New to PVR's - Looking for advice

[ksarauer]

Hello, I am looking for some advice on a PVR. My idea is to have multiple PVR's connected to multiple TV's. So a server and some clients. (backend and frontend) I was looking at mythtv, but am not too familiar with Linux, then I came upon GB-PVR. I like the frontend/backend concept with Myth, I also like how configurable it is. However, I also would like to take advantage of some of the newer capture and video cards (non-Linux friendly). I have not found any good comparisons that compares the PVR software. From what I've been reading, GB-PVR seems to be the most customizable for windows. Will this work in GB-PVR?

Am I still able to setup a FE/BE system?
Will the hardware I'm looking at for GB-PVR?
Has anyone compared the different PVR solutions?
Will I be able to capture HD on client2, and play it back on client1 (in near real time)?
I would also like to us this as a Media Player/DVD storage playback. Is this doable?

The main TV that I will be watching is a Samsung HL-S5086W. (I'd like to use the HD for the PVR).

For the server (backend) system....
Pentium 4 1.6
748mb memory
SCSI drives (I have some 80GB drives that I'll use for the time being, then upgrade to some larger SATA drives)

For client1 (frontend) system... This will be connected to the Samsung tv.
Dell 620 (SFF)
P4 3.2 HT
512mb memory
80GB SATA drive
to be added...
Video card
Powercoler X1600PRO video card (half height card that has HDMI out) http://www.powercolor.com/main_product_d...asp?id=121
Capture card
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR150MCE-LP (half height card) http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/...mcelp.html

For client2 (frontend) system - This is also my main computer for everyday work. Not connected to a TV.
Dell E510
P4 2.8 HT
1GB memory
250GB SATA drive
to be added....
capture card - would like to add a HD capture card, along with a 2nd dual tuner capture card

For client3 (frontend) system
xBox (not the 360) if it'll work? Not sure...

Any feedback/comments/suggestions will be appreciated!

Thanks for looking,
Kevin

[ksarauer]

I should also add, I would like to use the harmony remote control with the system. Are they compatable?

Thanks much!
Kevin

[stefan]

Hm... you got it the wrong way around... at least with gbvpr, only the server will/can have capture cards. The clients should not have any capture cards at all. So all capture cards go into the gbpvr server.

In your case, when you want to connect to tv sets, you also have the possibility to use an MVP at each tv (instead of using a computer at the tv). But then you'd probably need a bit more powerful server in order to be satisfied with the result.

[ksarauer]

Stefan - Thanks for the reply.

If all the capture cards are in the server, and I want to record a show, can I initiate the recording from the client? (Will the client communicate with the server and pick the first available tuner)

I never thought about the MVP - Thanks, defenately the way to go in some cases.
With the MVP's am I able to watch live TV with them or are they just for prerecorded content? (The wife hates it when she has to push more than 1 button to get something to work. )

[stefan]

Stefan - Thanks for the reply.

If all the capture cards are in the server, and I want to record a show, can I initiate the recording from the client? (Will the client communicate with the server and pick the first available tuner)

Yes, that's how it's supposed to work.

I never thought about the MVP - Thanks, defenately the way to go in some cases.
With the MVP's am I able to watch live TV with them or are they just for prerecorded content? (The wife hates it when she has to push more than 1 button to get something to work. )

Yes... well, it'll be in timeshift mode, so it will be recorded to a temp file and streamed to the MVP with a few seconds' lag. But that's close enough for live tv for moste people. This will be the case with computer clients, too.

[ksarauer]

Excellent!

So, the client computers do not need alot of processing power. How much power should the server have?
- Will a P4 1.6 with 748mb memory be able to record 2 shown and playback a separate show? Or should I look at using the P4 2.8 as the server?

[computerology]

Excellent!

So, the client computers do not need alot of processing power. How much power should the server have?
- Will a P4 1.6 with 748mb memory be able to record 2 shown and playback a separate show? Or should I look at using the P4 2.8 as the server?

Depending on how many cards you are looking at having, that machine should do fine provided you get cards with hardware MPEG encoders. For what you're looking at, that feature is an absolute must. The ATI Theatre 550/650 have a very low CPU load on encode, but the audio is a bit quieter than other cards and the picture is very good.

If you're looking at like 6 cards or something nuts, you may want to go with an Athlon 64x2 4000+, something dual core at least because you may need the extra capacity when starting and stopping streams. If this is what you're meaning to set up you may also want to get a RAID in striped configuration because 4 or more clients streaming the video from your drive while 4 or more cards are writing will wreak havoc on a run of the mill IDE controller.

[ksarauer]

Thanks computerology!

Does anyone have any input on the harmony remotes form Logitech? I would like to know what the compatibility is.

[stefan]

So, the client computers do not need alot of processing power. How much power should the server have?

That's not quite what I said. If you have client *computers* then your server won't need as much power as if you have client *MVP's*.

Any client computers would, at minimum, need to have the power needed for the codec (decoder) of your choice to run smoothly at the resolution you want to use Which of course is determined by what video card you will use... (helpful, right? ) I have somewhere seen a number of Pentium 1Ghz 512 Mb minimum for GBPVR, but you might find the menus a bit sluggish then.

I''m Sorry I can't be more specific than that...

[djtaylor]

Just to give some perspective, I have a box which is a 2.0GHz AMD Athlon with 1GB RAM.

From this I run 4 tuners and 3 MVP's.

The MVP's don't consume any real processing time because they're just being served up MPG's, the only time they're doing anything is when viewing the menus and it's unlikely that all 3 are having the menus interacted with in our house at the same time.

When all 4 tuners are recording the machine can get busy, more so during post processing when doing things like comskip but that's a background task at low priority so it just gets on with it.

As ever, this is subjective but it's fine for us in that it works. Some people might say the odd menu response isn't snappy enough but then it's personal and we're happy.

David.