Pre installation LARGE Network Install questions (1 Viewer)

[etsmc]

Hello MediaPortal people,
We have been looking for a solution to streaming Live TV around our school and media portal looks like it might just do what we want but need to clarify a couple of things.
We will be using a PC with Windows 7 and a 4tuner PCIe card, i intend to install just the TVserver part of media portal on this machine. From here on in i am not sure the best way to handle the clients as we have so many, can we get away with not having to install the media portal client on the clients but watch the streams through VLC which is allready on all the machines.

 

[Zoidberg77]

Hi,
you should take a look at the MP TV-Client. It connects to the Server, let you choose which channel to watch and finally opens the stream in VLC.

 

[hafblade]

Do you want that the users on these clients are able to choose what they want to see or do you want to stream always one specific stream?

 

[etsmc]

thanks for the replys guys.. MP TV-Clien looks like it might be very handy will have to download it and give it a try once the TV card arrives.
We have a 4tuner TV card comming and would like to have the TV Server running constantly with what i assume will be 4 streams (1 from each tuner) and the clients can just connect to one of those streams (their choice as to which one).

 

[hafblade]

I would not try to "lock" 4 specific streams.
Instead of this I would only configure the channels you want to show to the people.
I wouldn't force the tv server to always have 4 running streams. The server manages the streams on its own.

With four tv cards you have the possibility to reach four transponders. Which means something between 4 and lets say 16 channels.
Be aware that you need some good and fast hard drives if there are 16 channels running (with timeshift!!!!!) at the same time.

And be aware that every user has the possibility to record channels etc. There is (as far as I know) no possibility to take rights away for the users so that I aren't able to record anymore.

 

[etsmc]

With four tv cards you have the possibility to reach four transponders. Which means something between 4 and lets say 16 channels.
Be aware that you need some good and fast hard drives if there are 16 channels running (with timeshift!!!!!) at the same time.

And be aware that every user has the possibility to record channels etc. There is (as far as I know) no possibility to take rights away for the users so that I aren't able to record anymore.

Could ramdisk help out in this situation with time shift?

Users being able to record might just be the nail in the coffin for this software then but i think its going to be a case of get it installed and tested..
Thanks for all the info guys much appreciated.

 

[mm1352000]

Could ramdisk help out in this situation with time shift?

If you're timeshifting 4 channels from the same mux then a 7200rpm HDD should be okay. Given that you seem to be from Aus I'm guessing that the channels will be MPEG 2 video. I think it should "just work".

Users being able to record might just be the nail in the coffin for this software then but i think its going to be a case of get it installed and tested..

You can "hack" a MediaPortal skin if necessary to remove recording buttons and options. I'm not familiar with the TV-Client so don't know if that is possible.
If worst came to worst you could manually start the required streams on the server and just connect to them with VLC as required. I don't think VLC can record, but could be wrong.

 

[hafblade]

No VLC can not record.
I suppose etsmc wants to use the TV Client because its a more desktop like application. Especially in a school there is no remote and people want to use the mouse to navigate.

A possibility could be to address the streams directly. So you could create intranet frontend with links to vlc with the stream attached by parameters or you could use program shortcuts to start vlc directly with some program but than you can't see epg data or something like this.


etsmc: I don't think that ramdisk is an alternative for you. When people are watching 4 channels per transponder you have a data amount of 16! channels. In worst case these are all hd channels so you have got a amount of lets say 100gb for one hour. In best case when everything is sd you have a amount of 16 gb (with ts 1gb per hour). This is only an estimation but such large amounts as ram are really difficult to support, maintain and purchase. Furthermore you have to guarantee that this system is running. It should have no hiccups. If it has the user experience will be very bad and people won't use it.

I would use at least 4 7200 rpm hard disc drives (one for every card). These should be fast enough but I don't know what happens if your are recording some things.

If tested my system which also holds 4 tv cards with 9 streams at the same time on 3 hard disc drives and everything worked fine but in normal cases I have at most 2 streams and lets say 3-4 recordings and everything works fine. Be sure that your cpu load will also increase and that it will be a public system which is always under pressure.

 

[mm1352000]

No VLC can not record.
I suppose etsmc wants to use the TV Client because its a more desktop like application. Especially in a school there is no remote and people want to use the mouse to navigate.

Yes, I understand that. I'm just proposing alternatives. I mean, MP can be configured to run in Windowed mode too, and you could disable all plugins except TV/radio and possibly configure MP to start in the TV plugin somehow. Not saying it is the best option - just that it could be an option.

A possibility could be to address the streams directly. So you could create intranet frontend with links to vlc with the stream attached by parameters or you could use program shortcuts to start vlc directly with some program but than you can't see epg data or something like this.

A playlist in VLC - one entry for each channel? VLC also has a program guide in the tools menu, but unfortunately it won't work as TV Server strips the EPG PIDs and only writes/passes the minimum necessary to view the channel.

etsmc: I don't think that ramdisk is an alternative for you. When people are watching 4 channels per transponder you have a data amount of 16! channels.

16 simultaneous streams at 10 Mbps (average HD) = 160 Mbps = 20 MBps
That is very doable with a single 7200rpm drive which might reach 150 MBps peak sequential read. The write speed would probably be the limitation.

Be sure that your cpu load will also increase and that it will be a public system which is always under pressure.

CPU load will increase a little, but not too much. The streams are not decoded on the server.

 

[etsmc]

some excelent options suggested there for the selection of channels. the webpage/intranet option would be do able, the shortcut option is anidea and could be accessed by students from a shared folder on a server so we only have one place to update. the Playlist option in VLC Looks interesting found a guide on what we want to do but it uses linux and i cant be bothered with that.. (http://angrytechnician.wordpress.co...very-channel-from-freeview-onto-your-network/) but it does say something about the playlist in VLC..
Hardware wise we will start of using a spare desktop machine for the trial and if it gets loaded up or really takes off we will build something specific. is there anyway of seeing what part of the system is bottlenecking or just a case of go through the windows performance logs and see whats happening in there?

Also networking wise i take it the clients make the connection to the server so where VLANS are involved aslong as there is aclong as there are ACL rules allowing connection to that server we are good to go? no need for multicast?

The card arrived today so once a couple of projects are out the way we will start on this one.