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Hi all,
Ok. So I'm a student apprentice at my school in the IT department, and I've managed to convince them to replace their old 'record-to-dvd-or-VHS-manually' system with a Media Centre PC, as well as two extenders in the two theatrettes at our school.
Ok, so we've already decided to go with the Xbox 360 Arcade system for the extenders (for $320, it's brilliant - the registrar will raise her eyebrows when she sees two 360's on a purchase order, I'm sure though). The noisy disc drive doesn't matter in a school environment.
So, what I'm looking at here, is a serious Media Centre server-like thing. Because it doesn't just record series and push it to the extenders, it will record shows and push it to a dedicated server that will make all of the videos available to the teachers - using multicasting, but it's important to remember that the actual files will be on the Media Centre PC not on the server.
Ok, I'm not sure if that made sense, but anyway.
Some must haves:
4 HD Tuners (Which ones? Two, dual tuners right? What ones work best/easiest in doing that hack to get them all working?)
At least 4TB of HDD space (4x1TB) - Samsung, right?
A decent processor, I'm thinking an E8500?
A working TV guide - so no x64 (I can't get my TV guide to work on my 64-bit system, I've given up)
3GB RAM (not going x64, so can't have more)
And everything else. But I really need help with the tuners, they MUST work and I HAVE to have a TV guide working properly too.
Ok. Thanks all.
Nicko,
For tuners - are you stuck with PCI or do you have PCI-e?
If you have PCI only, I think the only dual digital tuner out there is the Hauppage Nova T-500s. I ahve set a pair of these up (4 tuners total) but it was a real fiddle and required a fair bit of playing with the registry. Fine once set up, but painful to get there.
I'd go with one of the PCI-e ones if you can. I believe the Digital Now or Hauppage ones are the go, but I haven't used either of them. Perhaps someone else here who has set a pair up can give a better idea on how hard/easy they are.
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Linux is only free if your time has no value.
The following Member(s) said "Thank You!" to GlenR for this information:
Have used both Nova 500T (not 2 in the same box though) and HVR2200. I recommend the HVR2200, easy to install and run first time. There is plenty of commentary on the site at present.
Not sure if 1TB is the best "bang for buck". I built an MCE server running Vista about 5 months ago and ran up 6 x 750Gb as RAID 5. Are you considering RAID or just going JBOD?
As for the guide well in my mind its really Free*EPG or IceTV, depends on your needs and budget.
If you check my media centre on the left of this post you will find a box not dissimilar to what you are describing.
__________________
Too many toys is still not enough.
The following Member(s) said "Thank You!" to DDH for this information:
We have a "capture" machine in each our Senior and Junior Libraries.
They each have 2 DVICO PCI Tuners (before Dual Tuners) and a 500GB.
We use WebScheduler to record, IceTV for the Guide and Crunchie runs everynight and crunchies the DVR-MS files into smaller AVI files.
They are then inputted into a program called CLICKVIEW which is run on one of our servers, you then run a client program on each computer you want to watch it on and it gives you a list of everything that has been imported into CLICKVIEW.
i would suggest you look at WebScheduler rather then using the MCE/VMC interface as that can be quite slow and clumsy IMHO, plus it has all these extra things that won't be used...
WebScheduler on the other hand is designed specificly to set to record programs and intergrate with 3rd party guides.
Doing that could save you money...Do you know if your school uses a Domain? Were you planning on going Vista?
If the answer is yes, then you would need Vista Ultimate as Home Premium cannot connect to a Domain, and Vista Business does not have Media Centre.
This way you can go with XP Pro (if you need a domain), and not need to worry about Media Centre. The machine will be faster, more reliable and easier for people to use (assuming you use XP for everything...)
im still not sure what you want to use the 360's for...are they to watch recorded TV? why do you need these, you already said another server was going to publish the recorded TV and make it avaliable to all the teachers anyway... Plus, you could setup very basic machines and use them as extenders and get much more functionality out of them, ie, AMD Dual Core (4850e?), 2 GB RAM, 780g/NV8200 motherboard..using that you could output to a large 50" screen over HDMI/DVI which would also give you a better picture then using a normal 360's Componant output.
as DDH suggested, RAID 5 is probably the way to go as you get redundancy in it.
