Building a Media Server PC

Posted by Jacob Santos on May 18, 2008

Multiple Tuner Cards

The advantage of multiple tuner cards is that you can record more channels and shows with multiple cards. I haven’t yet seen any cards with dual tuners as part of the card without needing two coaxial hookups.

I’ve found TV tuners, which hook into PCI Express x1 connectors. This should give an speed advantage over the PCI slots. I’m looking for a motherboard, which has more than four PCI Express slots, however these boards are ATX.

I would rather like to go up to 6 to 8 tuners, so that I can record 8 shows at the same time. It might just mean that I build two media servers, instead of packing everything into one. The problem would be figuring out how to put them into a cluster, so that they can be used as one.

IDE and Floppy Headers

It is nice that the motherboards only have one IDE header, but most still have a floppy header (which is next to worthless), it would be nice to have those removed from motherboards, but I’m guessing they are here to stay for the next few years. I don’t like them, but I also don’t like the IDE headers on the motherboards.

RAM

I’m really unsure how much RAM I’ll need, but I believe if I load it up with at least 4 GB, which shouldn’t cost that much. A 64 bit processor and Operating System, which will allow me up to 8 GB. So two 2GB modules for the first dual channel slots.

CPU

I’m not quite sure if I should stick with AMD with this one. I’m thinking quad core would be nice for handling each tuner. If there are four TVs going, it would be nice to place them on their own CPU.

Operating System

I’m unsure what OS to use for the media server. I’m not quite sure Windows is there yet, but I’m also unsure about MythOS. I do think I am going to give MythOS a chance, before I go to Windows. It might be difficult, since I’m not a Linux expert, but it would be nice to get SAMBA going and try to move the files to another server. If I can get the Shows schedule recorded and streamed to other Home Theater PCs, then move the recorded shows to another server.

It would seem that the longer I wait to build this, the more advanced the Windows solution will be. This might help, because it will be easier to manage an all Windows network, or an all Linux network. I would prefer Windows network.

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3 Comments.

  1. mdmadph May 21, 2008 at 8:35 am

    Just remember, if you do decide to use Windows, you might encounter some problems recording the shows you want to watch. Windows Media Center supports something called the "broadcast flag", which, when turned on by a broadcaster, prevents your media center from doing what it’s supposed to do, which is record your program!

    MythTV doesn’t have such restrictions. ;) Just something to think about.

  2. Jacob Santos May 22, 2008 at 10:29 pm

    Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind. I am thinking MythTV is the way to go, but whether I’ll want my whole network to be Linux is another matter. I’ll have to say no, but I’ll have to do research on Linux user management.

  3. mp May 24, 2008 at 5:20 am

    i think your best bet is mediaportal with tvserver working on the server pc.

    have a look at it