RehabMan

[RehabMan]

Funny thing is my problems only start when I go to demo the system to somebody over at the house… or when my wife tries to use it… It works fine when I’m testing it.

It pains me when I consider that the only box on my network still running a “Windows XP era” OS is my server.  Ouch.

[RehabMan]

Funny thing is my problems only start when I go to demo the system to somebody over at the house… or when my wife tries to use it… It works fine when I’m testing it.

It pains me when I consider that the only box on my network still running a “Windows XP era” OS is my server.  Ouch.

[RehabMan]

It sounds like you’ve thrown plenty of hardware at it.  I have a HP EX495 (Pentium E5200) and I see the same issue.  I think it has to do with the drive extender tech in WHSv1.  When that thing kicks in, it tends to drive streaming performance down.  I have all Caviar Black drives (except for the original Seagate shipped with the system) and I still see it, so it is not really something that can be fixed with faster hard-drives.

My thought is this will all be fixed with Vail, the next version of WHS.  It uses a completely redone version of drive extender where it is accomplished at a much lower level than the current DE.  I plan to build a new machine to run Vail… unless HP provides some sort of upgrade path…

Another thing to watch out for is network drivers.  I found the latest RealTek drivers to be really bad… had to rollback after updating as streaming performance was absolutely horrible after a recent update.  If I build a machine for Vail, I’ll be sure to choose a motherboard that has Intel GB ethernet on-board.

[RehabMan]

It sounds like you’ve thrown plenty of hardware at it.  I have a HP EX495 (Pentium E5200) and I see the same issue.  I think it has to do with the drive extender tech in WHSv1.  When that thing kicks in, it tends to drive streaming performance down.  I have all Caviar Black drives (except for the original Seagate shipped with the system) and I still see it, so it is not really something that can be fixed with faster hard-drives.

My thought is this will all be fixed with Vail, the next version of WHS.  It uses a completely redone version of drive extender where it is accomplished at a much lower level than the current DE.  I plan to build a new machine to run Vail… unless HP provides some sort of upgrade path…

Another thing to watch out for is network drivers.  I found the latest RealTek drivers to be really bad… had to rollback after updating as streaming performance was absolutely horrible after a recent update.  If I build a machine for Vail, I’ll be sure to choose a motherboard that has Intel GB ethernet on-board.

[RehabMan]

[quote=”Mikinho”]
I”ll need to test but I believe the 1-minute delay will still be there.  Media Center will still need to authorize the tuner for use, the delay in the usage isn’t due a boot up process on the Ceton card.[/quote]

Bummer.  So the authorization might be on the client side.  I thought it was something that might be happening upon power-up of the Ceton card, since it doesn’t have to happen if you simply exit Media Center, then re-run Media Center.  Maybe this is something that is happening in the Ceton service process.

[quote]
With network bridging you can do that in Vail, the VM is if you want an always-on machine to do all the recordings.
[/quote]

I could live without the recordings happening on the Vail machine, although I understand why people want to do that (one less machine on all the time).  If you use the VM solution, you are stuck with using extenders to get to the content (protected content) and to make changes to the scheduled recordings… and for me we just haven’t seen any decent extenders yet (xbox 360 slim is close, but still too loud).  Then there is the issues with codecs on extenders, limitations on file size, lack of HD audio bitstreaming, etc.  Extenders (for me) are nice to use in a pinch, but not as an everyday thing.  I want a full HTPC at every TV and if they have access to live TV through the network bridging that’s just icing on the cake.  Someday, maybe we’ll get homegroup sharing of (protected) recordings and then everything will be great and extenders completely not needed.

Cool that we can host the card where ever we want though….  I see another Ceton in my future… I think.

[RehabMan]

[quote=”Mikinho”]
I”ll need to test but I believe the 1-minute delay will still be there.  Media Center will still need to authorize the tuner for use, the delay in the usage isn’t due a boot up process on the Ceton card.[/quote]

Bummer.  So the authorization might be on the client side.  I thought it was something that might be happening upon power-up of the Ceton card, since it doesn’t have to happen if you simply exit Media Center, then re-run Media Center.  Maybe this is something that is happening in the Ceton service process.

[quote]
With network bridging you can do that in Vail, the VM is if you want an always-on machine to do all the recordings.
[/quote]

I could live without the recordings happening on the Vail machine, although I understand why people want to do that (one less machine on all the time).  If you use the VM solution, you are stuck with using extenders to get to the content (protected content) and to make changes to the scheduled recordings… and for me we just haven’t seen any decent extenders yet (xbox 360 slim is close, but still too loud).  Then there is the issues with codecs on extenders, limitations on file size, lack of HD audio bitstreaming, etc.  Extenders (for me) are nice to use in a pinch, but not as an everyday thing.  I want a full HTPC at every TV and if they have access to live TV through the network bridging that’s just icing on the cake.  Someday, maybe we’ll get homegroup sharing of (protected) recordings and then everything will be great and extenders completely not needed.

Cool that we can host the card where ever we want though….  I see another Ceton in my future… I think.

