Author Topic: Making a music server (Read 9215 times)

jbraveman · « **on:** April 24, 2006, 02:02:52 PM »

I've been having lots of problems with corruption with a series of maxtor external hard drives that I've been using to serve up music. I have them connected to a usb hub and then to my lappy. They seem to die every few months and need to be reformatted.

I would like some suggestions about recommended barebones full sized pc that I can stuff drives into.

I'm not interested in building this from scratch. Rather, just putting in some extra drives, 24 bit soundcard, and DVD burner for backups. I have another computer for doing editing and dvd authoring so processor speed is not so important. I would like to have speedy drives and interface so backing up to optical media is not too painful. I'm not interested in RAID since I will be backing things up to DVD and/or my crappy external maxtor drives.

The machine will be stored in a closed cabinet near my entertainment center, so temperature could be a problem.

thanks for the suggestions.

Cooker · « **Reply #1 on:** April 24, 2006, 02:12:14 PM »

imo, the things you seem to not be so interested in are kinda crucial to the matter. if you aren't gonna build it yourself then i guess i would suggest a dell, maybe a Poweredge 830 or even an SC class. and i think Raid is a no-brainer especially if you're running a poweredge.

Ed. · « **Reply #2 on:** April 24, 2006, 02:12:56 PM »

www.pricewatch.com will be quite helpful to you i think.

however, if you don't know how to put the pieces in, you might have to suffer with getting a dell or something similar.

eric.B · « **Reply #3 on:** April 24, 2006, 02:26:41 PM »

firstly I think maxtor drives completely blow.. I had one fail just last month and it lasted ONE year with moderate use.. Id recommend seagate absolutely.. verrrrrrry quiet and a 5 year warranty, as opposed to the LOUD maxtor wich had a ONE year warranty..

jbraveman · « **Reply #4 on:** April 24, 2006, 04:10:06 PM »

Quote from: Cooker on April 24, 2006, 02:12:14 PM

imo, the things you seem to not be so interested in are kinda crucial to the matter. if you aren't gonna build it yourself then i guess i would suggest a dell, maybe a Poweredge 830 or even an SC class. and i think Raid is a no-brainer especially if you're running a poweredge.

I know how to put cards in and most likely a hard drive. Putting a motherboard in a case, may be a stretch for me.

I don't see the advantage of RAID when most of my music will be backed up on optical media.

thanks for the suggestions.

Cooker · « **Reply #5 on:** April 24, 2006, 04:42:25 PM »

well for one there is the cost of the optical media, the time required to back it up, the possibility that the optical backup will fail/degrade/walk away/scratch... when a raid controller will either cost you about two spindles, or be included - and drives are very cheap these days, again i think it's a no-brainer but if that's not how you choose to go then that's your prerogative.

putting a mobo in a case is a matter of three screws and two plugs. easy as pie.

Ed. · « **Reply #6 on:** April 24, 2006, 04:44:14 PM »

you can find some barebone systems online that have the processor, motherboard, and power supply in the case already. Sometimes you can even get the ram too, but thats fairly easy to do yourself.

OFOTD · « **Reply #7 on:** April 24, 2006, 05:10:39 PM »

Quote from: wericB on April 24, 2006, 02:26:41 PM

firstly I think maxtor drives completely blow.. I had one fail just last month and it lasted ONE year with moderate use.. Id recommend seagate absolutely.. verrrrrrry quiet and a 5 year warranty, as opposed to the LOUD maxtor wich had a ONE year warranty..

I would completely go the opposite way than this post. Maxtor is damn near the only brand I would buy period. I now have 14 300GB Maxtor drives in my media server and have not had a single problem with any of them, period. The Hitachi drives suck! The last Seagate I had had a great warranty and I sure did use it. Three times to be exact until I gave up and made the switch to Maxtor full time.

Now if you just always buy the cheapest drive from the cheapest line they sell then you get what you pay for. But if you buy on their mid level lines you shouldn't have any problems with any of them.

jbraveman · « **Reply #8 on:** April 24, 2006, 06:14:59 PM »

Quote from: Cooker on April 24, 2006, 04:42:25 PM

well for one there is the cost of the optical media, the time required to back it up, the possibility that the optical backup will fail/degrade/walk away/scratch... when a raid controller will either cost you about two spindles, or be included - and drives are very cheap these days, again i think it's a no-brainer but if that's not how you choose to go then that's your prerogative.

putting a mobo in a case is a matter of three screws and two plugs. easy as pie.

