Use full-install Sage as client?

[elaw]

Sorry if this has been asked before, I searched and couldn't find anything...

Here's my situation...

Have an existing HTPC "A", with full Sage install, connected to one STB for satellite and antenna for OTA HDTV. Just built a new HTPC "B" for another room, with similar connections (STB plus OTA), and another full install of Sage.

Both machines work wonderfully by themselves, but at times it would be beneficial to use Sage on machine "A" as a client to "B" and vice-versa (for example to view a program recorded on the other machine, or to schedule a recording).

Has anyone ever done this? Do I need to do a separate install of Sage client on each machine in order to access the other?

Yeah I know I can do this via the web interface, but WAF would be much better if it could use the regular Sage UI...

[Mahoney]

Can't help with your question, but I'm very curious as to why you've gone for two servers? Why not have a single server with all the tuners, and use the other PC as a client? Then you have access to all programs from both PCs.

[elaw]

Well to be honest, I never thought about it! But now that I have, there are a couple of issues...

I sorta misspoke when I said I "built" machine "b" - it's actually a store-bought HP media center PC. I haven't taken the cover off (which for me is an amazing feat of self-restraint ), but judging from the size of the unit and the layout of the back panel, I don't think it's a regular motherboard with expansion cards. So the tuners may well not be transferable to another machine.

Also I'm a little worried about the "horsepower" and disk-space issues related to recording multiple HD programs at the same time on the same machine. This setup gives me more of a "distributed processing" type of arrangement.

[TakeFlight]

Originally Posted by elaw

Also I'm a little worried about the "horsepower" and disk-space issues related to recording multiple HD programs at the same time on the same machine.

You are right that it will require a lot of disk space. But it doesn't require anymore horsepower (actually less) to record HD since it's just dropping the transport stream down onto the hard drive (no encoding like with analog). Now, watching HD is a whole different story.

[Opus4]

You could actually turn them into a single SageTV system by using one as a network encoder + client. This post has info for setting up the network encoder. To start a client on the network encoder PC, you would run another instance of sagetv.exe with the '-client' command line parameter.

- Andy

[elaw]

Great! That sounds exactly like what I'm looking for.

I coulda sworn I had heard of the "client" command-line option before, but I looked in the manual and didn't see it.

Thanks!

[Opus4]

BTW: I corrected my previous post to show the dash for "sagetv.exe -client".

This stuff isn't in the manual yet.

- Andy

[elaw]

Okay well this has taken a turn for the weird...

As described above, I have full installs of Sage on computers "a" and "b".

Just for the heck of it before I did anything else, I installed Sage on computer "c". Created two desktop shortcuts, one with options "-client -connect htpc3" (HTPC3 is the network name of computer "a"). Other desktop shortcut has options "-client -connect htpc4" (yup, HTPC4 is "b"). Works perfectly, I can click on either shortcut and Sage fires up as a client, connects to the specified machine, life is good, sun shines, birds chirp, etc.

So now I get on machine "a" and create a shortcut with options "-client -connect htpc4" (again, HTPC4 is the other Sage machine). It doesn't work! It says it's lost its connection to the server.

Got on machine "b", created a shortcut with -client pointing to machine "a", had exactly the same problem - "lost connection to server".

First thing I thought of is machines "a" and "b" have Sage service running while "c" does not. But I stopped the service on "b" and tried to connect to "a" with the same result, so presumably that's not the problem.

Oh and just to confuse things a little more, I've got Sage v4.1.3 running on "a", 4.1.5 on "b", and 4.1.4 on "c".

Any ideas?

[stanger89]

Are you using one of your "a" or "b" Sage licenses on "c"? You need to restart the server before you can reconnect from a different PC with the same license.

[Opus4]

I'm guessing that installation C was a trial install, so it could connect to either A or B.

Since neitehr A nor B could connect to the other: are A & B both using the same license key? If so, that would explain why they cannot connect to each other. You have to have separate SageTV licenses for each computer because 1) they can't connect if the licenses are the same and 2) the EULA says you can use a license only on a single computer.

- Andy

[elaw]

Doh! My bad.

I was concerned about my ability to get Sage working on the new machine within the 15-day trial period, so I had indeed put in the serial from my other copy.

Got on the site last night, purchased and entered a new licence key, now have connection happiness.

When viewing HD programs on "b" that were recorded on "a" I don't get any sound, but I suspect that's due to the version mismatch between the machines. I'll probably take "b" back to 4.1.3 since I've had some problems with the newer versions.

Thanks all for your help!

[stanger89]

Sounds like a decoder/setup problem on b. Version shouldn't matter.