Recommendations regarding new nPVR Server

[forzaKGB]

Hi

I have not used nPVR extensively for 1½ years since we switched cable provider and the new provider used Cryptoguard which you cannot cardshare/cardsplit. Now we are switching again and I will once more be able to use a wireless cardsplitter. In this process I am also thining of replacing my 7 year old PVR Server (old DELL Desktop) in order to have a smaller and more energy efficient system.

It was a long time ago I built my own PC and I am not up-to-date with the current processor families, graphic cards (which in my view shouldn't really matter since this computer will be without screen and will only be nPVR and Plex server) etc.

Is an i5 sufficient or should I go with a low power i7 or perhaps an AMD would be a better fit?
Recordings will be done over the network to my QNAP TS-412 so no need for massive storage locally, planning to use a SSD as system drive.

Have two Floppy-DTV TV-cards right now, since they are FireWire that is a plus but I have a PCI FireWire-card so as long as motherboard have at least one PCI/PCI-X slot I'm fine.

Energy efficiency with enough performance (with some headroom) is my main focus.

I do not have to build it myself either, a finished product would also be fine as long as I can get FireWire working.
Planning to install Windows 2012 R2 on the system, could also go with Windows 8.1 if server OS cause problems.

Low price would be nice but the performance need to be sufficient and lower power consumption might save more money than low price.

Anyone have suggestions?

[martint123]

Just a couple of thoughts.....

Server performance is not a problem - read tuner, dump to disk takes very little CPU power. The only thing I notice with a very low power server is the NPVR menus can be a little slower to be created and navigated. (and this is with a very low power cpu).

ISTR that Windows 2012 R2 has some parts missing for tuners??? http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...in-nextpvr

[jcjefferies]

I use an HP Microserver as do quite a few NextPVR users. Very good value if you can get it with the "Cash back" offer. The processor is by AMD with power around that of a Celeron.

Chris

[forzaKGB]

Thank you for the suggestions, I know the server OS do not have BDA installed. Was running Server 2003 a while back with GB-PVR and got that working fine.

A thought regarding HP Microserver, how do I use my FireWire-cards with that hardware?
As far as I can see it do not have FireWire nor any PCI/PCI-X slots?
Otherwise that looks lika a really cost-effective solution

[martint123]

I have a couple of the microservers - they were almost giving them away in the UK with an HP cashback, my most recent one was just UK pounds 75. All I wand if for 2gb hard drive prices to drop to what they were before the floods ;( Thier video is nothing special and there is no onboard sound, but I only use them as headless servers. Roughly 35W power consumption with drives spun down.
They have two half height PCI express x16 and x1 for expansion. I don't know if any firewire cards are available in this format?
I use a DVB-T2 USB tuner and a DVB-S2 tuner in one of them as a test and standby system

[forzaKGB]

Have not found any FireWire cards with PCIe, but will look for it. Perhaps cheaper to find a PCIe DVB-C card, the FloppyDTV are quite old even though they do work.

Will see what I will do. Am looking into HP Microserver even though HP do not have any Cashback in Sweden (price is about £270 right now for N54L). I also saw there are quite a few versions, both with AMD and iNTEL processors, but prices go up quite a bit.

[SFX Group]

If you have a hardware encoder (almost any Hauppauge) then you can get away with a small CPU.

I currently have a Core2Duo (6400 i think) with 4Gb of RAM on an XP64 bit running with no issues in NPVR v3 (granted i dont record with it at present but its the same board for the past 4-5 years and its the DNS and web server), only burns 2Gb of RAM max.

With the new HD-PVR i am likely to get this will only work with Windows 7 so i am going to have to upgrade the OS (which is a pain), the key will be a hardware encoder as this puts very little stress on the PC architecture other than moving the data to the drive from the board.

[jghanisco]

My server is also a Core2Duo but with 2gb of ram, and I have absolutely no problems with NPVR and running a few other programs. Any new processor is going to be a breeze with it. The only reason I may want a more powerful processor is if you are converting your videos. Comskip uses a bit of processor power, but even with 3 concurrent recordings, I never had any issue with the speed. I do have an HD PVR and Colossus which are both hardware encoders, so that helps the system.