the future). the motherboard has an nforce2 chipset, and the onboard geforce 4mx-equivalent chipset is good enough for me using overlay mode on my SDTV with the nvdvd decoder. it's not as good as a hardware decoder (xcard or MVP) but it's good enough for me... I'm not a major stickler.

If you've got the coin and are onyl concerned with SDTV I would recommend trying the MVP solution. i haven't used it, but it has the definite appeal of not needing a whole PC in the living room.

[korben_dallas]

I'd highly recommend a good PC for the main living room home theater. Put SageTV Client on it, and then you get all the benefits of the SageTV interface with local DVD playback (in SageTV or another DVD player application if you like). Plus, you can install any/all codecs you want on that PC and play any filetypes present or future. And, a PC w/ a video card gives you lots of options for connecting to SDTV's, HDTV's, monitors, and flat panels.

[kelemvor]

Well, money is a big issue because I don't have much to spare. I currently have my home Audio server on a Celeron 300A (450Mhz) and it just uses it's sound card to output the sound to my stereos and streams songs over the network (wired)using WinAmp to my computer. I don't think that computer will be enough to handle SageTV and a card since it's so old. But I can't afford to buy a new computer right now either. I do have a P3 733 laying around but the MB has something wrong with it and it breaks if I put more than 128 megs of RAM in there.

Ah well. Just have to see how things play out.

[mdmint]

Originally Posted by kelemvor

Well, money is a big issue because I don't have much to spare. I currently have my home Audio server on a Celeron 300A (450Mhz) and it just uses it's sound card to output the sound to my stereos and streams songs over the network (wired)using WinAmp to my computer. I don't think that computer will be enough to handle SageTV and a card since it's so old. But I can't afford to buy a new computer right now either. I do have a P3 733 laying around but the MB has something wrong with it and it breaks if I put more than 128 megs of RAM in there.

Ah well. Just have to see how things play out.

That would be close. The beauty of SageTV is it only supports hardware encoding PVR tuners utilizing very little cpu power and the recording end even with multiple tuners. Even though the min sys req'mnts 600MHz or faster IIRC someone is running a Sage Server with a cpu in your range. However, it would not have the power for playing back the video. Feed to a Client yes, but not via MVPs. Correct me if I'm wrong, as I'm sure someone will! One the other hand min RAM req is 128M so maybe your old P3 is an option. But iffy me thinks.

[Gog]

My server is an old thing with a 666Mhz CPU and I can't complain

I can even get away with watching some TV with it but usually not for long before it gets choppy and crawls to a halt.

It's dumb, but I can't remember if I have 128 or 256 MB of ram on it...

Gog

[kelemvor]

I have XP on my 450Mhz system and it works fine. It has 512 or so for memoery so hopefully that helps a bit. I'll probably get the 150MCE/Sage combo pack for like $139 from a link I saw somewhere and see what happens. If I have to put it in a different PC then so be it.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by kelemvor

I have XP on my 4560Mhz system and it works fine.

Wow! 4.56GHz! I should hope it runs fine Are you running liquid nitrogen?

[korben_dallas]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Wow! 4.56GHz! I should hope it runs fine Are you running liquid nitrogen?

I saw on one of the overclocking sites where they got a P4 just a hair passed 6GHz Imagine the video editing performance difference between a PIII 450 and a P4 @ 6Ghz

[cmaffia]

I wonder what kind of INSANE cooling mechanism they needed to do that!

Originally Posted by korben_dallas

I saw on one of the overclocking sites where they got a P4 just a hair passed 6GHz Imagine the video editing performance difference between a PIII 450 and a P4 @ 6Ghz

[Wheemer]

I'm not even sure what this thing is... liquid nitrogen???