How hard is it to configure once it's put together?

eric.B · « **Reply #9 on:** April 24, 2006, 07:41:17 PM »

Quote from: OFOTD on April 24, 2006, 05:10:39 PM

Quote from: wericB on April 24, 2006, 02:26:41 PM
firstly I think maxtor drives completely blow.. I had one fail just last month and it lasted ONE year with moderate use.. Id recommend seagate absolutely.. verrrrrrry quiet and a 5 year warranty, as opposed to the LOUD maxtor wich had a ONE year warranty..

I would completely go the opposite way than this post. Maxtor is damn near the only brand I would buy period. I now have 14 300GB Maxtor drives in my media server and have not had a single problem with any of them, period. The Hitachi drives suck! The last Seagate I had had a great warranty and I sure did use it. Three times to be exact until I gave up and made the switch to Maxtor full time.

Now if you just always buy the cheapest drive from the cheapest line they sell then you get what you pay for. But if you buy on their mid level lines you shouldn't have any problems with any of them.

yeah not sure whether my drive was from the "cheap" line, but it began to fail exactly one month after one year.. I have since moved to two seagate drives and they seek faster, are much less noisy, and the warrenty rocks(like I said).. hmm.. how old are these maxtor drives of yours?

pjdavep · « **Reply #10 on:** April 24, 2006, 09:30:09 PM »

I'd suggest going to the Refirbished/open box section of the dell.com website and checking out their inventory. Two months ago, I scored a 2.8Ghz dual-core Intel Processor computer with an 140gb drive, cd burner, 512kb of memory, and XP pro for $535/shipped. Their inventory constantly changes (like every 15 minutes), so check back often and if you find something you like, pounce on it quick. Make sure you get a larger tower version and you'll be able to throw in quite a few storage drives for your server. I've ordered my last three computers with this method and have been very happy (never had to use the warranty). Dells are also fairly quiet.

As for drives, I agree about the comment that OFOTD made about getting the mid/upper line of drives - that was a very good point.

Later,
pjdavep

jbraveman · « **Reply #11 on:** April 24, 2006, 10:06:15 PM »

Quote from: pjdavep on April 24, 2006, 09:30:09 PM

I'd suggest going to the Refirbished/open box section of the dell.com website and checking out their inventory. Two months ago, I scored a 2.8Ghz dual-core Intel Processor computer with an 140gb drive, cd burner, 512kb of memory, and XP pro for $535/shipped. Their inventory constantly changes (like every 15 minutes), so check back often and if you find something you like, pounce on it quick. Make sure you get a larger tower version and you'll be able to throw in quite a few storage drives for your server. I've ordered my last three computers with this method and have been very happy (never had to use the warranty). Dells are also fairly quiet.

As for drives, I agree about the comment that OFOTD made about getting the mid/upper line of drives - that was a very good point.

Later,
pjdavep

+t thanks for the tip

OFOTD · « **Reply #12 on:** April 25, 2006, 12:58:15 PM »

Quote from: wericB on April 24, 2006, 07:41:17 PM

Quote from: OFOTD on April 24, 2006, 05:10:39 PM
Quote from: wericB on April 24, 2006, 02:26:41 PM
firstly I think maxtor drives completely blow.. I had one fail just last month and it lasted ONE year with moderate use.. Id recommend seagate absolutely.. verrrrrrry quiet and a 5 year warranty, as opposed to the LOUD maxtor wich had a ONE year warranty..

I would completely go the opposite way than this post. Maxtor is damn near the only brand I would buy period. I now have 14 300GB Maxtor drives in my media server and have not had a single problem with any of them, period. The Hitachi drives suck! The last Seagate I had had a great warranty and I sure did use it. Three times to be exact until I gave up and made the switch to Maxtor full time.

Now if you just always buy the cheapest drive from the cheapest line they sell then you get what you pay for. But if you buy on their mid level lines you shouldn't have any problems with any of them.

yeah not sure whether my drive was from the "cheap" line, but it began to fail exactly one month after one year.. I have since moved to two seagate drives and they seek faster, are much less noisy, and the warrenty rocks(like I said).. hmm.. how old are these maxtor drives of yours?

