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Hardware Support Discussions related to using various hardware setups with SageTV products. Anything relating to capture cards, remotes, infrared receivers/transmitters, system compatibility or other hardware related problems or suggestions should be posted here. |
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#1
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Subject: XXL Sage Install
First let me thank you all for the amount of help I have recieved from this board - you guys are truly amazing and I could not have completed my first setup without your help. That said, I'll get right to the point -- I am in the process of building our dream home and I would like to include a large SageTV installation. The wife is in love with our current Sage installation and I feel pretty sure that if it grew longer hair and developed a latin accent that she would surely leave me for it. With such a great experience so far, I want to include a MUCH larger system our house so I'd like to spec out what I need and get started. Just so you know, each room has multiple drops of CAT6 and I have even created something of a "server room" in the house (I'm a SUPER-Geek). In any case, please take a moment to look over my system plan and answer some of the questions that I have. Thank you all in advance. -Regards, AdamR Requirements: * Support for 20+ Clients (Including wired HTPC clients, MVP/ME clients as well as wireless clients) * Provisions for at least 40 Analog Tuners * Provisions for at least 10 OTA HD Tuners * Provisions for at least 3 SAT HD Tuners Proposal: 1 x Master Sage Server Description: The master sage server would be in charge of retrieving and distributing EPG as well as brokering connections to the media housed in the network encoders Specs: - Single P4 3.2GHz / 2GB RAM (More?) / Gigabit NIC 1 x Master Commercial Skipping Server Description: This machine would be dedicated to performing the commercial skipping process on all network encoders. Specs: - Dual Xeon @ 3.0GHz / 4GB RAM / Gigabit NIC 4 x Analog Network Encoder Servers Description: These machines should be able to host 10 simultaneous encoding processes as well as 10 simultaneous client streams Specs : - Dual (Necessary?) Xeon @ 3.0GHz / 2GB RAM / Gigabit NIC - 5 x Hauppauge PVR-500's (Link) - 1 x Seagate 750GB SATA Drive (Link) - 1 x AccelePort Xp 16-Port Multiport Serial Card PCI (Link) Notes: * Each output of the PVR500's are connected VIA S-Video to a DirecTV D10 * 10 of the 16 outputs of the AccelePort card are connected to the LSD (Low Speed Data) port of the D10s 2 x HD OTA Network Encoder Servers Description: Similar in functionality to the Analog Network Encoder Servers except for HD content. These servers should be able to hold 5 simultaneous encoding processes as well as 5 simultaneous HD streams to clients. - Dual (Necessary?) Xeon @ 3GHz / 2GB RAM (More?) / Gigabit NIC - 5 Aver A180 OTA HD Encoders (Link) - 3 x Seagate 750GB SATA Drives in RAID 5 (Link) 1 x Sat HD Network Encoder Server - Single P4 3.2GHz / 1GB RAM (More?) / Gigabit NIC - 3 x Seagate 750GB SATA Drives in RAID 5 (Link) * This server will connect to 3 R5000s over 3 USB connections Diagram: (Attached Below) Questions: 1) As I have understood the concept, the SageTV server will broker connections from Sage Clients directly to the servers that contain the media requested -- Is this the case? 2) Are the specs of my analog network encoders beefy enough to host 10 simultaneous (Analog) streams to clients as well as 10 encoding processes from the 10 encoders in the machine? Just looking at the specs, I would think not however I am hesitant to move to a 5 encoder per machine setup as this would double the amount of network encoders that I would have to run. Of course, that would also mean that each NE would only have to support 5 Encoding processes and 5 simultaneous streams to clients instead of 10 -- is this more reasonable?. Is it possible to instead use a striped array of 3 250GB disks (lower $/gb cost) to speed up the read/writes and then support a full 10 Encoding Processes & 10 Client Streams Check My Math: ENCODING; 3GB/HR Setting (on Sage) = 3072MB/HR = 51.2MB/Min = .85MB/s * 10 Encoders = 8.5MB/s Writing to Disk? STREAMING; 3GB/HR Setting (on Sage) = 3072MB/HR = 51.2MB/Min = .85MB/s * 10 Encoders = 8.5MB/s Writing to Disk? FULL LOAD (10 Encoding Processes / 10 Streams); 17MB/s Sustained Disk Activity, 8.5MB/s Network IO 3) Same question for my [u]HD Sat / OTA [u] network encoders Check My Math: FULL HD (Assuming full channel bandwith is used) = 19.34Mbs (Realistic for OTA?) 19.34Mbps = 2.4175 MB/s???? (Why does that not sound right????)
