Advice wanted for new system

[pdxview]

I am new to SageTV. I have used BeyondTV and VMC in the past. I know some of my questions are answered in the forum but I was still left a little confused.

As part of a remodel I am starting over. I will build a new system. I am planning to use SageTV as my DVR application. I only "need" to use it on 1 TV. I have Comcast HD. Cost is not a primary issue.

My desires
1. Very large amounts of starage - 4+TBytes
2. As reliable as possible
3. Simple to use - though configuration doesn't have to be completely simple
4. Fast and responsive

Questions
1. Should I use a PC directly attached to TV
2. Should I run in WHS with extender?
3. Should I use 1 HD-PVR and 1 analog tuner? Which tuner card works best?
4. What video card works best?
5. I am assuming a quad core Vista machine with 3 GB RAM


Is there anything else I should ask or do? Thank you for helping me get started with Sage.

[setherd]

I would suggest check out AVS forums for most of the questions.

any decent modern system would be fine. the big question is what is your display because that will affect the video card purchase.

also how many shows to you want to record at once?

I run a AMD 5000+BE cpu at 3.0GHZ, 4GB ram, vista64bit (wish i'd gone 32bit)
on a GA-MA78GM-S2H (AMD 780G chipset)motherboard. onboard video so far does fine at 720P HDTV

[mayamaniac]

The HD Extender is the way to go. It has HDMI and outputs up to 1080P and is completely silent. And it will play almost anything you throw at it. So unless you have some desires that requires a PC client, I would steer away from it.

As previous member asked, what do you want to record, and how many at once? OTA, ClearQAM, QAM, etc? Can't really answer that tuner question unless we know what you intend to record.

With the HD Extender, you don't need a powerful quad core. But if you want to process commercial skips and video compressions, then a quad core is the way to go. I would make it a dedicated "closet" server, and just use the HD extenders as playback devices. I know you said you only wanted one TV for SageTV, but I think you'll get more extenders as you get hook into SageTV.

[pdxview]

That seems like a good approach. I was thinking of a large
case which will hold 6 to 8 drives. Should I run WHS or under Vista?

[mayamaniac]

I say go with WHS unless there's a reason why you need Vista.