Starter for Ten

[Splosh]

Hi All
This is my first post, and I must say thank you for all the info I have read so far. My quest started about 6 months ago when I needed to get to a wall plug behind a stack of DVDs which I don’t think have ever been watched! Ever since that day I have wanted to convert the DVDs to a PC. For the last 6 months I have been trying to find a solution to ripping, compressing and sharing them. I was looking at Windows Home Server and My Movies but this is fine if you wish to have a PC at every TV in the house. This started my search into media extenders. Hence why I am here! I like the principal of SageTV, if I understand it: big server under the stairs with a number of TV cards and all your media, each TV has a HD200! After a good week of reading a lot, I feel I have only learnt a fraction. What I am looking for I hope is doable, that is: A PC with a VERY large RAID HHD, WHS, SageTV, HD TV cards, Freeview TVcards and anything else that is needed. Each TV will have a HD200 and from the TV you can watch live TV Freeview or FreeSat HD, Recorded TV, DVDs, Online stuff and music. If you have a USB drive you can plug it in locally.
My questions I hope are simple:
1) Is SageTV the right choice, is it the best for what I need?
2) What TV cards should I use in the UK for Freeview and Freesat HD?
3) How many cards can you have?
4) Does one HD200 use one TV card?
5) EPG does it work in the UK?

I thank you for reading this so far, and thank you again if you post a reply.

[brewston]

Originally Posted by Splosh

My questions I hope are simple:
1) Is SageTV the right choice, is it the best for what I need?
2) What TV cards should I use in the UK for Freeview and Freesat HD?
3) How many cards can you have?
4) Does one HD200 use one TV card?
5) EPG does it work in the UK?

1) I think so, and so do most people on this forum but seriously, I know of no other PVR that can do Freesat & Freeview together and seamlessly. Assuming you don't mind getting your hands dirty to get it working.
2) See my sig but I have 1 DVB-S2 PCI card & 1 DVB-T USB stick, both from Hauppauge. At some point I'd like to add a 2nd DVB-S2 card as my Freeview signal isn't 100% (But that means installing a dual LNB and running a new cable from the dish)
3) See above, we get by with 2 tuners but we're not massive TV watchers. I have a 2nd USB which I could but add rarely get conflicts
4) For watching live TV you would need 1 tuner per HD200 but would probably find your viewing habits change, if someone is watching recorded tv, DVD rip or listening to music then you don't need at tuner at that time
5) Both DVB-S & DVB-T offer a basic now/next EPG but most people use Stephane's excellent XMLTV importer and either Digiguide (£10/year) or Alan Birtles Radio Times grabber. There are a few guides in threads or you could just try them and yell for help

The one thing I would say, it requires a bit of tinkering to get working but its pretty stable (assuming you resist the temptation to tinker further!) once you have it working. Its my family's main TV source (Although I have a 'disaster recovery' TV in the kids room)

Hope that helps, and welcome

[rickgillyon]

Originally Posted by Splosh

1) Is SageTV the right choice, is it the best for what I need?
2) What TV cards should I use in the UK for Freeview and Freesat HD?
3) How many cards can you have?
4) Does one HD200 use one TV card?
5) EPG does it work in the UK?

1) This is a Sage forum, so most here are using it. It will certainly do what you ask.
2) See my sig for my cards, not using Freesat but there are a few available for Freeview.
3) There is no limit on the number of cards. I have 4 cable and 8 freeview tuners, it copes just fine.
4) I find I'm more likely to record TV and watch later with Sage, but for live TV that is the case. There is an import somewhere on here that allows different recordings on the same mux to use only one tuner, but I haven't used it. Oh, and sage still can use the old Hauppauge MVPs for SDTV extenders, if that's enough for you.
5) Not the built-in one, it takes a bit of effort to get it working...

Whatever, before you start on the project, understand that building a PVR is going to be an expensive business, in terms of both time and money...

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by brewston

5) Both DVB-S & DVB-T offer a basic now/next EPG.

Not quite true, you can use the over-the-air epg for DVB-T tuners. Basically shows you what you get on a modern TV, upto 7 days I think it is.

Cheers

Ben

[brewston]

Ah right, I was basing it on a DVB-S channel I have that I've not bothered to correct the EPG data for....

If Sage really releases the server on a stick thing then I may end up trying the OTA EPGs..

[MCE-Refugee]

I have explored various PVR/HTPC solutions over the past few years & to my mind SageTV is far & away the best. The setup is more fiddly than e.g.Windows Media Center but once done is more stable.

