ANCIENT HARDWARE WORKS! I’ve upgraded because my commercial skipping plug-in keeps the CPU pegged and it struggles to keep up…but it has worked great for a year. My server is currently a AMD Athlon 3200+ (2.0GHz) machine. But, it certainly does not have to be a high-end box. Ideal Environment (easiest and least hassle, biggest bang for buck/time)Ī server. It’s a no-brainer in my book and I’ll never go back to a PC-based client. Simply put, you plug it in to your network, it finds your server, and you’re playing immediately playing any SD or HD content you need. The other alternative, which I highly recommend, is a set-top-box manufactured by SageTV called an HD Extender (UPDATE: a New Extender has been released). This can be a PC, but you’ll have to get a good video card/processor and do some considerable tweaking to get it to work right, *especially* if you’re planning on playing HD.
#Sagetv servers Pc#
It takes this analog output and converts it to digital on-the-fly so your PC can record and store it for later playback.Ĭlient: This is where you watch TV, Videos, Music, Photos, etc, from. Essentially, it will allow you to record from any HD source as it uses the Component (non-digital, non-encryptable) output.
#Sagetv servers how to#
There is a HD PVR Product that resolves this issue, and it’s from a company called Hauppauge (no, I have no idea how to pronounce that). HD video capture is tricky, because there’s encryption involved and many providers (Cable TV and others) will encrypt HD channels so your server cannot record them. For me, this is a Windows XP Windows 7 PC (Mac and UNIX flavors are available) that has a video capture card in it as well as considerable hard drive storage. Server: This is what takes a TV feed and records it, it’s where the brains are. But, I’ll give you a little insight into what’s required, and what your options are… Now, you do have to be a little computer savvy to pick up this “hobby”…because it’s not a no-brainer. There are plugin’s galore available, from Netflix (yes, I can manage my queue and find movies with my TV now) to Commercial Skipping (yes, it automatically skips commercials!) to any number of other features you never knew you wanted. The support community is massive, and direct customer service is quite good (responsive and knowledgable). Everything through my TV, with one remote. Not only does it record all my TV shows, as well as make some great recommendations on shows I’d never have found on my own, but it also houses my photographs, my own videos, my DVDs and Blu-Rays that I’ve ripped to disk, my podcasts (including video podcasts), and my music (and playlists). It’s called SageTV and is quite likely one of the greatest things ever. But whatever…Īfter trying about 6 different flavors of PVR software, I landed on one and have not turned back.
#Sagetv servers software#
Low and behold, I found an entire world of software companies out there making their own DVRs! In many cases, these are called PVRs (Personal Video Recorders). Upon making this realization, I began researching my options. Just not as flexible and feature-rich as I wanted it to be. So…I made the decision about a year ago that I was done with TiVo. I’ve spent considerable time on this “hobby” of mine, and I’d like to share with you some of the details…or at least cut-to-the-chase so you can avoid the hastles I ran into.