SageTV server?

[jwilson56]

I have a friend who is thinking of getting into SageTV. He is looking for a PC to run it on. Something quiet, runs cool and possibly has a HDMI graphics card capable of handling HD as he is going to be sitting this near his PC. Any ideas or deals on anything at the moment?

Thanks

 

[sic0048]

Well I would seriously recommend anyone getting into Sage to buy the HD Theater extender. It allows SageTV to run on a fairly low power computer because all the hard work is done by the extender. I've been running Sage on a old P4 3.0 Ghz machine - recording several HD shows at one time without problems.

 

[drvnbysound]

Well I would seriously recommend anyone getting into Sage to buy the HD Theater extender. It allows SageTV to run on a fairly low power computer because all the hard work is done by the extender. I've been running Sage on a old P4 3.0 Ghz machine - recording several HD shows at one time without problems.

Are you using any special speed HDDs? SATA connection to the HDDs?

 

[sic0048]

The specific computer I am using is a Dell 8400. It does have SATA drives, but it is probably 5 years old and probably runs the 1st generation SATA stuff. So a newer computer probably has 2nd generation SATA hardware. No special speed drives or anything like that.

I run XP Pro and 1 GB ram (although I did recently buy another gig to throw in there - no good reason other than it is cheap now - I still need to install it however). I have 1 HDHomeRun (running as 2 QAM tuners) and a HD-PVR. I routinely record 2 HD shows at the same time and about once per week it records 3 HD shows at once. Without the use of an extender to watch these recordings, my computer would not be able to support all that I do. But since the extender takes most of the major processing load off the computer, it can be a much slower machine. Also, having the HDHomeRuns help too because they are network recorders. All the computer is doing is physically saving the 1's and 0's to the harddrive.

 

[drvnbysound]

The specific computer I am using is a Dell 8400. It does have SATA drives, but it is probably 5 years old and probably runs the 1st generation SATA stuff. So a newer computer probably has 2nd generation SATA hardware. No special speed drives or anything like that.

I run XP Pro and 1 GB ram (although I did recently buy another gig to throw in there - no good reason other than it is cheap now - I still need to install it however). I have 1 HDHomeRun (running as 2 QAM tuners) and a HD-PVR. I routinely record 2 HD shows at the same time and about once per week it records 3 HD shows at once. Without the use of an extender to watch these recordings, my computer would not be able to support all that I do. But since the extender takes most of the major processing load off the computer, it can be a much slower machine. Also, having the HDHomeRuns help too because they are network recorders. All the computer is doing is physically saving the 1's and 0's to the harddrive.

Thanks for the info. I too am looking to initially use an older machine for SageTV, and have been curious what kind of performance could be had with something of that nature.

 

[felixrosbergen]

When using extenders, recording 2 shows and watching 2 other recorded shows at the same time via extender my 3ghz Core2Duo CPU doesn't seem to really wake up much from idle...maybe 10% or so...

On the other hand i started using comskip which essentially will suck up whatever power you have in the machine. I use it for Live TV as well...if you're looking for live comskipping you may need to look into something with a little bit of power...but nothing too outrageous.. I run a Intel E8500 with 2GB of ram and WD green power discs...machine doesnt seem to break a sweat and i wish i had gotten lower end hardware to reduce the power consumption, but at least the E8500 does a reasonable job of throttling on it's own.

 

[SnyperBob]

Well I would seriously recommend anyone getting into Sage to buy the HD Theater extender. It allows SageTV to run on a fairly low power computer because all the hard work is done by the extender. I've been running Sage on a old P4 3.0 Ghz machine - recording several HD shows at one time without problems.

+1...