Here are a few extra reasons to go with Sage apart from those already noted.
Hardware Extenders - As you note the best solution is a dedicated Server with Extenders. Microsoft has given up on Extenders & the only one available for WMC is the Xbox 360 if you fancy one of those howling in your living room
. The HD200 is a great little box that even in standalone mode will play just about any media file
Software Extenders - client software can run on any networked computer in the house.
Placeshifter - Also a software extender but this time over the Internet. I have only just started playing with this facility & it's fantastic. My wife uses a little MSI Wind Netbook for watching TV when she is working in her shop. 20 miles from home. This uses the Sage Server at home & quality is excellent. The HD200 can be used as a Placeshifter too.
Multiple OS platforms. Windows, Mac or Linux. I have a Windows based Sage Server as TBH tuner support is better under Windows but most of the clients we use are Macs
Sage is under active development & the company are responsive both to support questions/problems & have a dialogue with use users here in this Forum.
Many 3rd-party applications that build on & extend Sage are available. As already mentioned Stephane's software for loading XMLTV data into the Sage Electronic Programme Guide is a good example but there are many others.

[Splosh]

Thank you for all your comments. i am now convinced that it’s the right choice. I have ordered an HD200. my next question is hardware, I know that I will need a computer and was thinking of a windows home server pc. The box would be stored in the basement with all the other IT and electrical services. Therefore noise and heat is not a problem, it will need a number of PCI slots for TV cards and a number of harddisk ports. It will have no monitor or interface and will only be a server for sagetv thus will not be outputting any video, only streaming. It will also host all our MP3 and DVDs and the other functions of windows home server. I assume it does not need to be big and powerful. The MOST important requirement for me is power consumption, as low as possible. I hope that WHS is intelligent and will “turn down” when not in heavy use. Can you make any recommendations?

[jaminben]

Originally Posted by Splosh

Thank you for all your comments. i am now convinced that it’s the right choice. I have ordered an HD200. my next question is hardware, I know that I will need a computer and was thinking of a windows home server pc. The box would be stored in the basement with all the other IT and electrical services. Therefore noise and heat is not a problem, it will need a number of PCI slots for TV cards and a number of harddisk ports. It will have no monitor or interface and will only be a server for sagetv thus will not be outputting any video, only streaming. It will also host all our MP3 and DVDs and the other functions of windows home server. I assume it does not need to be big and powerful. The MOST important requirement for me is power consumption, as low as possible. I hope that WHS is intelligent and will “turn down” when not in heavy use. Can you make any recommendations?

I would definitely go for WHS purely from a suitability point of view....my WHS has been up for months now (99 days 19 hours 1 min) without a single restart and touch wood it will stay that way for many more months.
I don't bother using any sleep functions and just let it run 24/7 mainly so it can update and grab the latest epg data via digiguide. I have read somewhere on these forums of a plug in for WHS that will put it to sleep and wake it up as and when its needed.
Mine isn't all that powerful but its plenty good enough for delivering content through a 1GB network.
Like you it is also a headless server and can be accessed through our laptops or desktop PC.

WHS = A+++ in my book.

Cheers

Ben

[brewston]

I'm running WinXp Pro and have about 60 days uptime at the moment. The machine is headless and is only used for Sage. I leave mine running 24x7 as its a low spec machine. My old server, I used to let it hibernate at night and wake itself in the morning - I used wosb.exe for this (google it)

Although some people have had some success getting the HD200 to wake the server, I could never get it working which is why I ended up scheduling sleep when I knew it would not be in use

cheers

[davephan]

Windows Home Server is an option. The drive pool is a big plus. However, disk imaging does not work with WHS, which is a very big negative. With a disk imaging product like Acronis 10 Workstation with Universal Recovery, you can schedule monthly full images, weekly differential images, and daily incremental images. You can then very easily recover your system to any day, even to different hardware, before the system problem occurred. With WHS, you have to go through a painful manual restore with thousands of custom configurations.

Dave

[mevans]

Can you not image the system drive (i.e. not in the storage pool)?

One thing that hasn't been mentioned here is the need (!) for antivirus software, and how that plays with SageTV. Thoughts?

mevans

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by mevans

Can you not image the system drive (i.e. not in the storage pool)?

One thing that hasn't been mentioned here is the need (!) for antivirus software, and how that plays with SageTV. Thoughts?

mevans

Apparently not.

See.... http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46715

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by mevans

One thing that hasn't been mentioned here is the need (!) for antivirus software, and how that plays with SageTV. Thoughts?

I'm not really sure why you would really need a virus scanner on a dedicated sage server. If you aren't opening emails, or browsing the web from it, you are really not at risk of any sort of virus infection. That said, if you DO feel you require it, I don't see how it would conflict with sage (though it will probably drop the overall performance of the system a bit).

[Lucas]

Some AV software is very heavy, even on modern hardware, I can think of mccafee for one. If you cannot configure them to not scan accessed files on the recording/video drives you can end up with stutters etc.

I 've used avg for a number of years without any problems.

[MCE-Refugee]

This report gives a good comparison of the performance impact of various AV software. http://www.av-comparatives.org/image...ance_dec09.pdf

On my dedicated Windows 7 SageTV server I have installed Microsoft Security Essentials which is free & gets excellent reviews & scores well in the above report.