TVServer or Multiple tuner cards (1 Viewer)

[plotto]

Hi,
Is there an advantage to using TVserver over having Seperate PC's with tuner cards?

Here is my setup.(all stored in a server rack in the garage)
I have a Server, that holds all my music and video files and photos. It aslo has a DVB-S Card. It drives the main screen, HDMI, in the Lounge. Delivers Caller ID to all other PC's as well.
There are another 5 x PC's each with HDMI, DVB-S and running MP ( these deliver MP over HDMI to the bedrooms, rumpus and Kitchen (via Cat6 with converters) Audio is via the individual PC, thru Multizone amp to ceiling speakers in each room. (Once again these PC's are all stored in a rack in the garage)
The PC's get all media they require from the server.

If I was to use TVserver I would have to install more than one DVB-s card in to it so users could watch different channels simulatneously. So is there any advantage at present to using the TVserver over the setup I have currently got?


Thanks in advance

 

[charli181]

have alook at this page and it shows the diffence between the in built TVE2 and TVServer (TVE3).TV-Engine 0.3/overview - MediaPortal Wiki Documentation

Also the TVE3 has the capability of running master/slave opperations so if run out of PCI slots in one machine for your tv Cards, then a second can be setup. Also please not that if 2 clients want to watch the same channel at the same time, they will only use one TV Card (nifty eh)

Another advantage would be that each client has access to all 5 dvb-s cards so if recording is scheduled the TV Server will pick a card that is free. By the looks of your current setup, if you setup recording on one PC, you could not use it to watch tv whicslt the recording is happening. TV Server will find another card to use in this scenario.

PS - you could even run TV Server across all 5 machines in master slave, if you wanted max redundancy.....