Almost new the sage

[Lunatic1015]

Hello people, I am looking into getting Sage but I am unsure as to what I need to get.
I will be using it with either windows 98SE or XP media center edition. MCE is my laptop so I'm not sure if I'll use it. I may just go with my XP Pro pc. I basically want to record shows and transfer them to my psp for watching at the gym. I have the software to convert and transfer, been using it with DVDs.
I was just going to get MY IPTV Anywhere, but I like the Pause live TV part of Sage.
I've been reading the forums for a few days now but I am still unsure as to what I actually need to do what I want. Of course there is all the other stuff Sage has to offer as well.

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

[Opus4]

It isn't clear to me what isn't clear to you... what exactly are you asking?

At the minimum, you would need SageTV (server) and a tuner to use SageTV on a single PC.

- Andy

[davephan]

You did not mention what you have for a CPU, memory, and disk.

I would use Windows XP Pro over Windows 98 SE. Windows 98 SE hasn't been supported for quite awhile. I don't know if critical updates are being done for Windows 98 SE anymore. I don't know if anyone is using Windows 98 SE for SageTV - I don't recall seeing anyone on the forums talking about using Windows 98 SE.

Some people that use SageTV get by with pretty low-end systems, some have high-end systems, most people are in the middle. If you want to use video compression, you will need more processing power. HD may require more processing power (I don't have HD yet). I use video compression, and an Althlon XP 2100+ isn't enough CPU to playback a compressed Xvid AVI file without stuttering, while an Athlon XP 2800+ barely has enough power, consuming nearly 100% sustained CPU during playback.

You might give more specifics, what you want to do, standard definition or high definition. How many hours you want to keep on disk. How many different programs you want to be able to record at the same time. Your source (cable, satellite, over the air, etc).


Dave

[Lunatic1015]

Thanks, I was in a bit of a hurry this morning when posting.
On the system requirements overview it mentioned 98 so I listed it. Come to think of it I don't really use it, M$ did stop supporting it a while back too.
My XP Pro has a 1gig AMD athlon with 1GB of ram and 160GB hard drive I might be upgrading to a 400 or 600GB HDD soon, and I have cable TV.
If I can record more than one show at a time there might be two during the week that are on at the same time. Will this require two tuner cards?
Also standard definition will do, no HD till I can get a big screen.

Opus4
Thats basically what I wanted to know what I would need to get started on a single pc or what a good decent setup would be to get started.

[davephan]

Thanks for the additional information about your system. I started using SageTV at about version 1.4. I found that I needed 1 gig memory. When I tried it with 512 meg memory, my system was caching to disk 24 X 7, really slowing it down. What type of AMD processor do you have?

I had an Athlon XP+ 2800 in my SageTV system. My motherboard died, and I have been using my older system with an Althlon XP+ 2100, and an older motherboard. I am still using 1 gig memory. If find that SageTV really works slowly with my older system (slow GUI response).

I record two programs at the same time, you will need two tuner cards or one dual tuner card. There is a list of approved tuner cards on the web site. I use a Hauppauge PVR-350. A lot of people have a lot of trouble with the PVR-350, but my card works good if I use S-video in. The tuner works poorly. I got the PVR-350 because it had hardware encoding and decoding to offload the processing from the computer's CPU.

I also have a Hauppauge MVP wired/wireless unit. An MVP is a small box that allows you to stream SageTV across the network LAN to TVs. You need one MVP per TV. I have one MVP and I moved it around the first couple of months. But moving it around grows old, and I will be buying a second MVP. Many people have trouble using wireless. Wired is a hassle if you have to run wires around your house through the walls, which I am still dong.

The best way to setup SageTV is to have one hard drive contain your operating system and programs, and a second hard drive to hold your videos. The second hard drive should be formatted with 64k block size. If you use high quality MPEG recording, you will consume about 3 gigs per hour with standard definition. Video files can be compressed, but it takes time to compress the files. SageTV has a built-in video transcoding feature, but I use a separate transcoding method developed by Roxy99. The Roxy99 transcodes a 3 gig MPEG file into about 20% of the MPEG size to a Xvid AVI format. It takes one hour to transcode one hour of MPEG files to Xvid AVI with an Althlon XP+ 2800. It takes many hours to transcode using a slower computer. The Roxy99 process can be offloaded to a second computer. The process will consume nearly 100% CPU for hours. I cannot playback the compressed Xvid AVI videos now because my older system is too slow and has severe stuttering problems. I will be ordering a new computer system soon to solve the problem.

