Originally posted by: coolred
Hey folks, I am in the process of building a multi tuner PC based PVR/HTPC. I know psxjunky currently has I think a 4 tuner system. I don't know if I will need that many, but if I do is it better to put all 4 in one machine, or shoudl I put like 2 tuners in 2 differant computers?
Yes, I have all 4 tuners in the same machine, but that is definitely not necessary. You can put a few of the tuners in a different machine and use the network encoder feature of Sage. I have not done this myself so I can't tell you the details, but I have seen a few people on the Sage forums mention that they use this feature and it seems to work well for them.
Would this cost more using the sageTV software?
I
think you do not need a separate license for the remote machine which has the network tuners, but you should check with someone who has actually done this to make sure this is the case. If my assumption is right, then it should not cost anymore.
There are couple advantages of NOT putting all the tuners in the same machine. You could get by with a smaller machine. Less heat, hence less need for cooling, hence less fan, hence less noise.
I know there are the sageTV software, the client software and the recorder software, not sure of all the differance sin them.
SageTV and Sage Recorder are the two programs that actually allow you to do the recording. Sage Recorder is a "lite" version of SageTV which only allows time based recording ... no guide support. So Sage Recorded is basically nothing more than a digital VCR. SageTV is the full fledged PVR solution allowing guide based as well as time based recording.
SageTV Client is very similar to the full SageTV app as far as look and feel goes, but it doesn't support recording, and hence needs to be used along with the SageTV app. The main purpose of the SageTV client is to put on a second PC in a second room which talks to the main SageTV server and streams shows over your network while allowing you to access the recorded shows using the same SageTV GUI.
Since Sage records the shows in straight MPEG2, you don't really need the SageTV Client program to view the recorded shows; as long as you have access to the drive containing the recorded shows, you can play them using any MPEG2 player, including Windows Media Player.
Check out the Sage product pages for more details.
I wasnt to be able to watch a recorded show or even live TV if thats possible on any PC on my network. I am prettys ure sage can do this, just not sure which of those software packages are required to get it done.
You need SageTV on your main PC to record the shows. To view the recorded shows from a remote PC, you can either play the MPEG2 files directly or use SageTV Client on the remote PC. To view live TV from a remote PC, you must have Sage Client.
One reason i ask is because I had planned to use an Antec Aria for my new system and it only supports up to 3 PCI cards, so that would limit me to a maximum of 3 tuners, thats assuming I have no other PCI cards. So if thats not enough room, then I i will have to use my tower rig as the PVR. Thats not really a problem, I just want to figure out what systemw ill be doing what, so I can get exactly what I need parts wise.
Thanks
Hopefully the above explanation will answer your questions. If you have more questions, let me know or (even better) ask them in the
SageTV forums (there are lot more very helpful folks out there in the forums).
Good luck !