Well the current 300GB drives that I use are all new within the lasy 18 months or so. They are all in the DiamondMax 10 line of drives. I am using both the SATA 150 and now the SATA 300 drives. The SATA 300's smoke the 150's btw. Alot of people usually will just buy the cheapest drive on sale at Best Buy or something but I've found that if you just search a little bit longer you can find the same price thereabouts on a drive a line or two up from the one at BB or Circuit City. I have purchased several of mine off of newegg.com from their daily deals sale.

Building a music/media server really is a lot of fun. Mine started off with an old computer running a couple of external hard drives to my current server which runs a P4 3.0ghz, 1GB of RAM and a little over 4,300 gigs of hard drive space. Currently I am adding a new HD capture card to it to use a a Tivo-like box as well.

Start off easy and build piece by piece. You can find great barebones systems all sorts of places. Newegg, Dell outlet (great suggestion pjdavep) and your local Fry's if you have one. Remember that when building a media server you don't need the power of your regular machine at all. You could most likely get away with a sub 1.2Ghz processor like a P3 or older Celeron. Where you want to put your money is in the drives. With the 300's I use selling for $85 bucks now getting quality is so much easier.

You can also find great deals on motherboard/processor combos. I've seen acceptable combos go for $75 add a $40 case, $50 of RAM and one of the 300gb $85 hard drives and you're set for less than $300 total. If you know how to use a screwdriver you have all the tools you'll need. Remember that most motherboards come with built-in LAN as well as some having 24bit audio playboack possible. Pretty good deal.

Don't be scared by building your own.

jbraveman · « **Reply #13 on:** April 25, 2006, 03:18:15 PM »

Thanks for the suggestions. The refurbed Dell servers looks like a nice way to start. I defnitiely would like to keep the cost of the basic box down in the $300-500 range.

wtf · « **Reply #14 on:** April 26, 2006, 09:27:54 AM »

There are also a variety multi bay external hd enclosures. Some support RAID/SATA/etc. Run on usb or firewire. Might be easier/cheaper. Just a thought.

spyder9 · « **Reply #15 on:** April 26, 2006, 07:58:50 PM »

I 2nd the praise of Maxtor Diamondmax drives. I have a 80 gig internal that I use as my workbench for audio and video work. Had it for 3 years and has been ridden hard ........... and its still going strong. The Diamondmax is their top consumer series and is a rock, IMO.

Nick's Picks · « **Reply #16 on:** April 28, 2006, 07:56:04 PM »

what about getting a fatty network drive?
I was just looking at some at tigerdirect.com for $199 that were excellent. 300gb. You could add more, plus you could hang external USB drives off of it...though I realize that is not your game.

Another option is a few links up, here: http://www.olive.us/p_bin/?cid=01_01_symphony

phanophish · « **Reply #17 on:** April 29, 2006, 12:20:22 AM »

Dell has some pretty good deals going on Dimension systems....

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=1d51h13&s=bsd

570 with a 19" flat panel and these are very quiret systems. Just add the 24 bit sound card and a couple of BIG drives.....

jbraveman · « **Reply #18 on:** April 29, 2006, 10:09:23 PM »

Quote from: phanophish on April 29, 2006, 12:20:22 AM

Dell has some pretty good deals going on Dimension systems....

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=1d51h13&s=bsd

570 with a 19" flat panel and these are very quiret systems. Just add the 24 bit sound card and a couple of BIG drives.....

This one only has 2 internal drive bays. I'm looking for a big box that will accomodate many drives.

The build your-own option is seeming more and more appealing. This link at tigerdirect makes it seem pretty easy.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/static/html/pcbuildingtips.html

My questions have evolved more in this direction:

1) is there an ideal case? I'm not so much interested in an audio component type form factor as I am a case with plenty of size for drives.
2) is there difference between intel and AMD in terms of heat?
3) which power supply is quiet enought?

