Server 08 question (1 Viewer)

[nettronic]

I am building a complete home media server for the front room, I am swapping out my existing one for my "gaming rig"

HTPC will be

Biostar TA790GX
Phenom 9950BE
Silverstone 700W modular PSU
2x2GB Gskill 1000mhz
Going to use onboard video/audio for now (HD3300), but I do have a 2600pro I can use instead
Silverstone Lascala 20 (nonVFD one)

It will eventually include
ATSC/ClearQAM tuner (undecided, maybe hauppage 1600 or 1800)
BDROM

Then my gaming PC will be
Intel DG33TL
e2180
2x2GB Gskill 667MHz
HIS HD4850

I normally run a raid stripe for OSes, but I think I am going to try running single drive for the HTPC.
200GB OS drive, 200GB for music and pictures, 320GB for downloads and/or scratch file for encoding, 750GB for video storage

Gaming rig will be left 2x80 in raid0



I have a copy of server 2008 I recieved from microsoft.

I am considering using it because since the HTPC will be the most powerful PC in the house I will want it to handle a lot of extra duties. Handbrake for encoding, maybe a linux VM (although I maybe setting up a dedicated linux box), download handler, file storage etc etc

Obviously I would rather use my V64 Ultimate as an OS so I do not have to tweak the server OS to make it run like a workstation. I do know about the DVB issue and already DLed the replacement file for it so I can run a TV tuner card on the server OS.


The problem is I am going to RDP into the HTPC, to handle these other duties, if I use a desktop OS, then I will be interfering with the default HTPC usage. As only one user can log into a desktop OS at a time. I know about VNC programs, but this would cause the same problem. (interfere with playback etc)

Have any of you used Server for your HTPC, and is it worth the hassle? OR is their another software alternative to let me manage the HTPC remotely without interfering with people watching a movie for example?

Thanks

 

[arikzinger]

Hello Nettronic

I have managed to install Mediaportal server 1.0 RC3 on a 32BIt Win2003R2 server, bat this is not supported as it it is mentioned at: FrequentlyAskedQuestions - MediaPortal Wiki Documentation

Arik.

 

[nettronic]

Yes I understand that it is not supported. I have read a lot of wikis the last few days. As well as googled alot to try and get the software setup planned out before I tear down my existing setups to make down time as minimal as possible.

Have MP installed on this rig right now to test out (XP) obviously the tough stuff i cant not play with yet as I do not have an ATSC tuner at this time (the only tuner I have is an old NTSC and it is not supported in anything after xp).

Have to say so far I am pretty impressed although I have not been able to locate keyboard shortcuts for stuff yet so alot of the time instead of just, backspacing to whatever previous page was working I have to exit out of MP and restart, a little annoying but I will eventually figure out how to control it. (Plus will have my remote hooked up)




Glad to see I am not the only one using server.. I must ask though, why did you use 2k3 as your OS?

 

[Karamu]

I must ask though, why did you use 2k3 as your OS?

Well, Windows Server 2003 is cheaper, supports more stuff, and easier to use than 08. There are probably other reasons as well.

 

[nettronic]

This is all true

I did not mean my question in that aspect however. I meant it in the direction of, why choose a server OS over a non server OS.

I am choosing mine solely for RDP reasons, if there was a good alternative I would much rather use a desktop OS just to not have to deal with so much software incompatability.

 

[Karamu]

They're not as bloated as client OSs, and are made for continous high loads as well.

 

[navalynt]

I ran Server 2008 x64 on my Media Center computer for quite a while until I found out about an AVIsynth filter called fft3dgpu which uses the GPU to a run a noise filter before passing the video to x264 for encoding. I found I could not watch an h.264 video while encoding so I ended up building a new HTPC rig and using Vista Ultimate 32bit.

Server 2008 x64 makes an excellent OS for an HTPC though. Just go to Convert your Windows Server 2008 to a Workstation! Home and they have a tool you can run which walks you through the steps of converting to a Workstation and applying the necessary tweaks. The only real problem I ran into with Server 2008 was that by default IR devices are disabled and you cannot load unsigned drivers.

I attached a RAR archive with Ready Driver Plus and the drivers for the popular Microsoft eHome Transceiver & MCE Remote. When you install Ready Driver Plus it runs a script while booting which looks strange to watch but it makes Windows boot with the "allow unsigned drivers" option so that the included MCE Remote drivers will work. It took me FOREVER to find this information online so I thought I would proactively toss these out to you.

Hope this all helps! Ohh, and have you checked out StaxRip for encoding instead of Handbrake?

 

[nettronic]

thanks

and no i have not ...


Will look into it

My MCE remote is actually an "Anyware" remote so i hope I dont have to hook it up to V install and copy the sys/cat/inf over to the server but will if i have to... MP definitly is not keyboard friendly in my limited experience

I ran Server 2008 x64 on my Media Center computer for quite a while until I found out about an AVIsynth filter called fft3dgpu which uses the GPU to a run a noise filter before passing the video to x264 for encoding. I found I could not watch an h.264 video while encoding so I ended up building a new HTPC rig and using Vista Ultimate 32bit.

I tried runnign filters on handbrake (deinterlacing, deblocking and denoise) and the developers asked me why I was ruining the picture (I thought it was very rude, but maybe it was not meant to seem that way, big problem with the internet is you can not denote inflection) Anywho... I went back to basic (no advanced settings) and I am happy with the output, so I am not sure what the filters actually do anymore...




staxrip is new soo unsure.. looks nice, but i dont see multi threaded being broadcast, and on top no network support so going to leave stuff as is for now

 

[npoenn]

if the only issue is using remote desktop to access the machine, there are registry hacks that can be applied to allow multiple user sessions with the non-server editions of windows