Taxing your PVR - HT/Multicore question

[daphatty]

Has anyone noticed whether their CPU usage goes through the roof when, for example, recording a show while simlutaneously detecting commercials (through SA) and converting to another format (in my case PSP)? My P4 2.4 is pumping iron to get these tasks completed so naturally I am concerned. Upgrading to an HT or dual core processor has popped into my mind but I'm not even certain that will help.

Does anyone have any insight into this? How do your HTs or Multicore's work for you?

- DaPhatty

[reboot]

I love my MC. It's just plain fast. I'd never go back to a single core CPU.
I can't say how HT works, as I haven't owned an Intel in a very long time (p3 500 was my last one).
CPU usage does jump, when running comskip or SA, but you can throttle them to a lower priority, if multitasking is your thing, and they're being hogs.
I've noticed that I no longer need to do this as much though

[pwborders]

I am betting that it is the re-encoding that is causing the big load. I have run tests several times on my system and I can run 6 recordings with 6 concurrent instances of showanalyzer plus watch a previous recording and still average only around 80%. I do have showanalyzer set to idle priority and 10% usage and I am using the nvidia decoders for viewing. You might want to try the scheduled re-encoding feature of gbpvr so that you could run them late at night when no recordings are being made.

[zed]

I have a 3 GHz P4 HT in my HP box.

Recording uses about zero cpu. It can be recording two shows and feeding two MVPs and hardly notice it.

Running comskip after a recording takes between 35 and 45%...quite a load. Format conversion is similar, maybe even more. It's noticibly slower while running either of them.

[daphatty]

I am betting that it is the re-encoding that is causing the big load. I have run tests several times on my system and I can run 6 recordings with 6 concurrent instances of showanalyzer plus watch a previous recording and still average only around 80%. I do have showanalyzer set to idle priority and 10% usage and I am using the nvidia decoders for viewing. You might want to try the scheduled re-encoding feature of gbpvr so that you could run them late at night when no recordings are being made.

My PVR isn't quite as sophisticated (yet) so the max simultaneous workload it would undertake is one recording (analog cable), show analyzer, file conversion, and viewing a recording either directly or via MVP. I might have to invest in the "realtime" version of Show Analyzer and perhaps schedule the file conversions to occur late at night. I still have to tweak SA to my liking before I invest in it and the scheduled conversion function was broken last time I tested it. Hmm... I'm really gonna have to think this one through. Too bad a RAID array isn't practical for this environment...

Your specs are quite impressive. May I ask what kind of case you have all of that hardware housed in? My first impression is that it must be a massive setup.

[daphatty]

Most basic MOBO have 3 PCI Master Bus Channels and the full MOBO has 5 PCI slots. Most cases will work you need a larger power supply to handle the extra load. Larger fans to keep everything cool. More vents in the case also help.

Exactly. That's why I pictured his setup to be larger than the average PVR. More like a system housed in a SOHO case than a fancy HTPC case.

[pwborders]

Yep, mine is a more normal mid tower case. I recently (Thanksgiving holiday) rebuilt it a lot since the old version had a few issues. I am using one of Antec's Solution series cases, the largest one I think. It is very nice as it has 4 - 5 1/4" and 2 - 3 1/2" external and 5 3 1/2" internal bays (perfect for raid 5) .

I am rather weird in that I really hate small cases. I have a friend who I built a shuttle system for and I really hate working on it. My main computers (3) are housed in Enlight server cases that have 7 external 5 1/4" bays and tons of room inside.

The new Antec case is working nicely. It has two 120mm fans which are three speed each so on medium they are relatively quiet. This system is in my bedroom which also happens to be where the cable feed comes in. I watch mostly in the den on a 32" Sony Wega TV so the sound from the pvr is not an issue. It is also quiet enough that I don't notice it if it comes on at night to record but I am not really picky about noise that way.


Feel free to ask about an specifics. I am having a ball using and upgrading this thing. I had wanted to set up a pvr like this for a couple of years and when I found GB-PVR I decided that is was time.

[pwborders]

My system is mostly made from parts I already had on hand. All I bought were the pvr-500mce's and recently the raid controller off of ebay. I had it all in an older antec case but wanted a new ps so I went ahead and got both together. This system is basically a dedicated pvr, I do have a normal lcd and wireless keyboard / mouse but only use it occasionally as a computer. Thats why I went with the cheap 5200 video card, bad for games but a good tv out. I find that the 3200+ is more than powerful enough for what it has to do as a pvr.

I wish we still had computer shows (like your fair) around here. The company that puts them on went out of business and we haven't had one for over a year. There is one coming up in January about an hour and a half away that I plan to go to. Luckily I have a sister near there that I can stop by and visit as well. I really miss wandering around and seeing what is new.

[pwborders]

Funny that you had problems with the 5200. Another member has a thread where he has had problems with it as well. I noticed that you both have via chipset motherboards, I wonder if it is an issue between the via chipset and the fx5200? I am realy happy with my 5200, I just bought it to replace the ti4200 I had. The ti4200 was more game oriented and had a fan and more memory, both of which are not needed for this dedicated pvr machine. So I ordered this fx5200 for $35 and it is working great. I actually use composite out to an agile modulator on channel 125. Watching recordings or live tv on my 32" Sony WEGA looks as good if not better than the direct cable feed to the tv with the fx5200.

[nitrogen_widget]

My test media server is an old Slot A Athlon 750mhz on a FIC SD11. PVR-150, SB live! & An Evil Kyro 65mb.
A 350 GB sata drive for recordings & a 40 GB system drive on the 33/mb bus.
The system won’t boot on a promise card & won’t post with anything faster than an AGPx2 card in it.
I’m also playing with my old DXR3 DVD card but I can’t find the vga loop-back cable that came with it so even though it may play mpeg2 video with 5% cpu usage outside of GBPVR, I have to use two separate cables to watch on TV.

Recording hardly touches the CPU.
Recording, running comskip & comclean runs it at about 96%. The Pc will tank at %100 if I touch GBPVR at all at that time.
However, I can still watch video over the LAN via another GBPVR PC unit while recording without causing too many problems.
The only real issue I’ve seen is that sometimes it “forgets” to change the satellite receiver channel using the directv.exe channel changer if I record 2 back to back recordings on one channel & a 3rd recording right after on another channel.
It only happens sometimes & I think it’s because the CPU is tanking with cowslip running twice.

When I get my tax return I’m going to purchase a faster mb/cpu combo.