Spec'ing a new system

[ScanMan2500]

Hi All,

I'm fairly new to GBPVR (only played with it briefly) but am looking to spec a new tv/ av system to fully incorporate it.

The current setup is as follows:
- Several pcs and laptops on home network
- Internet through server/router PC
- Main TV in living room with TVs in other rooms
- Sky Digital with link back to all TVs from RF2out
- Assortment of DVDs/VCRs/standalone audio devices
- >2 CAT5 lines to every room

Since I am going to have to do something with the TVs to get them set for digital switchover (South of England so a couple of years left yet but still) I thought it would be a better solution to install a computerised system than many set-top boxes. My idea is as follows:

- 1 Main GBPVR PC: output connected to main TV
[INDENT]~ 2x DTV cards or dual DTV card[/INDENT]
[INDENT]~ 1x video capture card (for Sky with IR control)[/INDENT]
[INDENT]~ 2xDVD drives (1xRegion1 & 1xRegion2) + CD Drive[/INDENT]
- Server with circa 2Tb storage for all media
- Hauppauge MVP per TV (3 or 4 most likely)
- Slim Devices Network audio players in various rooms (software running on gbpvr machine, data from the server machine)
- remote access via internet connection


Just figuring out the detail at the moment but have a few queries:

- Has anyone out there got a similar setup?
- What sort of spec would I be likely to require on the GBPVR machine given that several MVPs or audio players, may want to coonect simultaneous and have access to data/ video cards/ optical drives? (max 2 or 3 simultaneously I guess)?
- Any sudjestions / thoughts / advice?


Obviously it will cost a fair bit to set up and get functional but I imagine that it will proove a much better solution than any alternatives?

[nia]

- What sort of spec would I be likely to require on the GBPVR machine given that several MVPs or audio players, may want to coonect simultaneous and have access to data/ video cards/ optical drives? (max 2 or 3 simultaneously I guess)?

I think you're on track !

Your setup from a GBPVR point of view requires much less than one should think.

I have had 2 PVR-350 and dual DVB-T recordings going on and playing back from two MVPs without my server breaking a sweat (that was without the RAID - got a PCI slot issue). It was maybe 6-10% CPU. That includes whatever my Weather server, virus scanner etc. would use.

Basically, it's almost impossible to see any ressource demand from MVP playing back. Recording likewise.

For as far as your Slim Devices goes, I have no idea of the load.

My PVR machine is as mentioned also Weather server, printer/file server for rest of PC's in family, my main Internet Browsing machine, I cut/edit recordings here, rip CDs, play FLAC (lossless music), playback recording from GBPVR etc. Never a problem. And I could probably loose 1GB RAM with no real impact.

My specs - see below.

/Niels

[ScanMan2500]

Oh, ok thats reasuring to know - I thought the main GBPVR machine would have to be much more equiped.

I guess it varies with the content too? recordings and other MPEGs are ok with the MVP but during some experimenting, my lowish spec test machine struggled with Xvid and DivXs?

Thanks for the advice nia.

Does anyone else have any ideas / concerns / better methods?

[gEd]

sounds like you are pretty much on track.

the slim devices player is a fantasic bit of kit if a little expensive. I had one at home for a few days that I borrowed froma friend. Never got around to buying one for myself tho.

You would want to runn slimserver on the same pc that contains all the mp3s yes? Your post seems to suggest that you might be running it elsewhere. perhaps I misunderstood.

Were you hoping to record from the gbpvr pc directly to the server rather than to local HD? Could be probematic, would need gigabit at least to stand a chance and even then could be troublesome.

2TB is quite a a lot. Do have any backup plans?Mirrored drives, external drives stored offsite etc?

A decent dual core athlon or core2duo would work well. 1GB is about right for the gbpvr pc. gbpvr uses approx. 400-600MB ram depending on config and plugins used.

the hauppague pvr-150 is a popular analogue tuner and can be bought with an irblaster to control the sky STB.

>- Assortment of DVDs/VCRs/standalone audio devices

you can dump most of this stuff with a media pc. I guess you may have some old tapes you want to play but that would require another analogue tuner.

one thing I always try to encourage people to do is make sure that you make the pc in the living room as quiet as possible and this takes planning, selection of appropriate components and cash. Even a reasonably quiet pc can sound like a hair drier compared to a dvd player.

http://www.quietpc.com

good luck!

[ScanMan2500]

Thanks - thats just the sought of thoughts I was looking for (having the basic plan and wanting to work through the detail/ get fresh thoughts about it)

Slim player - I was only looking at the wired version so lower cost (and selling some of the soon to be unrequired sound kit to pay for it). I was hoping to run the software on a PC other than the data server for ease of access but I dont yet have it to look at how well this would work.

I was hoping to record direct to the data server but was unsure of that. When you say problematic, in what way do you mean? I thought just setting the record path in GBPVR to the server would this not surfice? I suppose recordings could be stored within the GBPVR machine and then transferred/ 'archived' across at monthly intervals - my aim was to keep it as simple as possible so that it is pretty autonimous/ a seamless TV system for the users.

2TB is a figure that I invisiged being realistic - currently having 250Gb of video files, digital music and photos but also to include the following:
- backups (full and incremental) of 4 PCs
- additional music still not ripped
- all DVDs
- start to scan in photos as a backup
- leaving plenty left over for video/ music downloads, future data, recordings (build up a collection of recorded films and TV series)

I thought about backups and realistically thought that I'd start with the 1stTB RAID duplicating onto the 2nd TB and see how that went then as I run out of space reasses the situation.

Yes, the "assortment of DVDs/VCRs/standalone audio devices" would be fased out as the users become used to the system and as all the DVDs, VCRs etc are dumped onto the drives)

Re: the GBPVR machine location: I already have all media (DVDs, VHSs, CDs etc), the sky STB and some audio kit in a walk in cupboard type room along with the patch bays for all the structured cabling, RF amplification etc. I have already run AV cable between this and the main TV for Sky so planned to use this and a DVI/VGA-Cat5-DVI/VGA adaptor to keep it all quite. This would also mean a slight adjustment to the existing IR but thats easy enough.

[gEd]

I was hoping to record direct to the data server but was unsure of that. When you say problematic, in what way do you mean? I thought just setting the record path in GBPVR to the server would this not surfice? I suppose recordings could be stored within the GBPVR machine and then transferred/ 'archived' across at monthly intervals - my aim was to keep it as simple as possible so that it is pretty autonimous/ a seamless TV system for the users.

you are right in principle but it would be good to seek confirmation from others as to whether they have successfully recorded over a decent lan. I am not aware of anyone here who does this. any delays in writing the recording to disk is really going to screw things up.

there is a popular video archive plugin that can automatically move recordings from one drive to another and change their location in the gbpvr database so that they can still be watched via gbpvr.

backups have been discussed quite a lot recently. The only advice I would give would be to make sure all the "really" important stuff (i.e. not tv recordings) but photos, disk images and maybe cd rips are not just stored on the one pc. If that gets nicked, your screwed. backup and mirror locally as you said but also consider a 500GB external for monthly backups and keep this disk at work. disks are as cheap as chips atm...