Need help w/ setup

[tmbarta]

I'm having trouble trying to figure out the best way to setup SageTV.

I have the following computers all hooked up through a gigabit network and all with Windows XP:
1) Main computer (used for e-mail, internet, etc. usually on 24/7) - AMD X2 3800+, 2GB RAM

2) HTPC in living room connected to SDTV - AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 1GB RAM

3) Media Server (used to store music, DVDs and TV recordings) - AMD Sempron 64 2500+, 512MB RAM

I have an ATI HDTV tuner which is installed in the main computer. It was the only computer I had at the time. I recently purchased SageTV v5 w/ Placeshifter. Since the tuner was in the main computer, that's where I installed SageTV. I have SageTV setup to record to the media server. I installed Placeshifter on the HTPC.

So now my issues.
1) I don't want all the computers on 24/7. I tried using S3 standby on the main comp and media server, but the media server does not wake up when SageTV on the main is trying to record.

2) On the main comp I seem to be having some issues connecting to the network after a few times of it coming out of standby.

3) I can watch recorded programs just fine on the HTPC, but it does not like live tv. The picture comes up and then it freezes (the picture, not Placeshifter).

Would it be best to put the tuner card in the server and try standyby on that computer? Then have Placeshifter installed on the main computer and HTPC? Since I haven't figured out the whole live tv issue, I would need to do that in order to watch live tv on the main computer. In the living room it's not a big deal because I have Directv and use that for live tv.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated. Please let me know if you need more info.

Thank you in advance,
Tammie

[mike1961]

Welcome to my world of AMD 3800/X2. Nice machine.

I have 4 D10-100 DirecTv boxes hooked directly into 4 tuners in my file server. That is the only way to go. It's always best to put the tuners in the file server so that the SageClients can share tuners (ie: 2 sage clients watching channel 2 only uses one tuner also if one records a show then all see the recordings that are scheduled).

Why do you want to put your server in standby? There's quite a long thread on this and some believe that the constant turning on/off of computers/hard drives is what leads to failure. I do turn the monitor off (manually) on my server. I also have my server configured with a serial cable to change channels on the D10 boxes.

Mike

[tmbarta]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the reply. So for right now I'm going to move the ATI HDTV card to my server and turn off any standby. I would like to purchase a dual tuner card at some point and also a D10-100 DirecTv box to give that a try. I do have a question about that though. You have to have each of the boxes hooked up with serial cables correct? Did you buy a PCI serial card (or something) for that to happen? Then you also hook up each to s-video and the RCA audio cables?

Thanks for your help.

Tammie