New to Sage - a few questions about use on Mac

[mattopia]

Hi all,

I've used Mac for a long time and finally shut down my last XP machine about a year ago. I gave up on using Mac for HTPC use awhile ago, and I'm glad to see Sage has come so far.

I'm currently evaluating Sage as I'm planning on going "OTA only" once my DirecTV contract is up. I currently have an HDHomeRun and a Mac Mini I use as a full time home server / part time desktop. I have a few questions I'd like to ask those who have been doing this awhile before I decide exactly what to do:

1) I currently have an AppleTV in the entertainment center. My first thought was I could have Sage export to iTunes and thus to Apple TV. In this scenario I would need little or no extra hardware. I checked the "Automatically export to iTunes" option under preferences, but it just doesn't seem to work.

2) I've read a bit about transcoding but haven't found any features to do so in Sage thus far. I'd like to have videos transcoded out of mpeg2 for disk savings. I used this back in my pre-HD Myth days and was able to fit a lot more content in my allocated space.

3) One thing I'm considering is moving my Mini (Intel Core Duo 1.66GHz, 1gb RAM) into the living room as a client to replace the Apple TV, and then buying a used Mini (PPC or Intel) to use as my Sage/storage server. Assuming I'll be recording from up to 2 sources off of the HDHR and streaming recorded shows and other media to one or two clients, what kind of real system requirements are there? I believe the server would only be pushing data around in this scenario?

I'd consider the HD Theater device, but one thing I'd like to keep is the ability to rent movies and purchase TV show subscriptions, so I'll need to keep the Apple TV or use a mini, and I'd like to keep as few devices as possible in my entertainment center.

Thank you all in advance for your help, and thank you SageTV for finally offering a fully functional media solution on the Mac.

[sandor]

Originally Posted by mattopia

1) I currently have an AppleTV in the entertainment center. My first thought was I could have Sage export to iTunes and thus to Apple TV. In this scenario I would need little or no extra hardware. I checked the "Automatically export to iTunes" option under preferences, but it just doesn't seem to work.

i've never gotten this to work either, but i use the built in conversion feature to convert all the recordings to "AppleTV"

2) I've read a bit about transcoding but haven't found any features to do so in Sage thus far. I'd like to have videos transcoded out of mpeg2 for disk savings. I used this back in my pre-HD Myth days and was able to fit a lot more content in my allocated space.

if you have advanced menu options on, when you select a recording, one of the options will be "Convert" - this brings up a menu of selections/choices.

i use this: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...hlight=convert
for autoconverting my favorites. it works well, but you need to install a couple of old jar files, as it is set up to run on Java 1.6, and os x still uses 1.5 by default.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...onvert&page=12

look at the first post in that page

3) One thing I'm considering is moving my Mini (Intel Core Duo 1.66GHz, 1gb RAM) into the living room as a client to replace the Apple TV, and then buying a used Mini (PPC or Intel) to use as my Sage/storage server. Assuming I'll be recording from up to 2 sources off of the HDHR and streaming recorded shows and other media to one or two clients, what kind of real system requirements are there? I believe the server would only be pushing data around in this scenario?

for recording i would highly recommend external storage, as the 2.5" drive in the mini wont be up to the task, nor will it have much capacity.

i'm basically running a similar setup, though i am using a 1.83 ghz macbook as the server (the mini is pretty much just a macbook without the screen)

all my imported video, music and recordings are on a 4 TB NAS, so it does all the heavy lifting in terms of storage.

the macbook handles 4 tuners (2xHDHRs) and sending data to one client and one placeshifter without a problem. extra horsepower for converting video would be nice, and the crappy intel gma 950 video throws up some artifacts every now and again, but for the (free) purchase price of this broken-screened macbook i am *very* pleased. best of all, i have been six months solid running solely a mac server, and about 12-18 months before that testing it, and have had no OS issues - they have all been related to Sage (betas).

I would fully recommend Sage as the best HTPC software out there (having tried EyeTV) bar none. I know of no good integration with AppleTV, but i have integrated Sage well with FrontRow (no movie rental/purchasing through FrontRow) so that i can access all my music through iTunes.

[mattopia]

Hi sandor, thanks for the helpful information and forum links.

Originally Posted by sandor

i've never gotten this to work either, but i use the built in conversion feature to convert all the recordings to "AppleTV"

if you have advanced menu options on, when you select a recording, one of the options will be "Convert" - this brings up a menu of selections/choices.

Somehow I never saw that option before, thanks! I'm converting a ~9 gig SNL episode right now. It's been running a few hours (!) and is about 82% done. Probably better to just have a bunch of disk storage.

all my imported video, music and recordings are on a 4 TB NAS, so it does all the heavy lifting in terms of storage.

interesting, and you don't have any performance issues recording to / playing back from the NAS? That seems a lot of network traffic to go HDHR -> nas -> mac -> clients. This is similar to how I'd like to have it though. My storage (a Drobo with 4x 500gb) is currently directly connected to the Mini, but if I move it into the living room I'll use something else to connect my storage to.

