Processor choices?

[pknowles]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I gave up on the idea of "upgradeability" long ago. IMO doesn't matter whether the socket stays around or not, by the time it's time for a CPU upgrade, you generally need a motherboard upgrade anyway to support the new RAM and whatnot that's required to actually make the processor upgrade worthwhile.

Agree 100%. I've always bought considering some kind of upgrade path, but always end up upgrading the whole system when the time comes.

[mmanville]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

I am going to be buying or building a new server soon and I'd love some user opinions about the current processors out there. I will definitely be running a 64-bit OS - either XP or Win7, likely. I'll have plenty of RAM (depending on which processor I choose, see below).

Here's the worst-case I can see happening on my server at any simultaneous moment:
1) Recording three HD streams from HDHomeruns (OTA, no CPU work required, just writing to hard drive),
2) Running comskip, and
3) Watching something on an HD100 or HD200 extender from PlayOn (running the PlayOn on this same server).
4) It's possible, though not likely, that in the future I could be watching on this machine (via HDMI out to a TV) rather than on an extender.

I found this thread in doing my research for my own build-out, and although my expectations are slightly different, I thought they were close enough that I should just add onto the discussion of this already excellent thread. My main deviation from pj's requirements are:

... 4) I would definitely want the option to watch video on this machine -- though not often. My thought is that this machine, being in the basement, could serve as an occasional place for the kids to watch stuff, or play music.
5 ) I am thinking of using WHS (v2 Vail, as soon as it comes out) for the OS, so therefore there would be additional file server duties (though the backups etc would probably be scheduled for overnight periods, so I'm not sure if it's much of a factor?
6) Probably have two extenders -- one a HD200, the second either a 2nd HD200, or a windows box running the SageTV client.

My questions:

1. Am I pressing too many hats onto one box, as my WHS server, SageTV server, PlayOn server, comskip processor, and an occasional HTPC?
2. I am thinking of re-purposing my current HTPC (cpu, motherboard, memory) components into this box, and am wondering if they would be a good match for this task. They are:
   1. AMD Phenom X3 8450e tri-core, 65W 2.10 GHz Toliman 512KB/core L2 cache, shared 2 MB L3 cache
   2. ASUS M3A78-EM AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI MicroATX motherboard
   3. 2gb DDR2 memory (shared with 780g readeon 3200 IGP) - with two free RAM slots to add more
   Right now it can handling doing multiple OTA recordings on a dvico dual express tuner card and playing a blu ray, through AnyDVD-HD, all at once under Vista Media Center, and handling it all like a champ, but I don't know much yet about comskip, playon, and WHS to know what kind of additional demands they would make.

You guys gave some great advice to pj. Any thoughts on this? I am contemplating a less powerful CPU than he was, and potentially trying to do more. But the consensus on his plans seemed to be that he was harnessing more horsepower than he needed anyway, so I thought maybe that meant my prospective box (one less core, lower clock speed) would be more evenly matched with my needs.

[Fuzzy]

one thing to note: If you are planning on using it as a client as well, then WHS is not the best option. at least the current version ot WHS doens't have the required components to do video playback, and it takes a bit of workarounds to get it to work.

[mmanville]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

one thing to note: If you are planning on using it as a client as well, then WHS is not the best option. at least the current version ot WHS doens't have the required components to do video playback, and it takes a bit of workarounds to get it to work.

Thanks for the quick reply! I wondered about that, but I guess I just assumed that because there is a Media Center v6.6 install package specific to WHS, that this would be something resolved in that install? Or are you saying the SageTV Media Center for WHS does not support all the features that the other Media Center packages for other platforms do, it will not actually play any media back itself

[Fuzzy]

The Sage WHS version is not a client.. (which is why there is a Placeshifter license built into it). (That link is actually called "SageTV Media Server (V6.6 for Windows Home Server)"

[SWKerr]

I have a ATI 780G, AMD Athlon 5400, 2GB Ram setup running WHS. 6 Hard drives with 6.5TB of space plus 300GB boot disk. It is setup with a USB-UIRT with LM Remote and works fine as a Client. I use it in conjunction with a Box that converts the VGA output to analog that runs to two old TV via coax. I have IR repeaters at those locations. I also have it hooked to a monitor and it looks great on that as well. (I have never tried it running 1920x1080)

The Analog sets are in the Master Bath and the Shop. They get relatively light use for the news in the morning as music in the hot tube but it all works well.

