How much PC is enough?

[larry5b6]

I’m currently bringing up NextPVR on an dual-core Celeron 1017U running at 1.6GHz, with 4GB of RAM. I seem to be hitting my goal of recording three channels simultaneously from my HdHomerun, while playing a pre-recorded show. Where it’s falling short is trying to watch via the web browser over a remote connection, even if I’ve set up streaming transcoding to the lowest speed. That make me think the bottleneck is in the transcoding not the (slower, hotspot) connection.

So my question is, how much PC do I need to get the job done? (And please don’t say “as much as you can afford”) Some success stories of what’s working for other people would be welcome.

Thanks,
-lr

PS - Interestingly, when playing through a client (kodi with nextPVR plug-in) instead of a web browser, the server doesn’t seem to be down-transcoding  - even set to 144p, the (broken) playback looks like HD. But that’s a problem for another day.

[mvallevand]

Your big problem from the spec sheet https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/...tions.html isn't CPU as much as it doesn't support Intel QSV for GPU transcoding.

Transcoding is what it is on 10 year old machines that were slow in their day. It may be no better than an RPi. If you do a lot of remote view consider faster upload speeds, wireless fees aside.

Martin

[larry5b6]

I don't do enough remote viewing to justify upgrading my connection. And I'm watching on a relatively small screen (in a motor home), so the joys of HD are to some degree wasted.

If I go PC shopping, what processor(s) do you think I should I be looking at?

thanks,

-lr

[mvallevand]

If your main reason is a server for streaming NextPVR I'd start with a refurb Intel CPU with QSV and I don't think you need to spend $200. You can buy a more recent NUC style too if you are concerned about electricity costs since you can't use WOL remote.

If you watch recording more than Live TV, you can also transcode them at the server in postprocessing for watching later. That probably is your Kodi issue, it doesn't transcode recordings because post processing is the better alternative.

Martin

[larry5b6]

Well, my usage case is bifurcated, and I’ll go into some detail here not because I’m asking a question but because possibly it will be of some use to lurkers, both now and in the future.

At this point we watch almost no live TV. Everything is recorded, both for time shifting and commercial skipping. 90 percent of this is at home with the big TV, where I want the best possible resolution and therefore I don’t want to transcode while recording. The other 10 percent of the time, I’m hoping that we can watch on the road, on a smaller TV and via cellular, where I’d like to transcode down as much as is tolerable. So all in all, from what you’ve told me I think I’m on the right track.

To that end, I just ordered a nice little refurbished mini pc from Amazon:  i5-6500T, 3 GHz, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, and Windows 10 Pro, all for a princely $119. I’ve got an additional 512GB USB SSD, so that should be plenty of space to store my shows.

Thanks very much for all your help on this. I’ll probably be back with additional questions down the road, but I think I’ve reached the point where I can confer last rites on my old Windows Media Center setup. Which is long overdue.

-lr

[mvallevand]

You should be much happier with that system and I don't think you can go wrong at that price, Amazon even accepts return It is cheaper and much more powerful than an RPi4 which is why I recommend refurbs especially when they aren't hooked up to the main TV. I do see using the advantages of using the low end RPi4 and Amlogic Android devices as typical clients though keeping the HTPC away from the home theater.

Martin

[persim]

Make sure you test the Intel QSV transcoding ability while still in the return window. I ran into an issue with a small form factor motherboard once where the vendor did not enable QSV even though the cpu was capable of it. Drivers were only available from the vendor only so nothing was ever updated. Have sworn off mini and sff builds since then.

[tesla1886]

I have an AMD system that I built specifically to be a PVR, it specs are in my signature.

Intel Celeron and AMD Sempron are both the bottom of the barrel for processers, they may run decently for a few months but that performance slowly degrade over time. These processors were meant for economy PCs like e-Machines, but not for PCs that have a lot of demand on them. IE in a PVR system which is recording 3, 4 or more programs at once while watching a 5th pre-recorded program -- remotely or not. The short of it Celeron and Sempron processors aren't that powerful especially when they get some age on them.

As Martin said you will not only get better performance out of the i5 but significantly better performance. With windows alone the more memory you give it the better, so going from 4 gig to 8 gig will also help.

[jcjefferies]

My NextPVR server is a HP Microserver which runs on a 2 core 2.2 Ghz Athlon based processor. It sits on the top part of a wardrobe so it’s out of the way so I stand on a chair very occasionally should I need access the machine directly. It has 4GB of memory and I just upgraded to Windows 10 over Christmas! The only other upgrade was several years ago to replace the Non Hot Swap boot 3 ½ inch plug in hard disk with a SSD using a 3 ½ inch to 2 ½ inch disk adaptor box!

The processor plays little part in recording or playback so it’s idle most of the time running at under 900Mhz. There is however a short burst of activity at the start and end of a recording or playback.

I have had the server about 10 years and see no need to upgrade to something more powerful!!

[mvallevand]

Transcoding and comskip needs play heavily on the decision for the CPU/GPU Recording and Playback are often more disk performance.

Martin