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Currently building the mother of all SageTV Installations .... XXL SageTV Summary: 40 Analog Tuners, 10 OTA HD Tuners, 3 Sat HD Tuners, 20 Client HTPCs, Dedicated Commercial Skipping Server ![]() |
#2
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Sorry, I forgot to include the links to my post
Seagate 750GB HDD : Link AccelePort Xp Multiport Serial Card : Link AverMedia A180 : Link NextCom R5000 : Link --Regards, AdamR
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Currently building the mother of all SageTV Installations .... XXL SageTV Summary: 40 Analog Tuners, 10 OTA HD Tuners, 3 Sat HD Tuners, 20 Client HTPCs, Dedicated Commercial Skipping Server ![]() |
#3
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This is for a house... or a dorm?? Anyway, the one comment I have is:
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Also, I think you may need to look into defining which recording dirs the network encoders can use via the mmc/encoders/xxxx/forced_video_storage_path_prefix properties, so they don't all try recording to the same location. - Andy
__________________
SageTV Open Source v9 is available. - Read the SageTV FAQ. Older PDF User's Guides mostly still apply: SageTV V7.0 & SageTV Studio v7.1. - Hauppauge remote help: 1) Basics/Extending it 2) Replace it 3) Use it w/o needing focus - HD Extenders: A) FAQs B) URC MX-700 remote setup Note: This is a users' forum; see the Rules. For official tech support fill out a Support Request. |
#4
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Wow! This takes hobby-shop to a new level
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#5
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Your Da-Man
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#6
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You may want to check out a new product from Magma which will let you add 6 pci slots onto 1 4x PCI-Express slot. Since all of the cards either have their own encoders or don't require encoders you might be able to get the umbers of servers down to one. Then you could start looking at quad boxes, or bigger. Since you seem to have a big system in mind and haven't mentioned a budget number, I would stay away from IDE and look at NAS, iScsi, blah blah blah.
Also, adapter teaming for NICs would help alleviate some network bottlenecks too.
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Running SageTV on unRAID via Docker Tuning handled by HDHR3-6CC-3X2 using OpenDCT |
#7
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![]() I should have made myself more clear in that I will be making each network encoder record to their local storage and use UNC paths so that the SageClients can directly access the media, hence the 750GB drive (or 3x250 striped array). I remember reading in another post (cant find it right now) that said if you specify UNC paths, the sage server will "forward" the connection to the network encoder to stream to you. However, this whole thing can be bust if the main sage server is going to have to stream all files because Im just not sure that is possible. Narflex, you there????? ![]() Quote:
Actually, I HAVE to use an external enclosure since the servers I purchased for network encoders are 1U units and can only fit 1PCI card internally. Then, the plan was to use the Magma 7-Slot unit on each to house the actual encoder cards. I favor this solution because it still gives me a little room for expansion if I wanted (2 More PCI slots = 4 more encoders). Initially, I was very interested in the PCIe to PCI expansion but unfortunately my servers dont have PCIe slots, only PCI-X. Also, it seems like PCI-X solutions are going to be a lot more expensive and with the math that I have already done, I have calculated that I wont be hitting a bottleneck on the PCI bus even with all 10 encoders going at once so it may not justify the jump to PCI-X. In reference to your IDE comment, I am staying FAAAAR away from it. The servers I am using have SATAII (300) connectors and I am planning to use that. Now, my initial thought was to use an enormous box as a file server (4Way Xeon, 8GB Ram, etc..) and let all of the network encoders send their files there but I read a thread that indicated this would not work for whatever reason. In fact, I even have some EMC equipment I was going to use for the job. ![]() ![]() Anyways, thanks all of you for your comments but has anyone checked my initial math on disk writes? I really want to make sure those numbers are correct because that is what I am relying on for most of my decisions. Attached : I took a picture of the server that I am using as my network encoder platform - it has the specs I listed in the Analog Network Encoder section. I currently own 5 of these units (4 Will be Analog Network Encoders and 1 will be the commercial skipping server as soon as I add 2GB of RAM to it.) --Regards AdamR
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Currently building the mother of all SageTV Installations .... XXL SageTV Summary: 40 Analog Tuners, 10 OTA HD Tuners, 3 Sat HD Tuners, 20 Client HTPCs, Dedicated Commercial Skipping Server ![]() |
#8
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I just have to wonder about your tuner requirements. Are you really going to need to record 40 _different simultaneous_ SD shows? Likewise for 10 different simultaneous HD shows? I'm trying to imagine what possible need this could fill in a house, and I'm coming up blank.