I have never used Playon on the server but I do everything else on your list without problems. I have tired Playon on a similar system by itself and it was ok but not sure about it in conjunction with Comskip. Probably ok since Comskip runs at a low priority it will just take longer.

There is a WHS trial that you can use to set it up and test with. If it does not work you will then know. (Beware the trail is not upgradable to the full version.)

[PosterBoy]

I just got a vt-d ESXi system up and running. Its kind of a pain that you can only pass through 2 PCI devices in EXSi. I have one USB interface and one Firewire interface passed through. I run Sage on Server 2008 along with some other stuff. On of the biggest challenges in setting up the pass through is that the ports that you are passing through can't share IRQs with things that ESXi cares about.

Here is the the system I used:

http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=GS5YE6X6oIrbNddx
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819117224

I started by passing through the USB interface that controls the front and rear panel USB connectors. That was all well and good. I have the following connect to USB:

Hauppauge HD-PVR
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1950
USB Sound board
USB Z-Wave controller

I also have Sage connected to a HD HomeRun over ethernet.

I was originally worried about the USB interface not having enough bandwidth for everything connected, but I have not seen any issues so far.

Next I tried to set up FireWire Channel changing. I got a 1x PCI-E firewire board to put in the ASUS chasis's 1 PCI-E expansion slot. I set it up and everything worked HOWEVER every time I shut down my Server 2008 guest os, it locked up ESXi, and Server 2008 didnt complete its shutdown, which was really bad. After some research I found that the PCI-E slot was sharing an IRQ with the SATA controller which gives ESXi fits. My only option was to get a PCI Firewire card. I got it in by removing the PCI-E riser and got a cabled PCI extender to get it to fit where the PCI-E board is supposed to go. In this slot it didnt share any IRQs with anything TOO important, and appears to work.

A note on how the PCI Pass through works. If you configure something as pass through that is behind a PCI bridge, then everything behind the bridge gets marked as pass through. In my case, the motherboards Video chip was behind a PCI-E to PCI bridge along with my firewire board. This might seem like an inconvenience, and I was originally concerned by it, but tested it anyway. What happens is that the system boots normally. BIOS is displayed, then the ESXi boot info. ESXi keeps control of the video chip until the guest os that requires it for PCI passthrough starts up. If I need console access to the ESXi system I can either keep server 2008 from booting or configure ESXi to send its console to a serial port. After server 2008 boots, nothing is displayed by the video chip until the system reboots.

Another interesting thing to note is that even though multiple things were marked as pass through when I made the firewire board pass through, each item counted toward the limit of 2 pci devices passable to the guest os. Again this wasnt a big deal, but I got a PCI board with both USB and Firewire ports on it to try to ease the load on my existing USB interface. I found out that that the FireWire ports and the USB ports on that card are separate PCI devices, and so I could only pass through the firewire ports and not the usb ports.

I have my ESXi booting from a USB flash drive. I have a 1 TB and 1.5 TB hard drive in the system for the guest OS and recordings. I ended up booting from a flash drive because of the default sector size set by ESXi on the boot disk limited partitions on the boot drive to 256 MB. There were lots of caveats to the installation, but it was really fun and I am very excited by the flexibility ESXi opened up for me. It also makes remote admin a breeze.

I currently have one outstanding issue on the system. Occasionally it gets in a state where every 2 or 3 minutes the processors I have allocated to the guest OS get stuck and their utilization goes down to less than one percent. It oscillates between that state and working normally every 2-3 min. It doesn't seem to affect ESXi, which remains responsive. I have seen this twice now in the last couple of weeks. I am thinking it may be some sort of IRQ issue. A shutdown of the guest os and reboot of ESXi fixes the issue. A simple reboot of the guest os doesnt fix it.

Hopefully all that helps someone who tries it down the road.

Kent

[mmanville]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

The Sage WHS version is not a client.. (which is why there is a Placeshifter license built into it). (That link is actually called "Sage Media Server (V6.6 for Windows Home Server)"

Review I have read about SageTV implies that you can install it on one box, comparable to Windows Media Center HTPC, the simplest setup. In other words, you record and watch on same box, running just one program. This is true even on the front page of the SageTV web site, where (as I read it) it states that you can actually watch TV and recordings using just the SageTV Media Center V6.6.