Nick's Picks · « **Reply #19 on:** April 30, 2006, 09:29:53 AM »

IMO...
the ideal PC based playbox would encorporate the SqueezeBox 3. then you dont have to worry about such things as noise, heat..etc.

what I do is run a long Toslink cable from a PC in my office directly into my DAC60. I controll it remotely w/my laptop (VnC) from the living room. rocks out! I've got about 500gb in that one music box computer. it also needs more drives, and I'm lusting after a terrabyte NAS box.

now, what would really make it all good is a Monarchy Audio DIP 2496 box at the PC. Its got a hot output that will drive a long cable with less issues like Jitter and other crap that is likely in the raw signal coming out of my chaintech sound card in the other room. 30' of Toslink is a long run. that extra push from the DIP would really tighten things up. Next time I have a spare 200, i'll pick one up.

Cooker · « **Reply #20 on:** May 06, 2006, 10:47:07 AM »

i don't think the brand of case matters much, just get a full tower.

you want to get a power supply that is 450 watt or more if you will be running a lot of drives. but, the bigger it is the louder it is.. unfortunately you can't tell how loud it is online.

you also want to get round IDE cables instead of the flat ribbon style cables. when you have a lot of drives they allow for more airflow.

it-goes-to-eleven · « **Reply #21 on:** May 06, 2006, 12:45:44 PM »

When you're building for a lot of drives (more than 2-3), I consider the case one of the most important parts of the system. It is critical for good (and quiet) airflow and the ability to mount lots of drives in a way that dampens potentially destructive vibration. It should also allow additional drives to be easily added or replaced (unless you plan to fully populate it when you build it). I prefer the 120mm case fans at lower speed over more small fans at higher speed.

The airflow required to keep the drives cool is not substantial.. It just needs to be cool and even. Round cables are not essential like in a gaming pc with a super hot graphics card. But it will get very cluttered if you put a lot of drives in so that is a good reason to just go SATA.

pigiron · « **Reply #22 on:** May 06, 2006, 06:46:20 PM »

since i always gravitate toward overkill... and i'm working with more and more 24 bit tunes... and i've been grabbing way too much music lately to do all that burning...

i built a rack mounted wireless linux jukebox... hotplug sata RAID1... PLED display... remote control... quiet... direct download off the inet... yadda, yadda. This one's not something I'd recommend for the faint of heart nor is it low budget... but it's scrumptious... 400G of gapless flacs (some in their 24 bit glory) available at the push of a button without leaving the cockpit... yummy.

in those rare instances that i want to burn CD/DVDs... well... that's why those super geniuses invented USB.

so... having made a weird one... i totally agree with everything OFOTD and Cooker said... especially about considering RAID (removeable RAID1 only requires two external bays... while my OS sits on a small internal drive) if ya got the budget... and also mentioned... before the 24 bit thing came along, the wireless squeezebox1 coupled with a decent server worked just fine and dandy.

to your other questions:

Quote

2) is there difference between intel and AMD in terms of heat?
3) which power supply is quiet enought?

2) not sure... i simply use AMD because i like an underdog... and the cheap Semperon 2000 has plenty of juice for my server.

3) get one with the big ass fan... for reference, i used this case until i went to RAID http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=15130 and it's spec'ed at 25 dbA... which is even quieter than my refrigerator and totally disappeared, even at low volumes, when run in the music room. I had a hell of a time finding a quiet 1U PS for the rack mount.

(p.s. i guess i'd better clean that filter soon

oh... and one of those "gaps" is where that brand new DAC1 goes when it comes back from repairs

)

tscales · « **Reply #23 on:** May 06, 2006, 08:23:49 PM »

For what its worth...

I just started my new job as an mechanical design engineer at a company that makes huge machines that test hard drives for failure under extreme temperture and humidity environments. Seagates are the most durable, just in terms of surviving harsh enviroments while operating. As the enviroment is made cold/hot and humid/dry the drives are given read write commands, seek commands and basically put through all the thier paces. My co-workers say Seagates outlast everything lese. And we test IBM/Hitachis Maxtors, Samsungs and WDs, just to name a few, so I trust my new co workers opinions.

it-goes-to-eleven · « **Reply #24 on:** May 07, 2006, 10:06:52 AM »

Quote from: tscales on May 06, 2006, 08:23:49 PM

I just started my new job as an mechanical design engineer at a company that makes huge machines that test hard drives for failure under extreme temperture and humidity environments. Seagates are the most durable, just in terms of surviving harsh enviroments while operating.

