Virtual PC / VMware

[mightyt]

Has anyone every tried using Virtual PC or VMware with SageTV?

I know the down side would be using more HD space for multiple OS's, but if I wanted to have multiple Sage Setups (ie. different STVs, imports, customization, etc.) and an easy way to switch between them would this seem a viable option?

Any hardware issues, like tuners, etc.

Any thoughts?

Thanks, T.

[stanger89]

Not really, VMware (acutally all virtual machines) have really crappy support for media. They create a really crappy "virtual" comptuer. None of your hardware get's transfered over.

If you're really willing to go to that extreme, you should just multi-boot multiple windows instalations.

Of course there's really no reason to, no offense, but different OS installations is a totally rediculous "solution" to having different STVs. You can just have a whole bunch on a single SageTV install. They don't interact with each other. If you want to go overboard, you could just keep a few different sageclient.properties files around (I'd advise running the service) for the different setups..

[mightyt]

Thanks Stanger ...

You have some good points ....

Wasn't sure if this was a worthy option or a stupid question ... Figured many develpoers use it so wondered how it might work with Sage ...

Thanks, T.

[Ryokurin]

Originally Posted by mightyt

Thanks Stanger ...

You have some good points ....

Wasn't sure if this was a worthy option or a stupid question ... Figured many develpoers use it so wondered how it might work with Sage ...

Thanks, T.

Yep its good for testing things out but no one really uses it for performance testing. Now when AMD's pacifica and Intels Vanderpool and Silvervale is out this may change but thats still is a few months off.

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by Ryokurin

Yep its good for testing things out but no one really uses it for performance testing. Now when AMD's pacifica and Intels Vanderpool and Silvervale is out this may change but thats still is a few months off.

Thanks Ryokurin! Yea ... A new CPU would sure be fine with me ... I'll have get the loan papers drawn up and get ready !!!

[Menehune]

Originally Posted by mightyt

Has anyone every tried using Virtual PC or VMware with SageTV?

I know the down side would be using more HD space for multiple OS's, but if I wanted to have multiple Sage Setups (ie. different STVs, imports, customization, etc.) and an easy way to switch between them would this seem a viable option?

Any hardware issues, like tuners, etc.

Any thoughts?

Thanks, T.

I just got thru loading M$ Virtual PC on my sage server (see my other thread) and discovered that M$VPC does not support PCI or USB devices so Sage can load, but it can't do anything. I'm trying to find some time to test VMWare.

[stanger89]

Unless something has changed, VMWare doesn't virtualize your PCI devices.

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by Menehune

I just got thru loading M$ Virtual PC on my sage server (see my other thread) and discovered that M$VPC does not support PCI or USB devices so Sage can load, but it can't do anything. I'm trying to find some time to test VMWare.

Thanks for trying this out Menehune ... Based upon the responses I have received above I was not very hopeful ...

However, I am interested in your outcome with VMware as well ...

T.

[RedR]

Heya,

I use VMWare Workstation 5 and it has no support for PCI. You get the basic devices but no capture card support period. Its too bad, would be cool to test out different software and setups.

[Menehune]

Thanks, RedR, you saved me $500 for a VMware workstation license
Seems to me that most virtual machines are only built to do programming and webserver duty-not full-blown machines with full hardware implementations. It's probably a limitation of the physical hardware versus a software limitation.

Maybe I can take that $500 and buy some sheetmetal to build and design a "two motherboards in one box" (TM)(Patent pending) server.

[jominor]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Not really, VMware (acutally all virtual machines) have really crappy support for media. They create a really crappy "virtual" comptuer. None of your hardware get's transfered over.

If you're really willing to go to that extreme, you should just multi-boot multiple windows instalations.

Of course there's really no reason to, no offense, but different OS installations is a totally rediculous "solution" to having different STVs. You can just have a whole bunch on a single SageTV install. They don't interact with each other. If you want to go overboard, you could just keep a few different sageclient.properties files around (I'd advise running the service) for the different setups..

Well, that's not really true. I've used VMWare for years for development. In fact, because of the success, at my company, we use VMWare to do some interesting things for development and testing, so I don't agree that VMWare creates "crappy" virtual machines.

That being said, I don't believe that I would use VMWare(yet) for Sage.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by jominor

so I don't agree that VMWare creates "crappy" virtual machines.

Make that "crappy for our purposes" . I've played with VMware a bit (older version) and it's a very nice program, I ran linux on Windows for a while (maybe the reverse too ). But what I mean by "crappy" is that the virtual machine pales in comparison to the actual hardware it's running on. You get about 1/2 the CPU power, maybe half the ram, depending on config, but the kicker is none of your peripherals are virtualized. By default you get a VGA display driver, basic network, sound and HDD. You can install VMtools (or something) to get a slightly better display driver, but it's essentially Win-3.1 era graphics, and of course no tuners, etc.

Great product for it's intended purpose, but well, we aren't it's intended purpose

[jominor]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Make that "crappy for our purposes" . I've played with VMware a bit (older version) and it's a very nice program, I ran linux on Windows for a while (maybe the reverse too ). But what I mean by "crappy" is that the virtual machine pales in comparison to the actual hardware it's running on. You get about 1/2 the CPU power, maybe half the ram, depending on config, but the kicker is none of your peripherals are virtualized. By default you get a VGA display driver, basic network, sound and HDD. You can install VMtools (or something) to get a slightly better display driver, but it's essentially Win-3.1 era graphics, and of course no tuners, etc.

Great product for it's intended purpose, but well, we aren't it's intended purpose

It's been a while for you. While VMWare still doesn't support tuners(to my knowledge), it can run pretty much any Intel OS available with resolution far better than Win3.1. You can create very sophisticated networking, SCSI support, USB(Scanners and the like), DVD, Sound cards, 64-bit OS support and with today's CPUs, it works very fast, defintely better than 50% performance. We've run entire server setups including Oracle databases and you would never know it was hosted on a virtual machine. VMTools gives you graphic support comparable to the native machine. It even supports DX9.

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by jominor

It's been a while for you. While VMWare still doesn't support tuners(to my knowledge), it can run pretty much any Intel OS available with resolution far better than Win3.1. You can create very sophisticated networking, SCSI support, USB(Scanners and the like), DVD, Sound cards, 64-bit OS support and with today's CPUs, it works very fast, definitely better than 50% performance. We've run entire server setups including Oracle databases and you would never know it was hosted on a virtual machine. VMTools gives you graphic support comparable to the native machine. It even supports DX9.

I have also heard good things about VMware ... albeit ... for different applications ... I guess PVR's are a whole different animal ...

Thanks for all the thoughts on the subject! ... T

[BobPhoenix]

I installed SageTV Client on VirtualPC2004 last night. It works and will display video but it does studder if you do any thing else besides watch it. It's not too bad otherwise. I got a video playback error when I tried "medium" in the configuration wizard but "basic" worked and played back video. So if you use it with client it works after a fashion. So if VirtualPC2004 can do it VMWare should do it better.

BobP.