On this page, the only link to the "Windows Media Server v6.6" ins the store, I see that the product sold for $79.95 "Also supports Windows Home Server," all under a description that implies you can watch live & recorded tv using just this software. If the WHS software requires the placeshifter license, and as you say, already includes a placeshifter license, and this purchase includes the WHS software, then ... why is there a combo deal for $20 more to add another placeshifter license (you only need one per server, right?) Are you saying that the WHS software has different functionality than the version for all other platforms, you get the software to record with that version, but not to view, and the "included placeshifter license" you mention is only valid if the server is on WHS? :confused

I realize this is a hardware forum, and I feel a little guilty for taking this discussion off in the direction of software, but this is where the comment I have a question about came up. Thanks for being patient with me.

Originally Posted by SWKerr

Here is the the system I used .... There is a WHS trial that you can use to set it up and test with. If it does not work you will then know. (Beware the trail is not upgradable to the full version.)

Thanks for all your feedback, although your processor is so much beyond what either I or pj are talking about, that I'm not sure how much your experience will reassure either of us ... I would hope if you pay almost $300 for a Xeon 3450 2.66ghz quad core, one of the top performing processors available today, it would get the job done!

Yes, I will try before I buy, as much as I can. But I am just trying to maximize my chance of getting it all working satisfactorily the first time. Being new to WHS, and new to Sage, there are a lot of variables I do not know that others do -- and in the case of running an extender, will be impossible to know until I already commit by buying. Also, as I said the hardware for the server would come from re-purposing the guts of my current Vista HPTC living room box. So if I do start down this route, I will not have the luxury of screwing around with it indefinitely, and it will be VERY difficult to return to the status quo, it will be more of a one-way street. Hence my efforts to do my homework as much as possible first.

[Djc208]

There are different versions of the server software, all are the same price, the difference is just the OS they are aimed at. The Windows/Mac/Linux versions include both the record and playback functions together and are the WMC type program you are thinking of.

Since Windows Home Server is not designed to be used directly like a PC, the WHS version of Sage does not include the normal UI, instead it has a control pannel that integrates into the WHS interface. Since the pannel control is limited they include one license for placeshifter to allow you to set up and watch Sage from another computer.

Placeshifter is a per-instance type of license. You can download and install as many copies of the program as you want but the number that are connected to the server at the same time is limited to the number of placeshifter licenses you have.

Technically the Windows license works for either version. So you can get the normal Windows version and if you go to a WHS setup later just download and install that version using the same key. That's what I did with my setup.

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by Djc208

Since Windows Home Server is not designed to be used directly like a PC, the WHS version of Sage does not include the normal UI, instead it has a control pannel that integrates into the WHS interface.

Actually the WHS does include the normal SageTV GUI. If you RDP into the WHS machine (or if you get on locally with a DIY built machine), you can start the SageTV GUI just like any other Windows OS. The problem lies with the fact that WHS v1 was never intended to be used locally or for media playback. Therefore there are some fundamental OS pieces missing that might prevent you from being able to actually play media on the machine.

It really isn't a SageTV limitation, it is a WHS limitation. Due to the potential WHS limitation, SageTV has decided to not officially support playback on WHS machines because that would open a huge bag of worms. It doesn't neccessary mean that it isn't possible to watch video on the WHS if you add all the missing parts of the WHS OS that are needed to watch media.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by mmanville

Hmm ... there must be something very fundamental I misunderstand here. Every review I have read about SageTV implies that you can install it on one box, comparable to Windows Media Center HTPC, the simplest setup. In other words, you record and watch on same box, running just one program. This is true even on the front page of the SageTV web site, where (as I read it) it states that you can actually watch TV and recordings using just the SageTV Media Center V6.6.

Right, SageTV Media Center, is standalone, it supports everything. But that version (Media "Center") only runs on Windows desktop OS's, see the System Requirements. WHS is not listed.

For WHS you need a special version of Sage, one which basically has the "frontend" functionality ripped out because WHS (the operating system) doesn't support media playback type stuff (not without a lot of work).