As for your disc requirements, SATA probably won't cut it. You're going to need some hardcore throughput - Fiber Channel SCSI is probably your only choice. We're working with a dual format SAN at work (Fiber Channel SCSI and SATA), and the SATA is much, much slower than the SCSI. I understand the "dream house" concept, but to me, your shopping list appears to need a reality check. Unless of course you really do need that many tuners - but I would _love_ to know why. |
#9
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The "I _think_" part was that all client connections have to go through the main server to get the list of recordings, etc. I shouldn't have used the term "think", because I'm sure that is the case -- there is only 1 overall server. - Andy
__________________
SageTV Open Source v9 is available. - Read the SageTV FAQ. Older PDF User's Guides mostly still apply: SageTV V7.0 & SageTV Studio v7.1. - Hauppauge remote help: 1) Basics/Extending it 2) Replace it 3) Use it w/o needing focus - HD Extenders: A) FAQs B) URC MX-700 remote setup Note: This is a users' forum; see the Rules. For official tech support fill out a Support Request. |
#10
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![]() As far as your disk thoughts, my first inclination was to use some EMC hardware I had lying around (CLARiiON) but after talking to some people it appears that I may be able to save some money and eliminate the need for more hardware by just allowing each network encoder to stream and store its own shows. Opus4 : Perhaps my terminology is off but I think we are saying the same thing. By forwarded I only meant that the Client is first going to check the main SageTV server which will refer it to the location of the media file. Then, the client will stream the file from the UNC path of the network encoder that the media is located on. This is what you are saying, right?
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Currently building the mother of all SageTV Installations .... XXL SageTV Summary: 40 Analog Tuners, 10 OTA HD Tuners, 3 Sat HD Tuners, 20 Client HTPCs, Dedicated Commercial Skipping Server ![]() Last edited by digitalgm; 04-30-2006 at 10:12 AM. |
#11
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I think you can do away with the Comskip dedicated server and instead run comskip on all the network encoder servers and run it live as the shows record. Those machines will be using hardly any cpu for just encoding since the cards will be doing all that work and that leaves plenty of CPU for running comskip on all the encoders for that machine.
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#12
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Currently building the mother of all SageTV Installations .... XXL SageTV Summary: 40 Analog Tuners, 10 OTA HD Tuners, 3 Sat HD Tuners, 20 Client HTPCs, Dedicated Commercial Skipping Server ![]() |
#13
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Some good points but I think you'll use an equal amount of CPU (or more) on the network encoder machine to have the Comskip server stream all the files to itself over the same SMB connection on the network encoder as it would to just run comskip locally on each network encoder.
You mentioned having to assume that the machine could potentially serve 10 streams at once but that number would actually be 20 (for all the clients) plus the 10 shows it could be recording to itself being streamed to the comskip server for a total of 30. Also instead of going dual xeons you may want to consider using dual opteron (dual core) setups (save a little cash) giving each network encoder basically 4 CPUs to use which I would hope would be plenty to record 10 shows, run 10 simultaneous comskips as well as serve 20 streams. |
#14
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As far as your hardware thoughs, I agree with you that the Opertron server would be a MUCH more cost effective approach, however I already had some Dual Xeon 3GHz servers (4 Virtual CPUs like the opertron) that I wanted to put to use.