The bottom line about using compression is that it takes a lot of CPU and time to compress the files. It effectively multiples your storage capacity by five times. If you store too much video, you may find that you never have enough time to watch most of what you record!

There are automatic commercial skipping add-ons too. They are for the most part free. I used those a couple of years ago. Automatic commercial skipping worked, but not perfectly a couple of years ago. It probably works much better by now.

If you want to setup a HD system, you will need advise from others that have setup HD systems. There are a lot of postings about HD, but it requires a lot of time to sort though it all.

I would also highly recommend that you get a disk imaging program. Once you have SageTV setup and working great, then you can image your C-drive periodically. If an update to your system breaks it, or your hard drive dies, you then can easily recover. There are a lot of stories about people manually rebuilding their systems. Disk imaging does not protect you completely if your motherboard dies, since the imaging restoration process to a different motherboard may not be successful (as it was in my case), but it does offer you some protection from days of system rebuilding hassle.

There are a lot of free add-ons available for SageTV. SageTV does require some effort to get it working perfectly, but it is vastly superior to Tivo. SageTV will change television for you. It brings the programs you like to you, and makes the commercials go away. It records programs that you like, even without manually programming them in the guide. It will take the system some time to learn what you like and what you don't like.

SageTV does offer a free trial. I highly recommend giving it a try.


Dave

[Lunatic1015]

You know I'm not sure what type of processor I have. I built the system a few years ago and haven't had to do much work to it. I mainly use it to mess around on the web and test software. I believe I have Ghost, I'll have to look around. We are moving so most of my office has been packed. I may just have to get some other imaging software.
Well it looks like I'll be getting SageTV pretty soon. Hopefully next week after the move.
Thanks for the information.

[mickp]

Hi there,

Just a quick comment on cpu and memory requirements.

I recently put together a Sage system for a friend and was able to get good performance with fairly minimal cost. Here's what went into the system;

1x Dell GX from ebay with 1.8 ghz p4 processor and 256mb ram
1x XP home
1x 320gb ide hdd
1x nvidia mx440
1x avermedia M150
1x purevideo decoder
1x MCE remote
1x Sage

The system isn't ready for hd content but is fine for the sd content it will be used with. There is no problem with playback of divx content and it can handle recording a show while watching another locally and a second via a sage client.

I haven't configured comskip on the system nor is it doing any compression. With the cost of a 500gb hdd at < $200 aud I reckon life's too short anyway.

When I get a chance I will send some extra ram along but it's coping just fine for now. The only thing that I noticed as an issue is that the system will swap a lot (for 30-60 secs) after running a slideshow. I expect that taking it to 512 mb ram would reduce the problem. Other than that there's no stuttering or noticable wait for screens to load.

Your mileage may vary.

Mick.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by mickp

Hi there,

Just a quick comment on cpu and memory requirements.

I recently put together a Sage system for a friend and was able to get good performance with fairly minimal cost. Here's what went into the system;

1x Dell GX from ebay with 1.8 ghz p4 processor and 256mb ram
1x XP home
1x 320gb ide hdd
1x nvidia mx440
1x avermedia M150
1x purevideo decoder
1x MCE remote
1x Sage

The system isn't ready for hd content but is fine for the sd content it will be used with. There is no problem with playback of divx content and it can handle recording a show while watching another locally and a second via a sage client.

I haven't configured comskip on the system nor is it doing any compression. With the cost of a 500gb hdd at < $200 aud I reckon life's too short anyway.

When I get a chance I will send some extra ram along but it's coping just fine for now. The only thing that I noticed as an issue is that the system will swap a lot (for 30-60 secs) after running a slideshow. I expect that taking it to 512 mb ram would reduce the problem. Other than that there's no stuttering or noticable wait for screens to load.

Your mileage may vary.

Mick.

Mick,

You might consider going from 256 meg directly to a 1 gig memory. It made a big performance difference when I went from 512 meg to 1 gig.

Dave

[mickp]

Originally Posted by davephan

Mick,

You might consider going from 256 meg directly to a 1 gig memory. It made a big performance difference when I went from 512 meg to 1 gig.

Dave

Aye. More memory, more powerful processor, better video card etc will almost always improve things. My own system runs on very different hardware btw.

I was pleasantly suprised that I could get away with such a low spec system and had expected to need to purchase more memory and perhaps a better video card before the system would behave acceptably. In the end though this wasn't required. Kudos to the folks at sage.


Mick.