England
Just my 2p worth...
I have recently gone over to a dedicated TV server. I asked the guys on this forum about the OS and the general consensus was to stick with Win7 x86 as the drivers for the TV cards would work without issue. I went for a high end processor, a 6 core AMD Phenom II 3.4 Black Edition as I do a lot of transcoding, and I went with 16Gb RAM. Although Win7 only uses 4Gb, the remaining RAM is used as a RAMDisk for timeshifting live TV.
Everything is on a 60Gb SSD and the server is headless and is accessed via remote desktop connection. It has a dedicated recording drive and then three main storage drives, one each for movies, TV series and music. These backup each week to a dedicated HDD that just mirrors the storage drive - no raid or anything. HDD's have come back down in price and I just wanted a simple solution.
I run three wired clients off this using a gigabit network and a Cisco SG200-08 smart switch. Two of the clients are Zotac ID41 ZBoxes with 30Gb SSD's and 2Gb RAM. These are mounted behind the flat screen TV's in the bedroom and kitchen. They work well, are very quiet and play full HD without problems. The ID41 has now been superseded and a faster version exists. The third client is the remains of what started off as my original HTPC in the lounge.
On all three clients I use the MCE RC6 remote control as it works out of the box with MP. They are cheap enough off eBay and the consistency helps the GF
. The three clients are setup with identical plugins and skins to help improve the WAF, but she is now used to it and doesn't really start whining much these days. The dedicated server has helped a lot with system consistency, and I am pleased I did it.
I get TV channel changes on the clients varying between two seconds up to about 4 seconds depending on whether it is HD or SD, it could possibly be quicker, but I'm OK with that. Seeking through recorded TV or movies is really instant.
I also run a batch convertor on the server to auto convert recorded files into .m4v format. This allows me to play the files on smartphones & tablets. I installed "Qloud Server" (for WP7) and also "Serve To Me" (for iOS 5 & 6 stuff) to stream all the media files over WiFi to my WP7 phone and the GF's Apple based stuff, which is really great. I can sit around in the house and catch up on stuff using my phone and headphones, and not need the TV on
I also use two wireless clients (HP laptops) but only for SD stuff, HD media doesn't stream at all well using WiFi.
My detailed specs can be found below in my signature. I hope that helps some, for me it was a hard decision on which direction to go in, but the great (and very knowledgeable) guys on here pointed me in the best direction for me and I'm grateful for their advice and input.
Good luck and keep us posted on progress.
I have recently gone over to a dedicated TV server. I asked the guys on this forum about the OS and the general consensus was to stick with Win7 x86 as the drivers for the TV cards would work without issue. I went for a high end processor, a 6 core AMD Phenom II 3.4 Black Edition as I do a lot of transcoding, and I went with 16Gb RAM. Although Win7 only uses 4Gb, the remaining RAM is used as a RAMDisk for timeshifting live TV.
Everything is on a 60Gb SSD and the server is headless and is accessed via remote desktop connection. It has a dedicated recording drive and then three main storage drives, one each for movies, TV series and music. These backup each week to a dedicated HDD that just mirrors the storage drive - no raid or anything. HDD's have come back down in price and I just wanted a simple solution.
I run three wired clients off this using a gigabit network and a Cisco SG200-08 smart switch. Two of the clients are Zotac ID41 ZBoxes with 30Gb SSD's and 2Gb RAM. These are mounted behind the flat screen TV's in the bedroom and kitchen. They work well, are very quiet and play full HD without problems. The ID41 has now been superseded and a faster version exists. The third client is the remains of what started off as my original HTPC in the lounge.
On all three clients I use the MCE RC6 remote control as it works out of the box with MP. They are cheap enough off eBay and the consistency helps the GF
. The three clients are setup with identical plugins and skins to help improve the WAF, but she is now used to it and doesn't really start whining much these days. The dedicated server has helped a lot with system consistency, and I am pleased I did it.I get TV channel changes on the clients varying between two seconds up to about 4 seconds depending on whether it is HD or SD, it could possibly be quicker, but I'm OK with that. Seeking through recorded TV or movies is really instant.
I also run a batch convertor on the server to auto convert recorded files into .m4v format. This allows me to play the files on smartphones & tablets. I installed "Qloud Server" (for WP7) and also "Serve To Me" (for iOS 5 & 6 stuff) to stream all the media files over WiFi to my WP7 phone and the GF's Apple based stuff, which is really great. I can sit around in the house and catch up on stuff using my phone and headphones, and not need the TV on
I also use two wireless clients (HP laptops) but only for SD stuff, HD media doesn't stream at all well using WiFi.
My detailed specs can be found below in my signature. I hope that helps some, for me it was a hard decision on which direction to go in, but the great (and very knowledgeable) guys on here pointed me in the best direction for me and I'm grateful for their advice and input.
Good luck and keep us posted on progress.