I would fully recommend Sage as the best HTPC software out there (having tried EyeTV) bar none. I know of no good integration with AppleTV, but i have integrated Sage well with FrontRow (no movie rental/purchasing through FrontRow) so that i can access all my music through iTunes.

The only two pluses EyeTV has going for it right now is that it seems to have the export to AppleTV thing working (which would save me in needing to buy any new hardware to do what I want to do), and I have an older version I *may* be able to upgrade.

Thanks again!

[sandor]

1) converting

typically, with the auto-convert plugin,my primetime recordings are converted by morning (with a core2duo 1,83 macbook) for my household's watching practices (watch everything on the weekend) this works perfectly, and typically a 4 GB MPEG-2 recordings becomes a 600 MB MP4 (h.264) file


2) The NAS

ATSC runs at a max of 19 mbps, so i have a 1000bT (gigabit) network. this would be 40-50 atsc feeds...i can sustain 80 MB/s (640 mbps) on my NAS, so throughput is no issue at all.


3) EyeTV

the single problem with EyeTV is that it stinks for television. the guide interaction, the favorites, etc. they completely stink. for media integration in terms of Apple products it is excellent, but it is not a good television recorder in any sense. (i;ve gone from version 1 to 2 and now 3. been with SageTV v. 4 5 and 6 - Sage has been great at tv the whole time, EyeTV is only passable with version 3)

[mattopia]

Yeah, that's true, I guess the bottleneck is generally going to be the drives and USB 2.0 any way you go.

I figured out this evening that my Drobo will connect to my Airport Extreme, so I've freed my mini up. I'll hook it up in the entertainment center and see how it goes.

I remember Elgato 2.5 stinking pretty bad, and since they don't offer a demo (as SageTV does!) I won't be able to find out.

[mattopia]

Well, I don't think my 1.6ghz Mini is going to cut it. While recording is OK, playback is always choppy enough to be annoying. I think for this to happen, I'll need to use the Mac as a server-only and then use an HD200 for the client. Not ideal, as I have to buy yet another box to keep in the entertainment center, but I'm liking the overall interface/concept so far so it may be the way to go.

[sandor]

Ah, i see now that the 1.6 is a CoreDuo processor vs. the 1.83 being a Core2Duo (i *think* the Core2 greatly improved performance)

How do the video files play outside of Sage (in QT or VLC)?

[mattopia]

Sorry for the delay in responding, I had to take a bit of a break in testing.

From what I've seen thus far, HD videos are better in VLC but far from perfect. The best quality I get thus far is using the Mini solely for recording and my MBP for playback over a hard-wired connection.

Unfortunately that means no matter how I dice it up I need to buy some new hardware, as I don't want to have to hook my MBP up to the TV all the time.

I'm thinking about getting the SageTV HD Theater for playback. Or, I might get another Mini. I was hoping for a new Mini at Macworld, but no dice.

Either way, I don't have much budgeted for this right now so I'll have to re-approach it in a month or two and decide what I want to do.

[dotheDVDeed]

Surprised you're not considering the SageTV Extender for your front end and keeping your Macs as a back end device running SageTV and as iTunes server for your AppleTV.

[sandor]

Originally Posted by dotheDVDeed

Surprised you're not considering the SageTV Extender for your front end and keeping your Macs as a back end device running SageTV and as iTunes server for your AppleTV.

that is exactly what he said:

Originally Posted by mattopia

I'm thinking about getting the SageTV HD Theater for playback. Or, I might get another Mini. I was hoping for a new Mini at Macworld, but no dice.

Either way, I don't have much budgeted for this right now so I'll have to re-approach it in a month or two and decide what I want to do.

i think $$ is the issue, so he was trying to do it with what he already owned.

[reggie14]

How are you guys playing back mpeg2 on a Mac? I have a Macbook Pro with a 2.5Ghz Core2 Duo, and I can't get it to play back HD videos in VLC very well. First, the computer doesn't seem fast enough to play 1080i video back. After I turn deinterlacing on, my CPU usage goes up to about 80-85% and I start seeing a lot of stutters and audio drop outs. And that's if I'm lucky. Usually audio playback doesn't work at all with files that have AC3 audio.

[sandor]

VLC, QT and mplayer all seem to work fine here. I have Perian http://www.perian.org/ as well as the QT MPEG2 component installed. 720p and 1080i HD MPEG2 from OTA sources. AC3 audio is passed through to an external receiver for decoding.

I am on a Core2Duo 1.83 ghz Macbook, CPU usage is high (the GMA 950 video chipset stinks) but it plays back without issue.

[reggie14]

I don't think VLC or QT (with the MPEG component) use any hardware acceleration for mpeg2 video (QT does, I believe, use it for mpeg4).

Out of curiosity, what version of VLC are you using? And, what do you get for CPU usage for 1080i playback with Bob deinterlacing on?