Wanting to build dual InfiniTV4 PC for Whole Home setup

[Telo]

Hi, new guy here. I would like to know which would be a better option as to what to use to build my Cable/DVR PC. I can go with either an Intel i5 3570K, or an AMD A10-5800K, or an AMD FX-8350.

What I mainly need to know is if the dual InfiniTV setup would even take advantage of more cores than 2. Since this box is just going to be receiving, decoding, broadcasting [network wise], and recording does it require a video card? If it does require it, is there benefits on having a dual video card solution installed?

In case you are wondering why this proposed approach, I currently have Dish Network service and selecting all channels [except PPV and porn] it is running me about $200 due to using 6 TVs. Just trying to change providers is not a solution since in some cases it comes close or over the current monthly charge. Resigning for another 2yr contract with Dish does provide some wiggle room the first year, but after month 13 it goes back to the old pricing or more. I need to cut off the extra receiver fees in order to proactively cut down this bill. Currently Time Warner Cable CableCard fees are just $2.50 for the first one [including tunning adapter], and $4.00 for the second card.

I own a couple of XBOX360 consoles and a pair of XBMC boxes, so I can use them as the media extenders; hell, I would even consider getting Ceton Echos because I know in the long run it will save me a boat load. Thanks in advanced for your input and assistance.

-Telo

[JohnW248]

Before you get started, this isn't always a way to save money.

I would suggest that you think about 2 USB 4 tuner Ceton devices instead of two incase PCIe 4 tuner units. The reason: Heat. It's far easier to cool the USB tuner and if you have any issue that you need to reboot one device, it's simple with the external USB devices and you have to restart the machine to do it if running internals.

Only use a single video card because with a dual card device you could get into deep water with DRM. You can only display protected content on a single screen and setting up dual graphic cards can confuse the user and playready. You can use I think up to five extenders. While processing power isn't a big issue with recording video, what is an issue with multiple tuners and extenders is memory and hard drives. You have to record to disc owned by the computer. They can be internal or external estat, usb 3.0 or the like. I have had excellent results with sans digital towers which hold up to five esata drives and have a built in port multiplier. I made one mistake with one tower and set it up as a Raid 5. apparently with all the read writes with recording and watching tv would overwhelm the device or the rocket raid card....they will work just fine as JBOD and you can move recordings to a NAS which can be recognized as a media library on Media Center. You have to also set it up with each extender since they all have their own user accounts and eventhough recorded tv will show up on the extender, it won't play unless the NAS is set up in media libraries for that device.

You also need to find out about your cable provider, how much do they encrypt and copy protect? Do they use SDV? etc.

[Telo]

It is not as much about saving money as it is about not giving Dish so much money for the same old service. Their fees go up and I don't even get notified of the change; hence why I do not mind spending money on my own hardware that would allow me to receive/decode/record/broadcast.

I have around 16GB of RAM available for the box; I also have [2] 3TB internal SATA3 drives. Does it need to he a powerhouse card, or can it be a simple [AMD HD6870] card with an HDMI output?

As far as I know, they use SDV, since they provide the tunning adapters with the CableCards. I know I have to call them and get the specifics as to how they encrypt and such, I just wanted to get an idea of what I can get away with build wise. Since you recommend the USB InfiniTV4 route, then I can use a box I already have built as one of my HTPCs:

CPU - i5 2500K
MB - ASRock Z77E-ITX
RAM - 16GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3 1866
VGA - AMD HD6870
HDDs - [1] 128GB SSD, [2] 3TB 7200rpm

Let me know if you don't recommend that setup. Thanks again.

-Telo

[mdavej]

Looks like a good setup to me. That HD6870 video card is way more than you'll ever need for an HTPC. My $15 HD6450 is plenty, and it has only a fraction of the performance of your card. I went with PCI tuners since they take no additional space in my rack. I've got really good cooling, so heat isn't a problem for me. I guess another thing that helps is my video card is only 30W.

I assume, since you're concerned about the video card, that one of your 6 TVs will be connected directly to the HTPC. That's pretty much how it will work anyway since the extender limit is 5.