While we only have one HDD in the machine (well, OS + storage, so 2 really...) all the files once 'crunched' are stored on our SAN storage so is all raided and everything anyway
so yea, thats just my experiance at work with it...any questions, let me know
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Dilithium -> A64 X2 4850, ECS 8200A, 2x1024Mb Crucial, Onboard GF8200, 1x80Gb Seagate SATA, 2x250Gb Seagate SATA II in Stripe, Pioneer 212BK, ThermalTake Tenor, HDA X-Plosion, DVICO Dual Tuner, Acer 32" 720p LCD
Trilithium -> A64 X2 4850e, ABIT Nforce Mobo, 2x2GB DDR2-800 Patriot, Sapphire HD2400XT, 160GB Samsung SATA, Pioneer K06 DVD Burner, Hiper Slimline Chassis w/Slimline CPU Cooler, Digital Now Tiny Twin Tuner, Sound Blaster USB, Hisence 42" 1080p LCD TV :):):)
The following Member(s) said "Thank You!" to pantonious for this information:
You are right, RAID 5 would be a smart choice - but we still want to max out on storage. Motherboards generally have eight SATA ports now right? 8x1TB? Will a RAID 5 configuration work with eight drives - I'm not the greatest when it comes to RAID.
In terms of interface, I was planning on the teachers using WebGuide (http://www.asciiexpress.com/webguide/) so they can log in and set a programme to record themselves. The best bit is, it's free from Microsoft now.
Also, we might forget about using the Media Server for it (I just read more about the features of WebGuide - you can access recorded and live TV through it, teacher's are only meant to preview the show through it anyway). Plus it will probably be tied up multicasting an in-school television network we are supposed to be launching over the next couple of months.
Yeah, the 360's are to watch recorded TV (and DVD's), just be extenders. We want to go baseline cost - the Pro is $379 from WOW now. Oh, also, all 360's have HDMI ports (well, since the start of this year anyway).
Ok, we are a state school (part of Education Queensland), so, the less we have to spend the better. All of the software that I mentioned is free (Vista is only $25 under EQ and Microsoft licensing agreement).
Oh, we did take a look at ClickView, but I seem to remember it was pretty darn expensive - and we wouldn't use all of the features.
So anyway, in summary, we'd probably have a Vista-based Media Centre Server (with a lot of storage in RAID 5) that will most likely run headless and teachers/staff will access it to record (and watch recorded stuff) via WebGuide, the main viewing will be through two Media Centre Extenders in the two theatrettes (probably 360's at the moment, running HDMI to the current projectors).
I'm still interested to hear if anyone has four tuners working successfully in VMC (and without to much fiddling either). I kinda promised them that it was possible to have four working fine. So, yeah...
You are right, RAID 5 would be a smart choice - but we still want to max out on storage. Motherboards generally have eight SATA ports now right? 8x1TB? Will a RAID 5 configuration work with eight drives - I'm not the greatest when it comes to RAID.
I have an Intel MoBo running with 7 x 750Gb in a RAID 5. In short, if the MoBo has the SATA ports and supports RAID 5 then yes it will function just fine. Personally I have not gone looking for 8 port boards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nicko.dvz
I'm still interested to hear if anyone has four tuners working successfully in VMC (and without to much fiddling either). I kinda promised them that it was possible to have four working fine.
Yes, many people do. Mine are in the same machine as the afore mentioned drives.
You will need to do some work in Vista to make this work as Media Centre out of the box only works with 1 or 2 tuners of one type, ie upto 2 x digital or 2 x analogue. Not sure what you mean by "without much fiddling", you will either need to use something like MCE Tuner Extender utility or the well publicised registry hack processes. Either way, have a read in the tuners section of this community and see if you feel this is within your capabilities.
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Too many toys is still not enough.
The following Member(s) said "Thank You!" to DDH for this information:
Oh good. Thanks DDH.
So, does it matter which TV tuner(s) you use? Does it not work with some? That's what I mean, more so.
Well, I have three techies that work there including myself that can work on it, so we should be right.
Thanks again
Oh good. Thanks DDH.
So, does it matter which TV tuner(s) you use? Does it not work with some? That's what I mean, more so.
Well, I have three techies that work there including myself that can work on it, so we should be right.
Thanks again
There are some known driver issues when you have two of the same card in a machine. For example the HVR2200 did have this issue, but the driver was fixed some time back and it now works very well. The Nova 500T appears to add "ghost" tuners if you run two cards in the one machine.
So my suggestion is to stick with a dual digital tuner that others people have already setup two of with no problem. As I say, the machine I am typing on at present has 2 x HVR2200 running in it now, and has done for the past few months, with no problem at all.
__________________
Too many toys is still not enough.
The following Member(s) said "Thank You!" to DDH for this information:
There are some known driver issues when you have two of the same card in a machine. For example the HVR2200 did have this issue, but the driver was fixed some time back and it now works very well. The Nova 500T appears to add "ghost" tuners if you run two cards in the one machine.
So my suggestion is to stick with a dual digital tuner that others people have already setup two of with no problem. As I say, the machine I am typing on at present has 2 x HVR2200 running in it now, and has done for the past few months, with no problem at all.
Um. Hold on, the HVR2200 only has one tuner on it (so two in with both cards), right? I need four tuners all together. This can be done right?
