Moving tasks to a dedicated pc...ideas

dan7827

dan7827

dan7827

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I’m looking to off load some tasks from my main pc to a dedicated system so they can run 24/7 and free up the pc. These are TV recording (dual Digital Tuner card) currently using GB-PVR and Virtual Machines mainly linux (CentOS 64bit) in vmware

I am not sure what would work best but was thinking along the following lines
  1. Moving virtual machines on to a dedicated windows pc + alternative TV prog
  2. Running CentOS on the dedicated pc + alternative TV prog
  3. For both of the above a server/client type TV recording & scheduling program

What do you experts reckon :confused:
 
So you are thinking of running VMs on top of a Windows box which also runs the TV recording software? Sounds fine if you have modern hardware and plenty of RAM.

You might want to look into a wired network if you haven't already if you are going to be shifting lots of large files. Wireless is pants for that sort of thing.
 
Thanks for the speeeeedy reply :)

It's all currently running on my main pc, major downside is for the recording of TV shows based on the schedule requires the pc to be on 24/7, similar story with virtual machines so a dedicated pc sounds like the answer, just not sure which os and setup to got for and alternative TV recording software designed for this thing.
 
Can't help with the PVR software but I'm sure someone else can.

If you don't already have a Windows license you might want to see about pre-ordering Windows 7 which is pretty cheap at the moment. Home should suffice, wouldn't bother with Pro. If you have spare legit copy of XP I'd bung that on to save money but if you're planning on running multiple VMs then you'll want as much RAM as you can afford then 64bit becomes an issue (I'm guessing you don't have a spare copy of XP64 lying around). Alternatively, you could use Linux but it depends how well your tuner card is supported, you'd have to look into that I don't know much about it.

You should easily be able to remote desktop into the box and perform admin tasks and use the VMs. :)
 
Windows would be the easy option, could be as easy as copying things over to a spare pc I have that MIGHT be suitable (DDR is the limiting factor) but could always get a better pc for the job when I know what specs are required/supported by the PVR prog.

Reason I thought running everything on an install of centOS would be easier is I could ditch running vmware all together so hopefully a low power system would do and not much mem would be needed by the PVR prog for recording shows & streaming to other pcs.
 
dan7827 said:
Thanks for the speeeeedy reply :)

It's all currently running on my main pc, major downside is for the recording of TV shows based on the schedule requires the pc to be on 24/7, similar story with virtual machines so a dedicated pc sounds like the answer, just not sure which os and setup to got for and alternative TV recording software designed for this thing.
Click to expand...

GB-PVR can schedule windows to turn its self on again, so you can make it go into sleep mode if it's been idle for a while (vista has lots of configuration options for this) and wake up when it needs to :).

In GB-PVR go to the config utility > capture sources > wake machine.
 
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Sleep mode would be handy if there weren't any virtual machines but I could do with them running 24/7. Seems a dedicated pc is the way to go, what software would you recommend?
 
An update on the search for PVR software. For windows the name that keeps coming up is GB-PVR which I already use but not for streaming, it has a few issues on a standalone pc so the question is...is it any better at streaming?

For linux MythTV seems to be the one to go for, is it better then GB-PVR? if so would it be worth going the linux route to get a better PVR solution?

Thanks for the help so far.
 
I use GB-PVR purely for recording (it saves as mpegs) and watch the recordings using XBMC on my xbox. XBMC is great and can be downloaded for Windows, OSX and Linux too.
 
Thanks, will take a look at that. Is it more of a media library streaming prog than PVR? i.e. can you view tv guide and edit scheduled recordings

Also, just a thought...can you stream to a ps3 with it?
 
After a quick search I came across this thread http://forums.gbpvr.com/showthread.php?t=7095 (even though it is on the gbpvr forums) I think it will be easier to stick to gbpvr and copy it over since the channels/tuner and other settings are already sorted.

Thanks for all the help and if there are any improvements to the setup please let me know.
 
I would also consider Mediaportal as well as it has a GUI front to it for the main tasks, but also a seperate tv service for recording.
 
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