Realize that XBMC is not a WMC extender, so that will be relegated to other streaming content besides cable. Personally, I would put extenders (Xbox, Echo, DMA2100, etc.) on all 5 remaining TVs. I also use an extender on my main TV, but that's not an option for you.

FWIW, after years with DirecTV and a few more years with Dish, I reluctantly went the HTPC/Cable TV route like you because satellite was costing a fortune and I couldn't stand the cable company's antiquated DVRs. I thought managing a PC would be a huge inconvenience. But once I got everything set up properly, it's fantastic. I use regular IR remotes for all my TVs and extenders, so the end user experience is the same as it was with satellite. I'm saving a ton of money, quickly paying for all my hardware costs.

Having said that, there are some trade offs. I miss multiple live buffers, PIP and recording from the buffer. But the added gains offset losing those few features. I gain internet streaming, online radio streaming, easy access to my personal music/video/photo library, Netflix, Hulu, BBC, etc. I also though I would lose sling capability, but Remote Potato (some use Plex) takes care of that. Overall, I'm very happy I made the move.

Good luck.

[adam1991]

You can have as many extenders as you want--but only 5 up and running at a time.

XBox is the extender. Period.

You will need RAM plus a processor core for each extender that's active.

Recording, distributing, and watching TV requires very little horsepower. Prioritize your requirements: storage space, network stability/bandwidth amount of cores/RAM for extenders, and so on. But raw power/speed isn't the issue. A slow 5400rpm drive will serve all six TVs simultaneously. Get thee a rock-solid gigabit switch and good solid cabling throughout the house. Yes, wired. The moment you try to step down from this ("but I really want wifi to work because I don't want to take the time/effort to run wires!" or "can't I use my existing fifteen year old cat3 stuff, are you sure?") is the moment the WAF goes to hell.

Just let Windows gang up those two 3TB drives and go to town.

You *may* consider not even hooking the 7MC box up to the TV at all--instead, let extenders do all the duty. That keeps grubby hands off the 7MC box itself. There are tradeoffs for that, though. Just be aware.

[JohnW248]

I have around 16GB of RAM available for the box; I also have [2] 3TB internal SATA3 drives. Does it need to he a powerhouse card, or can it be a simple [AMD HD6870] card with an HDMI output?

-Telo

If you intend to use HBO/Cinemax and in some cases Showtime, AMD is not a choice. Nvidia handles what we call the 29/59 error that appears on most all cable systems that sell HBO services. It doesn't have to be an expensive Nvidia card, I use 430s and it won't impact your extenders.

BTW, while you can have more than five extenders, you have to use extenders that don't start automatically into media center, the Ceton Echo does that, Linksys and HP280n will sit on the network powered up and waiting and smiling but not using resources on the box until started.

I have some large libraries of recorded tv shows and movies on servers so when I reboot a machine and start an extender, I need to space them out (I allow about an hour between extender starting but then they can stay on line without issue if connected properly to tv sets) with 24 gig of Ram on an i7 it will use up to 90 per cent of the memory while it builds the indicies but then drops down to 25-30 percent in operation. An HP with fewer extenders and only 8 gigs of ram on a quad core AMD runs about 50 percent memory. If you live on just your two 3TB drives, you should be just fine with what you have planned, but I find a quad core is better than a dual core and single core won't play HD unless its the only thing running on the box.

[Telo]

OK, here is what I've gathered so far:

Extenders should be Xbox360 consoles.
If I plan on maxing out extenders, I need a CPU core per extender, so the FX-6300 or the FX-8350 would be the logical route.
Nvidia based VGA is a better option than an AMD VGA.
Go with a MB that can handle around 32GB of RAM.
If I plan correctly [cooling wise] I might be able to use internal tuners.


As for a few other points:
I considered the XBMC because of this post: http://www.missingremote.com/news/2012- ... tuner-xbmc
I should be able to cable most of the house, and I also use ethernet-over-power adapters [the 200Mbps models] which give me a very good link to my CentOS based Media Server/File Server.
I don't believe I will connect a TV directly to the box itself. My main concern are the Living Room, Bedroom, Basement TVs; I feed signal to [2] TVs at my mother in law's floor, so will have to figure out how to get a wired setup there since the EoP adapters don't have a wired path, both apartments have a separate electricity meters.
I can add more HDDs to the box if the 3TB drives don't cut it.