[RehabMan]

I’ve been watching this thread since I too would like to move the Ceton tuner from the HTPC, mainly because I’d be able to keep the Ceton (I’m seeing temps in the high 60s) cooler if it was hosted in my WHS server, since the server(s) live in my garage where noise is not an issue.  Crank the fans up!  Also, I was hopeful that this would allow my HTPC to sleep and still allow instant access to the tuners since they would not have the minute-long authorization period as they would have never been powered down…  (waking the HTPC from sleep, then waiting a minute for the Ceton to become available is not acceptable, so now I just keep the HTPC on all the time).

My question is why would it be necessary to run a W7 VM on the host PC to make the Ceton share over the network.  Doesn’t it just need a “warm body” — a networked PC capable of loading the drivers or some subset that allows the network bridging to happen?  That is… I hope it does not require a Media Center capable machine as host… as that would open up the possibility of hosting it inside of WHS Vail.

[RehabMan]

I’ve been watching this thread since I too would like to move the Ceton tuner from the HTPC, mainly because I’d be able to keep the Ceton (I’m seeing temps in the high 60s) cooler if it was hosted in my WHS server, since the server(s) live in my garage where noise is not an issue.  Crank the fans up!  Also, I was hopeful that this would allow my HTPC to sleep and still allow instant access to the tuners since they would not have the minute-long authorization period as they would have never been powered down…  (waking the HTPC from sleep, then waiting a minute for the Ceton to become available is not acceptable, so now I just keep the HTPC on all the time).

My question is why would it be necessary to run a W7 VM on the host PC to make the Ceton share over the network.  Doesn’t it just need a “warm body” — a networked PC capable of loading the drivers or some subset that allows the network bridging to happen?  That is… I hope it does not require a Media Center capable machine as host… as that would open up the possibility of hosting it inside of WHS Vail.

[RehabMan]

[quote=”bbig119″]
What do people do about IR receivers with a case like this? Personally, I would rather trade the integrated card reader for integrated IR.
[/quote]

I’m with you there on the integrated IR vs. card reader.  But I haven’t played with the card reader to see how well Media Center deals with card insertions.  Would be neat if it automatically went into Pictures with the inserted card…  But yeah… I’d rather have an integrated IR.

I use a USB Media Center compatible IR receiver that I ordered from Amazon.com.  It came with a remote that I will never use.  In a way, a USB dongle IR receiver is both a blessing and a curse.  A curse because it is “something extra” and a blessing that you can relocate it to somewhere closer to the TV quite easily (which is where we tend to point our remotes).

// Dean

[RehabMan]

[quote=”bbig119″]
What do people do about IR receivers with a case like this? Personally, I would rather trade the integrated card reader for integrated IR.
[/quote]

I’m with you there on the integrated IR vs. card reader.  But I haven’t played with the card reader to see how well Media Center deals with card insertions.  Would be neat if it automatically went into Pictures with the inserted card…  But yeah… I’d rather have an integrated IR.

I use a USB Media Center compatible IR receiver that I ordered from Amazon.com.  It came with a remote that I will never use.  In a way, a USB dongle IR receiver is both a blessing and a curse.  A curse because it is “something extra” and a blessing that you can relocate it to somewhere closer to the TV quite easily (which is where we tend to point our remotes).

// Dean

[RehabMan]

Ended up getting this passive low-profile ready 5570:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161342

I bought the low-profile/fanless just in case I wanted to use it in a more HTPC oriented case in the future.

Also got the memory and the new CPU.  All hardware plus Win7 installed and working well.  The PC went from a complete clunker to a decent machine.  It is no Core i3, but it is going to work great serving my garage TV. Without the graphics card, it would make a not-so-bad WHS “Vail” machine.

The CPU upgrade turned out to be quite necessary because not all my HD content is hardware accelerated…. In particular quite a few HD-DVD (and Blu-ray for that matter) is VC-1 encoded, which for whatever reason, is not accelerated by the ATI 5570 card.  Playing back VC-1 content runs those cores up to 60-70%, so I think I would have been in big trouble with the original Athlon 64 3200+ chip.  The $50 upgrade to get the x2 (and faster at 3.0 GHz) was worth it.

[RehabMan]

Ended up getting this passive low-profile ready 5570:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161342

I bought the low-profile/fanless just in case I wanted to use it in a more HTPC oriented case in the future.

Also got the memory and the new CPU.  All hardware plus Win7 installed and working well.  The PC went from a complete clunker to a decent machine.  It is no Core i3, but it is going to work great serving my garage TV. Without the graphics card, it would make a not-so-bad WHS “Vail” machine.

The CPU upgrade turned out to be quite necessary because not all my HD content is hardware accelerated…. In particular quite a few HD-DVD (and Blu-ray for that matter) is VC-1 encoded, which for whatever reason, is not accelerated by the ATI 5570 card.  Playing back VC-1 content runs those cores up to 60-70%, so I think I would have been in big trouble with the original Athlon 64 3200+ chip.  The $50 upgrade to get the x2 (and faster at 3.0 GHz) was worth it.

[RehabMan]

Thanks everyone.  The fact that I can use PCIe x16 2.x cards in PCIe x16 1.0 slot helps the selection process out quite a bit.

[RehabMan]

Thanks everyone.  The fact that I can use PCIe x16 2.x cards in PCIe x16 1.0 slot helps the selection process out quite a bit.

[RehabMan]

I do wish they would remove the (giant) Volume control on these things though…

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