Redoing SageTV MC, best OS for stability?

[TerryMathews]

Okay, I'm getting ready to re-do my SageTV MC box, and I've been having some intermittent stability issues that I believe are related to Windows XP. I broke my own cardinal rule though and changed out some hardware so it might be related to that and not anything else.

If I've got good enough hardware and access to valid licenses, what is the preferred OS for SageTV? This is a purpose-built box that only runs SageTV and drives an HDTV via DVI. It's got 3 PVR250MCEs and a HDHomerun connected to a seperate 10/100 via crossover.

Windows 7, or Windows XP? I've read good things about EVR, but I'm happy with VMR9 so that's not a driving factor for me. I just want it to be as rock-solid as possible.

[matterw]

For whatever it is worth, I recently switched over to WHS (from XP) and really like it! The storage pool works well especially for people like me that have a lot of hard drives laying around to participate in the pool. The SageTV WHS Addin worked like a champ and seems to be good so far...

<Matt>

[SWKerr]

Windows7-64!!! I only use it as a client but EVR combined with the ATI 4550 video card has been the easiest setup I have ever had. I gave up on XP long ago. I still have Vista 64 on one machine but it will go soon.

There is a beta fix that allows you to use the built-in Microsoft codecs in Win7 but in the end I used Cyberlink 9 and ffdshow. Great picture minimal fuss.

I use WHS for the backend. It has been very stable. This probably has more to do with the fact that I tend to play with it less. I am always updating the Client GUI with new beta software and plug-ins.

If you want reliability and are buying a new box I would make it an dedicated Win7 Sage Client with a ATI 5450\5570 video card and put WHS on the old box. (Extender option as well)

If you want to have only one machine I would go with Win7-64. You may have setup challenges or driver issues since it still relatively new OS but the nature of the Win7 64bit architecture will do a better job of separating problems with Client\Playback from the Sage Service\Recording engine.

[paulbeers]

There are no 64bit drivers for the PVR250.

With that said then, I would go with Windows 7 32bit. If it is a server only, then WHS or Windows XP is fine, but sicne you are using it for playback then there is no reason not to go Windows 7. Vista ended up not being as terrible (after SP1) as everyone makes it out to be, but it is still a resource hog and no point in not going with the better OS in Windows 7.

[panteragstk]

I'll put in another vote for w7. I used vmr9 as well and I actually noticed a difference in picture quality when I went from windows xp to 7. Good luck...

[mdnttoker]

win7 x64 has been rock solid for me (had to get rid of my pvr 150 though)

[davephan]

SageTV running Windows XP is very stable. Windows 7 does work although some people have problems, but isn't officially supported by SageTV yet. WHS has severe recovery problems, since the operating system cannot be recovered with an image.

If you had taken an image in the past when your system was stable, you could recover to that image. You could then quickly isolate the problem to either software or hardware problem.

If you already have Windows XP and Windows 7 licenses, then cost is not a factor. Either way, it looks like you will have to do a manual re-installation of everything. After the manual re-build, if you still have instablity, then you will know if it is a hardware or software problem.

Dave

[lobosrul]

I've been using win7 Pro 32-bit for a good 6 months now, and have had just about 0 stability issues.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

There are no 64bit drivers for the PVR250.

With that said then, I would go with Windows 7 32bit. If it is a server only, then WHS or Windows XP is fine, but sicne you are using it for playback then there is no reason not to go Windows 7. Vista ended up not being as terrible (after SP1) as everyone makes it out to be, but it is still a resource hog and no point in not going with the better OS in Windows 7.

I've got a new computer I'm building up, which is similar to my SageTV computer. I have a copy of Vista Ultimate 32-bit and 64-bit. I tried installing Vista Ultimate 64-bit on a i-7 950, 3.06 gig quad core with 3 gigs of DDR3 RAM. The OS was drawing about 1 gig RAM just idling. Running Vista, the system was dog slow compared to XP Pro, maybe about 1/3 to 1/4 of the speed. As a result, I installed XP Pro on that computer. I've heard that Windows 7 is about as fast as XP, but I haven't tried it yet.

The lack of a "classic" start menu within the Windows 7 operating system is very annoying, leaving a person with the default "Fisher-Price" start menu, which is cumbersome, a pain to use, and consumes half the screen. I know there is a third party "classic" start menu for Windows 7. Microsoft should have included a "classic" start menu in Windows 7, an quit trying to force people to use their "Fisher-Price" start menu, it reminds me of the Microsoft "Bob" overlay!

http://images.google.com/images?hl=e...ed=0CCgQsAQwBA

Dave

[davenlr]

Chalk up another vote for the Windows 7, 32 bit version. Im running Sage Server, with HDPVR, a TT-S2-3200 Satellite receiver card, and a dual tuner HDHomerun with it, 3GHz AMD 64 Dual Core CPU, and 2GB ram, 4.5TB drive space. Works like a charm. With XP, my HDPVR was always shutting itself off, or Sage was reporting it was trying to reset it due to an error. Havent had a single lick of trouble since switching over.

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by davephan

The lack of a "classic" start menu within the Windows 7 operating system is very annoying, leaving a person with the default "Fisher-Price" start menu, which is cumbersome, a pain to use, and consumes half the screen. I know there is a third party "classic" start menu for Windows 7. Microsoft should have included a "classic" start menu in Windows 7, an quit trying to force people to use their "Fisher-Price" start menu, it reminds me of the Microsoft "Bob" overlay!

Dave

I was one who always switched to the "classic" start menu in XP, but I've really grown to like the UI in Win7 much more. And I'd say the Win7 start menu takes up less than 10% of my screen (1920x1200). I hardly ever use it anyways, important programs are either pinned to the taskbar or on my desktop, including the Control Panel. Disabling UAC is a must.

[cychou]

Originally Posted by davenlr

Chalk up another vote for the Windows 7, 32 bit version.

+1

Recently I rebuild my SageTV server, I started with WIN7 and was thinking if it does not work out I can always go back to XP.

Turn out WIN 7 is much easier to set up with very little tweaks necessary. The only codec I installed is MKV splitter.

Even the occasional application exceptions when capturing DVB-T signal are gone. I guess I will stay with WIN 7 from now on.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

I was one who always switched to the "classic" start menu in XP, but I've really grown to like the UI in Win7 much more. And I'd say the Win7 start menu takes up less than 10% of my screen (1920x1200). I hardly ever use it anyways, important programs are either pinned to the taskbar or on my desktop, including the Control Panel. Disabling UAC is a must.

I definately prefer the Win7 start menu. If you're the type who primarily uses the mouse for most navigation, it may be a bit more cumbersome, but if you are more keyboard centric, it is great. It takes 3 keystrokey to launch SageClient on my Win7 desktop and laptop. (Windows - S - enter). The fact that you just have to type in what you want is vastly superior to clicking through submenus with the mouse.

[Taddeusz]

Why does it matter how much screen space the start menu takes up? Without the stupid cascading program folders it really takes up much less space. But who keeps the start menu open for more than a few seconds?