Thanks again for all the replies and tips, very much appreciated.

-Telo

[mdavej]

The reason XBMC is not a good solution is that even with the new plugin, it can still only do live TV, not recordings. If that's not an issue in your case, then there's no problem using them.

[choliscott]

I figure I would post my 2 cents. I am currently running 2 infinitv4 pci along with running a total of 5 extenders (4 360's & 1 Echo) & have not seen any problems as far as speed & response of the switching channels & watching video goes. I did have an issue with trying to schedule recordings when I tried running a infinitv4 usb (and also a HR prime), where it took 5 minutes to schedule a show, but once I removed the 3rd device, it's been working beautifully).

You mentioned you have an I5 2500k. My HTPC is running a I5 2500k with 8 GB ram, using onboard video. I have a 240 GB SSD & 4 - 2 TB as recording drives. I have yet to see or hear any complaints about the video studdering or it taking "a minute" to respond to the remote commands from the extenders. I do know there are plenty of times when most, if not all of the tuners are in use & no problems.

Since you already have the I5 & a couple of Xboxes already, I would probably suggest on making the I5 become your main HTPC, with possibly using that on your main tv (or the tv it's closest to, if in the same room) & then using the 2 xboxes for the extenders & seeing if you think there are issues with response, speed, etc

[JohnW248]

OK, here is what I've gathered so far:

Go with a MB that can handle around 32GB of RAM.
If I plan correctly [cooling wise] I might be able to use internal tuners.


As for a few other points:
I considered the XBMC because of this post: http://www.missingremote.com/news/2012- ... tuner-xbmc
I should be able to cable most of the house, and I also use ethernet-over-power adapters [the 200Mbps models] which give me a very good link to my CentOS based Media Server/File Server.

-Telo

To run 32GB of Ram, you'll have to get Win7 64 Pro and not Home Prem which I think caps out at around 16 Gigs, All I know is I had to upgrade when I put in 24 Gig Ram. BTW whatever you have Windows will use when bringing the extenders up and if you have thousands of recorded tv shows it takes a while (I do).

As for XBMC, you should check your cable company's encryption and copy protection. As far as I know right now, anything marked Copy once (that's virtually everything on TWC) you can only use Media Center and a Media Center extender. Those programs you can't scan with commercial detectors, play on other computers or burn bluray or DVDs. You can store a program on a DVD in native .wtv format but it will only play on the system that made the recording and the associated extenders that are hooked to that box.

[foxwood]

Go with a MB that can handle around 32GB of RAM.

You don't need 32GB of RAM. You'd probably get by with 8, though at current prices I'd probably go for 16 if I was planning to run 5 extenders, even though it'll probably never be used.

You also don't need a hugely powerful CPU - most cable content is received, stored and streamed as MPEG2 - there is no transcoding performed, just basic network and disk I/O, and while recorded TV files are big, they also take a long time - 6GB over an hour is less than 14Mbps.

[Telo]

The reason XBMC is not a good solution is that even with the new plugin, it can still only do live TV, not recordings. If that's not an issue in your case, then there's no problem using them.

The recordings I will be placing in my media server, which my XBMC boxes are manually mapped to and can playback the files.

[Telo]

I figure I would post my 2 cents. I am currently running 2 infinitv4 pci along with running a total of 5 extenders (4 360's & 1 Echo) & have not seen any problems as far as speed & response of the switching channels & watching video goes. I did have an issue with trying to schedule recordings when I tried running a infinitv4 usb (and also a HR prime), where it took 5 minutes to schedule a show, but once I removed the 3rd device, it's been working beautifully).

You mentioned you have an I5 2500k. My HTPC is running a I5 2500k with 8 GB ram, using onboard video. I have a 240 GB SSD & 4 - 2 TB as recording drives. I have yet to see or hear any complaints about the video studdering or it taking "a minute" to respond to the remote commands from the extenders. I do know there are plenty of times when most, if not all of the tuners are in use & no problems.