On this page, the only link to the "Windows Media Server v6.6" ins the store, I see that the product sold for $79.95 "Also supports Windows Home Server," all under a description that implies you can watch live & recorded tv using just this software. If the WHS software requires the placeshifter license, and as you say, already includes a placeshifter license, and this purchase includes the WHS software, then ... why is there a combo deal for $20 more to add another placeshifter license (you only need one per server, right?)

You need one placeshifter license per simultaneously connected placeshifter client.

Are you saying that the WHS software has different functionality than the version for all other platforms, you get the software to record with that version, but not to view, and the "included placeshifter license" you mention is only valid if the server is on WHS?

Windows Home Server is a stripped down server operating system (based on Windows Server 2003), the operating system is not meant for "desktop use" and thus has all the media functionalty stripped out.

This is a limitation of the Operating System. Sage sells a special version of SageTV for this OS, with a placeshifter license so that you can have the same functionality on an OS that's meant to be run headless.

The problem with using WHS as an HTPC is limitations/problems with WHS, not with SageTV. If you want a "do it all box" and not a headless media server, WHS is not the right choice, for that you want a desktop os (Windows 7 probably).

[mmanville]

Thanks for all the replies to my WHS question. I realize it is off topic for thread, so I won't continue it here, but on a different thread. But in conclusion: OK, I think I finally get it, the issue seems to be missing files in WHS to enable media playing "desktop experience." However I wonder if there won't be a workaround for this for Vail, as it is based upon 2008 R2. There is an entire site/community at www.win2008r2workstation.com that has already figured out how to get the "Desktop Experience" (including Media Player) working on the two current versions of Windows Server 2008.

[ryesman]

Sorry for jumping in, but I've found this thread helpful. I just have a few questions.

Originally Posted by stanger89

This is a limitation of the Operating System. Sage sells a special version of SageTV for this OS, with a placeshifter license so that you can have the same functionality on an OS that's meant to be run headless.

The placeshifter license is just included free in this situation?

Just to verify that I understand the best way to proceed, here's my planned setup. I want to build a PC with WHS and use an HD200 for playback. I also have my laptop that I may or may not use to watch stuff on, but which I would definitely like to use to schedule recordings. Eventually I want an HD-PVR to record HD cable channels, but that might take saving up a bit more money.

So if I buy the SageTV HD Theater with SageTV Media Center for Windows Bundle, will that include all the software I need to run what I described above?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by ryesman

The placeshifter license is just included free in this situation?

"Sort of". My understanding is that you don't actually get a "license", as in you don't get a key, it's just the WHS version doesn't require a Placeshifter License for the first seat.

[QUOTE]Just to verify that I understand the best way to proceed, here's my planned setup. I want to build a PC with WHS and use an HD200 for playback. I also have my laptop that I may or may not use to watch stuff on, but which I would definitely like to use to schedule recordings. Eventually I want an HD-PVR to record HD cable channels, but that might take saving up a bit more money.

So if I buy the SageTV HD Theater with SageTV Media Center for Windows Bundle, will that include all the software I need to run what I described above?

Yeah, you should be able to buy that and then install the WHS version on your server and use Placeshifter from the laptop.

[ryesman]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Yeah, you should be able to buy that and then install the WHS version on your server and use Placeshifter from the laptop.

So I guess I'm still a bit confused. I get that Placeshifter is software that you can install on as many computers as you want and that a single license allows you to use one of those computers at a time. So with WHS, it just sort of bypasses the need for a license unless you want to use multiple PCs at a time? If so, how do I get Placeshifter onto my laptop? Does it come with Sage Media Center or do I download the trial version?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by ryesman

So I guess I'm still a bit confused. I get that Placeshifter is software that you can install on as many computers as you want and that a single license allows you to use one of those computers at a time. So with WHS, it just sort of bypasses the need for a license unless you want to use multiple PCs at a time? If so, how do I get Placeshifter onto my laptop? Does it come with Sage Media Center or do I download the trial version?

Normally (other than WHS) you need to register (enter) a Placeshifter key manually to be able to use Placeshifter. With WHS you don't have to do that. That's all I meant. WHS has one built-in seat so you don't get a key to enter and you don't have to register the key, you can just use a Placshifter seat by default.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by ryesman

... or do I download the trial version?

Yes, just download the Placeshifter client on your laptop. there is no real 'trial' version of the placeshifter software. Licensing is taken care of on the server end.