Congrats on the new gig!

But which Seagates? Are we talking cheapo ATA/SATA desktop drives? SCSI server drives? Laptop drives?

The other gotcha is that reliability tends to vary by model. There are definitely lots of cases in history when an otherwise 'good' mfgr introduced a drive line that had problems. Or even a bad batch. IBM comes to mind.

Fortunately, the only drive that I have that operates in rough conditions is the laptop drive in my 722. I plan on replacing that drive before it fails, though I haven't decided quite when. So any info on the reliability of laptop drives while in hot/humid conditions would be interesting.. I don't think that is typically a 'rough' application but it is definitely a hot one. So in that case I'd be more interested in selecting the drive that does well with heat vs. one that can work on a mountain bike..

Then there is the server application. I don't think those extreme environment test conditions apply to properly installed drives in servers? It would be interesting to know how the tests go for drives that operate at 30C.

jbraveman · « **Reply #25 on:** May 08, 2006, 03:57:33 PM »

I've been looking around this website quite a bit.

http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/webpage.cfm?WebPage_ID=1&DID=8

They have and sell some nice products. I'm leaning towards a full or mid tower with generous vents for fans as well as plenty of space for drives. SATA 3 also seems like a good way to go. There are some MOBO's with this on-board.

+T's all around for the suggestions.

OFOTD · « **Reply #26 on:** May 08, 2006, 05:18:20 PM »

I keep starting a reply and never finish so hopefully here is a good reply.

Currently at home I run a media server that hosts movies, tv shows, mp3's, flac's and pictures. I do not use this machine for anything else other that as a media server. Don't even have a monitor, keyboard or mouse hooked up to it. I view/listen to the content on it via my modded Xbox and a laptop.

Here are the specs on it:

Case - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811129158 The Antec case I use is very quiet and holds a ton of drives.

CPU/Mobo - Intel P4 3.0 / Asus Mobo - I got these together as a combo at my local Fry's for like $150. The mobo has onboard video/sound/LAN/SATA. It also has 5 PCI slots as well as an AGP slot.

Memory - 1GB of Corsair Value Select - It was on sale and since I don't do anything other than transfer files on this machine it was kinda of overkill but I got it super cheap.

Drives - As of 5/8 I have 1 main drive that holds the OS (40 gig) that is plugged in via the onboard PATA slot. For all of my data I have 9 Maxtor 300GB DiamondMax 10 SATA 150 drives as well 4 Maxtor 300GB DiamondMax 10 SATA 300 drives. SATA 3 is the same as SATA 300 btw.

Controller cards - I ONLY use drive controllers made by Promise Technology. (www.promise.com) They just work. I have tried a couple of others like Adaptec and whatnot and now will ONLY use the Promise cards. Super easy to setup and run great. They are 4 port SATA controllers. Two of them support SATA 150 and one supports SATA 300. The cards are PCI cards btw.

Audio card - I use and love the Echo Media brand of cards.

OS - I am using Windows XP. I had consider Server 2003 but decided it was overkill.

Display - The wife and I just bought a 50" Plasma a few weeks ago and have a DVI connection between the server and the tv.

Software - Currently I am using SnapStream BeyondTV 4 on a demo until I can find a key or a cheap retail version of it. BTV4 is similar to a Tivo. I can watch save videos as well as watch/pause/record live tv. This may not be what you are looking for but thought i'd mention it.

A few notes on cooling. For the most part anything over what is provided with the case is overkill usually. If you think you need extra cooling download a program that will give you temperature readouts of your cpu, drives, etc. You can find one of these programs for free on download.com or somewhere similar.

Nick's Picks · « **Reply #27 on:** May 23, 2006, 08:33:28 AM »

speaking of music servers...

Im in the middle of transfering all of my archived masters to HDD for playback ease. Man, this is fun. point winamp at the directory of masters, and 1200 songs come up to shuffle through at random. Its like playing a guess this rig game..., and its a blast to hear the shitty ones mixed in with the excellent ones. Gives me a much better perspective on what "good" is/was out of me efforts over the years.

I made some freakin' crispy AT853>Inbox>MD recordings!

I've got at least another 100gigs of stuff to transfer. this is going to be fun.