Since you already have the I5 & a couple of Xboxes already, I would probably suggest on making the I5 become your main HTPC, with possibly using that on your main tv (or the tv it's closest to, if in the same room) & then using the 2 xboxes for the extenders & seeing if you think there are issues with response, speed, etc

So you are able to use the on board card, by that you mean the IGP on the 2500K through the MB's HDMI port? Do you get the issue a previous poster mention? The one that can be resolved by using an nVidia VGA instead.

[Telo]

To run 32GB of Ram, you'll have to get Win7 64 Pro and not Home Prem which I think caps out at around 16 Gigs, All I know is I had to upgrade when I put in 24 Gig Ram. BTW whatever you have Windows will use when bringing the extenders up and if you have thousands of recorded tv shows it takes a while (I do).

As for XBMC, you should check your cable company's encryption and copy protection. As far as I know right now, anything marked Copy once (that's virtually everything on TWC) you can only use Media Center and a Media Center extender. Those programs you can't scan with commercial detectors, play on other computers or burn bluray or DVDs. You can store a program on a DVD in native .wtv format but it will only play on the system that made the recording and the associated extenders that are hooked to that box.

My HTPC has Win7 Pro 64bit, it is using 16GB right now because the ITX board in it only has 2 slots and the RAM I had on had was 8GB each stick. I will either build a system with 32GB or look into upgrading this one. Problem is the PCIe slot VGA, this ITX MB only has one PCIe 16x slot which is used by the HD6870 that I use for my Wii emulator. If I have to get an nVidia VGA then I would have to figure out which supports my current demands.
Thanks for the tip on the TWC content... I might just have to hassle one of the reps today and get my answers.

[Telo]

Go with a MB that can handle around 32GB of RAM.

You don't need 32GB of RAM. You'd probably get by with 8, though at current prices I'd probably go for 16 if I was planning to run 5 extenders, even though it'll probably never be used.

You also don't need a hugely powerful CPU - most cable content is received, stored and streamed as MPEG2 - there is no transcoding performed, just basic network and disk I/O, and while recorded TV files are big, they also take a long time - 6GB over an hour is less than 14Mbps.

I kind of guess 32GB would be overkill, but I rather have extra than not enough. Thanks for the breakdown of the process, didn't know how much actually took place when the video was sent over the network to the extenders.

[foxwood]

Problem is the PCIe slot VGA, this ITX MB only has one PCIe 16x slot which is used by the HD6870 that I use for my Wii emulator.

That's not going to be a problem. Asking a machine that's hosting 6 extender sessions to also play games is a bit stupid. Even if CPU usage isn't a problem, you won't be able to reboot the machine when you need to, without inconveniencing your TV users.

Just build a dedicated HTPC, and keep your existing build for playing games.

[foxwood]

So you are able to use the on board card, by that you mean the IGP on the 2500K through the MB's HDMI port? Do you get the issue a previous poster mention? The one that can be resolved by using an nVidia VGA instead.

In most cases, the problem is only present on HBO. The usual recommendation is to see if it's a problem, and only add a card if the IGP can't handle it, though obviously if you're buying a motherboard anyway, it makes sense to buy one with enough slots.

[adam1991]

Problem is the PCIe slot VGA, this ITX MB only has one PCIe 16x slot which is used by the HD6870 that I use for my Wii emulator.

That's not going to be a problem. Asking a machine that's hosting 6 extender sessions to also play games is a bit stupid. Even if CPU usage isn't a problem, you won't be able to reboot the machine when you need to, without inconveniencing your TV users.

Just build a dedicated HTPC, and keep your existing build for playing games.

+1

[foxwood]

CPU - i5 2500K

You shouldn't have problems with 29/59 using the built-in HD3000 graphics with this CPU as long as you disable the "Image Enhancement" settings in the Intel Graphics control panel.

[Telo]

CPU - i5 2500K

You shouldn't have problems with 29/59 using the built-in HD3000 graphics with this CPU as long as you disable the "Image Enhancement" settings in the Intel Graphics control panel.

Good to know, thanks.