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Currently building the mother of all SageTV Installations .... XXL SageTV Summary: 40 Analog Tuners, 10 OTA HD Tuners, 3 Sat HD Tuners, 20 Client HTPCs, Dedicated Commercial Skipping Server ![]() |
#15
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![]() One other thing: That only applies to a regular SageTV Client. If you have any extenders (MVPs), those will always be going through the server... that is fine for mpeg2, since the decoding is done on the MVP. But, if you play a file type that needs to be transcoded, that will use the server's cpu. Unless I missed it, I'm not sure what type of clients you are planning to use. - Andy
__________________
SageTV Open Source v9 is available. - Read the SageTV FAQ. Older PDF User's Guides mostly still apply: SageTV V7.0 & SageTV Studio v7.1. - Hauppauge remote help: 1) Basics/Extending it 2) Replace it 3) Use it w/o needing focus - HD Extenders: A) FAQs B) URC MX-700 remote setup Note: This is a users' forum; see the Rules. For official tech support fill out a Support Request. |
#16
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Also, can someone please check my math : ENCODING ANALOG; 3GB/HR Setting (on Sage) = 3072MB/HR = 51.2MB/Min = .85MB/s * 10 Encoders = 8.5MB/s Writing to Disk? STREAMING ANALOG; 3GB/HR Setting (on Sage) = 3072MB/HR = 51.2MB/Min = .85MB/s * 10 Encoders = 8.5MB/s Reading From Disk? FULL LOAD ANALOG; (10 Encoding Processes / 10 Streams); 17MB/s Sustained RW Disk Activity, 8.5MB/s Network IO FULL HD (Assuming full channel bandwith is used) = 19.34Mbs (Realistic for OTA?) 19.34Mbps = 2.4175 MB/s???? (Why does that not sound right????) AdamR
__________________
Currently building the mother of all SageTV Installations .... XXL SageTV Summary: 40 Analog Tuners, 10 OTA HD Tuners, 3 Sat HD Tuners, 20 Client HTPCs, Dedicated Commercial Skipping Server ![]() Last edited by digitalgm; 04-30-2006 at 12:43 PM. |
#17
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So if the goal of all this excess capacity is to ensure that you never see an error screen, I don't think you've achieved that goal. There's still going to be maintenance downtime, and the bigger and more complex the system is, the longer it's going to take to carry out those maintenance chores. And in the end I suspect you're going to find that you've got an awful lot of hardware sitting idle 99% of the time.
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-- Greg |
#18
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#19
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Now, when a new version came out that was advertising some more features, (and this happened more than once while I had Sage) I simply added it to my QA box which was setup in my office and tested it out for a couple days. I usually keep the TV in my office on and use it throughout the day so I could pretty simply identify when problems would arise. Once I would deem the version as stable I would create an image of it and apply it to the clients in my house. I will admit that it took a while for me to get a setup that I really liked but once I got there I kept it. With this new setup, I will be using GhostCast to broadcast the images to the HTPC Clients. Basically all I am going to have to do is create a reference image like I did before and then apply the image to all of the clients whenever I feel a new version is necessary. Simple ![]() As to whether or not the hardware will be idle; it may very well be. In fact I will most likely begin this project with only 1/3 of what I have specced out to see how it performs and expand as necessary. @ Deadbolt : I promise pictures - In fact, I think I posted pics of the servers that will be functioning as analog network encoders. I'll take more as soon as the house actually exists ![]()
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Currently building the mother of all SageTV Installations .... XXL SageTV Summary: 40 Analog Tuners, 10 OTA HD Tuners, 3 Sat HD Tuners, 20 Client HTPCs, Dedicated Commercial Skipping Server ![]() |
#20
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I suspect an imaging process would be ideal in his case but good point nonetheless. I'm curious about how you're going to overcome the heat generated from all those procs and tuners. I have a PVR500 and a pair of vBox 151s in only 1 computer and it heats the office nicely. Also, if we're in the same area, I'd love to offer my services in any capacity I can, Adam. |
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