If you are going to be using an older computer, make sure you buy the HD Theater extender. Otherwise, the cheaper media extenders put more of a load on the server. Just want to reiterate that. I am running a sage server on a very old computer. Probably about 6 years old. I don't record any HD yet, but I still bought the HD extender for futureproofing

 

[Steve]

Yea I have a slightly older 3Gh Dell pc that serves as CQC and Sage Server and it easily handles recording 2 simultaneous HD and watching on HD100's, but I have 1 regular extender for a small 13" tv and it burps and skips and all other wierd things when either watching live or playing back an HD recording due to the transcoding the server needs to do. So, like snypez said, if you will have and non HD100/200 extenders, you will need more power for it to work right.

 

[royalj7]

Slightly off topic, but if I wanted just to play my backed up DVD's from my NAS on my TV, would I need the Sage software or just the HD200 box? Does the box provide a GUI with search and browsing function? Cover Art?

Thanks,
--Jamie

 

[royalj7]

Can any of the sage Sage users, god what an awful pun again, help out here. I am pretty fuzzy on the capablities the Sage hardware and software. I know alot of folks use it to time shift and record programs on the TV, but I'm really just interested in playing back DVD's and video clips.

--Jamie

 

[sic0048]

Can any of the sage Sage users, god what an awful pun again, help out here. I am pretty fuzzy on the capablities the Sage hardware and software. I know alot of folks use it to time shift and record programs on the TV, but I'm really just interested in playing back DVD's and video clips.

--Jamie

You may just be interested in the Sage HD Theater - also called the HD-200. It is their 2nd generation of the HD extender. What really makes this one different is the ability to use it as a stand alone network player without having to purchase the SageTV software. So it is a stand alone box that can pull video, audio, and picture files from you network or attached storage device. You'll use the remote to control everything. The HD Theater can also pull some internet content as well. So it's like having a little computer hooked up to your TV - except without the noise or stability issues.

Basically it is very similar as the Popcorn Hour A110 but costs a little less money. In addition, should you decide in the future that the DVR functions are important, you can always buy the SageTV software later and add that capacity.

But given what you have said, I don't think you really need to buy the SageTV software at first. The software is designed first and foremost as a DVR software. If you are not interested in the DVR functions, then don't buy the software. The HD Theater doesn't need it and I think it will meet all your needs. About the only thing the HD Theater does not have is a built in DVD player. It can play ripped DVDs and even play a DVD that is loaded into the DVD player of a computer on the network (as long as the encyrption is stripped out or doesn't exist). But no DVD player in the unit itself.

 

[royalj7]

Thanks Brian,

The HD-200 sounds just like what I was expecting. I've also seen folks mention using MyMovies with Sage. Does anyone use this combo and can comment on what capabilities it adds to the HD Theater?


--Jamie

 

[sic0048]

Thanks Brian,

The HD-200 sounds just like what I was expecting. I've also seen folks mention using MyMovies with Sage. Does anyone use this combo and can comment on what capabilities it adds to the HD Theater?


--Jamie

I think the biggest benefit is using MyMovies with Windows Home Server (WHS) OS - check out this link for more information. That version has some sort of autoripping function that makes ripping movies a breaze. There are also some SageTV plugins that can take this data and auto-update the Sage metadata.

If you are not using WHS or the SageTV software, then I'm not sure of the benefits - there may be some, but I am not an expert in that area.

 

[yourchef51]

This may be off topic a bit but how does an HD Extender work with a projector? I think I am planning an Onkyo AVR to send the signal to the projector from a media closet. Would the HD Extender take the place of the video upscaling of the receiver or where in the transmission line would it go. Thanks.

DJ

 

[IVB]

This may be off topic a bit but how does an HD Extender work with a projector? I think I am planning an Onkyo AVR to send the signal to the projector from a media closet. Would the HD Extender take the place of the video upscaling of the receiver or where in the transmission line would it go. Thanks.

DJ

All depends on the native resolution of the pj, and what you set the sage output to.

IE, your pj is a native 720p, set HD200 to 720p output and no upscaling happens. Set it to something else, and your pj will upscale/downscale to 720p (it's native res)