Not to mention a few hundred gigs for current Grateful Dead downloads. That shit fills up QUICK. I can't even keep track of what I have any more. But I guess thats a moot point. I mean, what good are lists of GD music in your collection any more? Unless they are your list of masters.

I'm just using an old Dell (1.2ghz / 340mb RAM / XPpro) that runs very quiet. Chainteck 24bit card > toslink > lite DAC60. I'd like to put DIP2496 in-line w/this setup eventualy. I'm also a fan of the promise cards, and have a single one running things. I"m still under a terrabyte of storage in mine...barely 1/2 in fact. Still, that is A LOT of music!
you've got what, 2.7tb? shit. thats silly! I want to get to that point as well.

lds490 · « **Reply #28 on:** May 23, 2006, 12:44:42 PM »

Quote from: Nick's Picks on May 23, 2006, 08:33:28 AM

speaking of music servers...

Im in the middle of transfering all of my archived masters to HDD for playback ease. Man, this is fun. point winamp at the directory of masters, and 1200 songs come up to shuffle through at random. Its like playing a guess this rig game..., and its a blast to hear the shitty ones mixed in with the excellent ones. Gives me a much better perspective on what "good" is/was out of me efforts over the years.

I made some freakin' crispy AT853>Inbox>MD recordings!

I've got at least another 100gigs of stuff to transfer. this is going to be fun.

Not to mention a few hundred gigs for current Grateful Dead downloads. That shit fills up QUICK. I can't even keep track of what I have any more. But I guess thats a moot point. I mean, what good are lists of GD music in your collection any more? Unless they are your list of masters.

I'm just using an old Dell (1.2ghz / 340mb RAM / XPpro) that runs very quiet. Chainteck 24bit card > toslink > lite DAC60. I'd like to put DIP2496 in-line w/this setup eventualy. I'm also a fan of the promise cards, and have a single one running things. I"m still under a terrabyte of storage in mine...barely 1/2 in fact. Still, that is A LOT of music!
you've got what, 2.7tb? shit. thats silly! I want to get to that point as well.

I've been working on a similar project recently - I've nearly filled my 2 drives with 450GB of FLAC files.

My computer playback is nearly identical. My question: How much computer (processor, RAM, etc.) do I need for HDTV video? I want a computer that is dedicated for media recording and playback, including a tuner card that supports HDTV. Obviously, I'll need a big HD for recording HiDef TV, but what else should I look for?

dnsacks · « **Reply #29 on:** May 23, 2006, 01:43:28 PM »

hdtv video -- I use a pIV 2.8gig with 512mb of ram (I'd recommend at least 1gb of ram) and windows mce (with an ati hdtvwonder card) -- works pretty well for over the air hdtv viewing/recording and playback (I have an occasional drop-out/stutter now and then that I'm currently attributing to needing more ram). NOTE -- It's my understanding that a computer-based setup will only work for over-the-air hdtv and is not yet compatible with cable-based (or satellite-based) hdtv content. I believe that the next version of windoze will allow for cable hdtv compatibility.

it-goes-to-eleven · « **Reply #30 on:** May 23, 2006, 01:55:50 PM »

Quote from: dnsacks on May 23, 2006, 01:43:28 PM

NOTE -- It's my understanding that a computer-based setup will only work for over-the-air hdtv and is not yet compatible with cable-based (or satellite-based) hdtv content. I believe that the next version of windoze will allow for cable hdtv compatibility.

Probably incorrect.. You can take the HD firewire output from a cable box and send it into the firewire port of your PC and mythTV will record it. This can even avoid the encoding overhead since that signal is already compressed.

http://mythtv.org

dnsacks · « **Reply #31 on:** May 23, 2006, 01:59:50 PM »

I remember reading 'bout that, but thought that this was only supported by some of the cableboxes out there.

Regardless, the implementation scheduled to be released with the next version of windows will allow the pc to act as a cable box through the use of a "cable card" to confirm access rights, decode, etc.

OFOTD · « **Reply #32 on:** May 23, 2006, 02:31:30 PM »

Quote from: dnsacks on May 23, 2006, 01:43:28 PM

NOTE -- It's my understanding that a computer-based setup will only work for over-the-air hdtv and is not yet compatible with cable-based (or satellite-based) hdtv content. I believe that the next version of windoze will allow for cable hdtv compatibility.

