General questions

[Dalgar]

Hey all. I have some general questions now that I am using the SageTV system.
First some background.

Server:
Gateway DuoCore 2.0Ghz
4GiB Ram
500GiB HD internal
1TiB NAS Drive
Hauppauge 1800 and 1600 one for STB and one for Analog.
OS: Vista (Windows MediaCenter disabled by renaming C:\windows\eHome)

Unfortunately at this point in time the server is shared, but have not seen any impact of performance from client side.

Client:
Intel DuoCore 2.0Ghz
1GiB Ram
80Gib HD
External USB HP-LightScribe DVD drive
OS: WinXP Pro
Dvd Software: nVidia PowerDVD (Well worth the 20.00)
Network: Hard wired to router (better performance than with wireless)

Questions:
1) I bought XiliSoft Video Converter and am happy with it for ripping the DvD's.
What would be the best format for Ripping the DvD's into?
2) Is there a glossary of terms that explain all the acronyms running rampant? There is a lot to absorbe and having a translation of the acronyms would be helpful.
3) The reason I chose using a client PC rather than the sageTV HD extender was for the ability to use the dvd drive. This will replace the DvD Player I currently have hooked up. I have so many devices and I want to just plain remove as many as I can.
The question here, is this a good direction? Is there an extender out there that sage works with that also has a dvd player?

(We still rent Dvd's though I might just convice the wife that using Xilisoft will actually improve things. instead of having the big PC in the living room

Anyway those are just some of the questions I have floating around in my head. I will post more as they arise.

Cheers

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Dalgar

Questions:
1) I bought XiliSoft Video Converter and am happy with it for ripping the DvD's.
What would be the best format for Ripping the DvD's into?

That's kind of a personal preference. I personally just rip the DVD files, shrink them and leave them that way. You could convert them to divx, h.264 or mpeg and be fine.

2) Is there a glossary of terms that explain all the acronyms running rampant? There is a lot to absorbe and having a translation of the acronyms would be helpful.

Here's a good starting point. You might check out the SageTV manual also.

3) The reason I chose using a client PC rather than the sageTV HD extender was for the ability to use the dvd drive. This will replace the DvD Player I currently have hooked up. I have so many devices and I want to just plain remove as many as I can.
The question here, is this a good direction? Is there an extender out there that sage works with that also has a dvd player?

I personally prefer the SageTV HD100 even though it has no DVD Drive. Reason? Because it's pretty dang easy to setup and no tweaking required to make it work. Case in point is playing back HD-PVR files just works. For movies, I almost always rip them to my hard drive on the server. It would be nice to have the DVD drive there for the instant watch-now ability of having a DVD in your hand and wanting to watch it instantly, but the tradeoff of the easy HD100 is worth it imo. I do have a client PC in the living room and it does work, but my preference is the HD100 in the bar/game room.

[Yalbik]

Originally Posted by Brent

I personally prefer the SageTV HD100 even though it has no DVD Drive. Reason? Because it's pretty dang easy to setup and no tweaking required to make it work. Case in point is playing back HD-PVR files just works. For movies, I almost always rip them to my hard drive on the server. It would be nice to have the DVD drive there for the instant watch-now ability of having a DVD in your hand and wanting to watch it instantly...

FYI, here's an awesome idea I saw posted by CollinR in another thread:

Use a USB DVD drive connected over Cat5 to the server. You likely have a Cat5 run to your HD100 anyway. That way you get a local DVD player functioning through the Sage interface.

I'm guessing you'd use a USB - Cat5 extender such as this:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...&Sku=C250-3868

[Dalgar]

Use a USB DVD drive connected over Cat5 to the server. You likely have a Cat5 run to your HD100 anyway. That way you get a local DVD player functioning through the Sage interface.

I'm guessing you'd use a USB - Cat5 extender such as this:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...&Sku=C250-3868

Thanks I read that, but the drawback is that it says it's not USB 2.0. This would mean that through put is slower than a USB 2.0. I did see two USB ports on the Sage HD extender but it the specs didn't say what they are used for.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

Thanks

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Dalgar

I did see two USB ports on the Sage HD extender but it the specs didn't say what they are used for.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

Thanks

Sure - read this
It's unfortunate and I don't really know if the USB ports will or even can be activated at some point.

[Dalgar]

Hey Brent thanks for the link! I did find this though for USB 2.0: http://www.directron.com/usbrjxt.html

I am thinking I might go ahead and get the extender and the USB 2.0 patch. I ran into a problem last night when a recording started. I had all these sharp high pitched screeches and whistles. I had to stop and restart the client. really upset the hound dog and the wife. ( not a good combo with both howling )

I am hoping the extender will help with that issue.