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From: Sue Morton on 4 May 2010 07:07
Russ -

> We only have an antenna, no cable right now. The only other uses I
> plan for this is an ftp server (best free kind?) and for the
> occasional bit-torrent.

Since you only have antenna extra CPU should not be necessary unless you
try to do too much at once (more likely to overload the I/O). If you
end up taking in any analog sources you will need extra CPU muscle,
doesn't sound likely that you will from what you've described.

I use ZFTPServer free version for my personal use (I'm the only one
connecting other than the occasional authorized guest). And there is
always the ever-popular FileZilla (server and client available).

I wouldn't recommend FTP or P2P unless you're positive nothing else
(recording or watching-wise) is going on that box. Too many TCP/IP
connections (P2P) and disk I/O (FTP) and the box will hiccup and/or lock
up... you'll miss recordings and/or your SO will not be able to watch
something and you'll be in the doghouse for buying the thing (ask Bob
Donald :-) )


> BTW, how did your post get so strangely formatted?

It's just plain text, nothing to format... not sure what you're seeing?
I do use a few different newsreader installations, some are configured
for mime plain text and others are configured for uuencode plain text.
Check your XNews setup for this group? Perhaps it's not interpreting
one or the other as plain text?

--
Sue Morton


From: Sue Morton on 4 May 2010 07:10
G'Bo's correct, there's no CPU involved on the inbound HD because it's
already MPEG-2 video (DVD) format. It does hit the I/O hard. The
compressed streams help a bit. But multiple streams are often carried
in the signal and that adds up to a lot more data. IIRC G'Bo cut out the
streams he doesn't need to record...?
--
Sue Morton

"Glennbo"
> "Bob Donald"
>> Yeah, that thing has been cranking constantly for you for what, 2 and
>> a half years? I think HDTV would be harder on the cpu though,
>> wouldnt
>> it? Since it's software encoding, and most cards that record SDTV
>> have the encoders built into them, at least the ones I've seen. I
>> know that there is no re-processing, but isnt the initial recording
>> of
>> the stream hitting the cpu pretty hard?
>
> I believe the digital stuff being already digital, only needs to be
> written
> to the HD, which is fairly independent of the CPU. Recording an
> analog
> source like SDTV requires converting it from analog to digital, and
> many
> cards have onboard MPEG encoder chips to take the stress of the CPU.
> I
> don't know how much the CPU gets involved with hardware chip encoders,
> but
> I'm pretty sure the CPU does almost if completely nothing to simply
> record
> a byte of incoming data to the hard drive.


From: Sue Morton on 4 May 2010 08:32
Russ... one more thought...

If you want to start out "free" on the software front, you could
consider linux and Myth TV, if linux drivers are available for your
tuner card, NIC, etc. I used SageTV on Linux for a few years for my
tuner farm server and it was great (server only, no client). When I
changed hardware on that box there were either no linux drivers or the
ones available didn't work well. If you're lucky on that front you
could give that a try before investing in SageTV. You will need to
cover the WAF while you experiment however. OTOH, basic SageTV with few
or no customizations can be up and running very quickly and most SO's
like OOB.
--
Sue Morton


From: Bob Donald on 4 May 2010 11:31
LOL. Yeah Russ, the one from Best Buy.

> I hope you mean the one from Best Buy... ;)

> Hard disk, not Hi-Def. Dang, didn't even think about what HD means with
> video...

We've all been there, did you mean hard disk or Hi Def! Now we try to
include HDD and HDTV to avoid confusion :)

> I might want to record some things to higher quality for editing in Vegas
> but I'm still lost with all the freakin' video codecs.

You will definitely have this option. I just did that with the super bowl
performance of The Who. My drummer couldnt watch it and didnt have a method
to record it. I just told sage the starting point and duration, and it
chopped it out and into a video file for me. I didnt even need to fire up
Vegas! As Glennbo said <and I'm paraphrasing>, you will be amazed with the
differences between an HTPC and a DVD recorder.

Bob


From: Bob Donald on 4 May 2010 11:34
Ya know, I didnt even think to check about that with SageTV. Beyond TV used
streamsnip to remove the extraneous streams. I'm going to have to check on
how Sage handles it now.

"Glennbo" <vdrumsYourHeadFromYourAss(a)cox.net> wrote in message
news:Xns9D6E584CA8F01BrownShoesDontMakeIt(a)85.214.78.28...
> The killer robot "Sue Morton" <867-5309(a)domain.invalid> grabbed the
> controls of the spaceship cakewalk.audio and pressed these buttons...
>
>> G'Bo's correct, there's no CPU involved on the inbound HD because it's
>> already MPEG-2 video (DVD) format. It does hit the I/O hard. The
>> compressed streams help a bit. But multiple streams are often carried
>> in the signal and that adds up to a lot more data. IIRC G'Bo cut out
>> the streams he doesn't need to record...?
>
> Because I'm recording HDTV from cable using QAM, the other streams are
> already stripped out, as they appear on different cable channels. For
> my one tuner that grabs HDTV out of the air, it gets the sub-carrier
> stuff stripped out *after* it's been recorded IIRC. I only use the OTA
> tuner when I need to record a third HDTV program at the same time as my
> HD Homerun is recording two other HDTV programs using QAM on cable.
>
> --
> Remove YourHeadFromYourAss to Reply by email
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