Thats a MCE 2005 limitation. It also depends on your hardware tuner as well. Most tuner cards use software decoding whereas the more trusted and reliable cards (Hauppauge) use hardware decoding on the fly without the need to use the main computer's resources.

lds490 · « **Reply #33 on:** May 23, 2006, 04:24:58 PM »

You guys are way beyond me. I've been looking into the HDTV tuner cards. I've located three on the market at the moment. All are over-the-air, which is what I want cause I don't have digital cable and we have several HD broadcast stations in the ATL metro area. One of these cards also will allow input of unencoded HD signals from local cable (cable companies are required to provide HD signal from area broadcast providers). However, none of the current generation of tuner cards/softward/hardware are compatible with encoded HD signal from cable or sat. I've not heard of mythTV.

Looking into these cards, most folks report that they need more CPU/Memory than the manufacturers claim. The manufacturers say something like P4 @ 1.8 MHz, 256 Mb Ram, and a sound card with at least 64 Mb RAM. I can pick up a used bare bones system (minus the sound card) with these specs for a couple hundred. For maybe $100 more I can get a faster P4 (2.8 or better) and a gig of RAM, but is that enough. Should I be looking at the newer and more expensive dual core processors? Also, what about expansion slots? The tuner card is PCI, but it seems like most graphic cards these days are PCIx or AGP. It seems like the cheap used machines are PCI only due to their age. Will I be able to get away with the cheap used P4 with 1 Gb and PCI slots only, or do I need to spend more for somewhat more modern and powerful gear?

OFOTD · « **Reply #34 on:** May 23, 2006, 04:29:55 PM »

Quote from: lds490 on May 23, 2006, 04:24:58 PM

You guys are way beyond me. I've been looking into the HDTV tuner cards. I've located three on the market at the moment. All are over-the-air, which is what I want cause I don't have digital cable and we have several HD broadcast stations in the ATL metro area. One of these cards also will allow input of unencoded HD signals from local cable (cable companies are required to provide HD signal from area broadcast providers). However, none of the current generation of tuner cards/softward/hardware are compatible with encoded HD signal from cable or sat. I've not heard of mythTV.

Looking into these cards, most folks report that they need more CPU/Memory than the manufacturers claim. The manufacturers say something like P4 @ 1.8 MHz, 256 Mb Ram, and a sound card with at least 64 Mb RAM. I can pick up a used bare bones system (minus the sound card) with these specs for a couple hundred. For maybe $100 more I can get a faster P4 (2.8 or better) and a gig of RAM, but is that enough. Should I be looking at the newer and more expensive dual core processors? Also, what about expansion slots? The tuner card is PCI, but it seems like most graphic cards these days are PCIx or AGP. It seems like the cheap used machines are PCI only due to their age. Will I be able to get away with the cheap used P4 with 1 Gb and PCI slots only, or do I need to spend more for somewhat more modern and powerful gear?

Hey let's take things one at a time here real quick with a few questions:

1. What are you hoping to do? Watch HDTV? Watch and record HDTV?

2. What tuner cards are you currently looking at?

3. Do you have a computer currently that you want to convert to a media server or will it all be new?

l

dnsacks · « **Reply #35 on:** May 23, 2006, 04:30:58 PM »

4. What device to you plan to watch hdtv broadcasts on and what input interfaces does it support (dvi, hdmi, etc.)?

lds490 · « **Reply #36 on:** May 23, 2006, 07:38:51 PM »

First, I plan to test out the ATI card with my current system. I expect it will work ok, but I am thinking of a new machine to use exclusively for A/V, including NTSC and HDTV recording/playback. I want to do it as inexpensively as possible, but I don't want to compromise on something critical (like the CPU). I'll need 24 bit audio with either optical or coaxial outputs and a video card with DVI to feed the signal into an HDTV-ready LCD TV. I just bought a PCI video card w/256 MB. I'm going to put it in my current system along with the ATI HDTV tuner card and see if I can make it work. I'll move the tuner card (and maybe the video card) into the new machine when I get it. I also need to consider options for expanding storage. So, with all this in mind, what is an appropriate computer and where is the best place to find one cheap?

Did I hijack this thread?