Somewhat OT: building PC for TiVo Extraction

[erikk]

OK this is a little off topic (and if in the wrong forum I apologize) but anyone have any opinion/advice on a good dual proc motherboard to build right now? Stability is very important also because I'm going to also use this as a work workstation. But primarily I'm looking for higher speeds for TiVo extraction/manipulation/etc, DVD burning and maybe HDTV DVR if I can get that working.

Last time I built a PC it was a Tyan Thunder K7 and that was a LONG time ago so I don't know what's good right now. TIA

[captain_video]

I don't have any recommendations for a motherboard or processor (I'm still using my Athlon XP 1600+ in an Epox 8KHA+ MB). Extraction speeds are a factor based on the throughput of the Tivo and your home network and your PC really has nothing to do with it, unless you've only got a 10baseT connection or something else that is slow. I think the Pentium 4's are the top processors right now although I believe the 64-bit AMD's may edge them out but I can't say for sure. Check out Tom's Hardware Guide (http://www.tomshardware.com/) for the latest info on PC hardware.

[erikk]

Actually I meant more the manipulation once I had extracted the video (making key files, Vob/Muxing, making IFO, etc). I was hoping that someone who was more current might have a good suggestion (ie kept up with Tomshardware or Anandtech anyway). I will drudge through all the PC forums and review sites but figured it would be worth asking here since the main purpose was directly related to this site.

Also if anyone had more input on what was important for these processes (dual proc ideal, dual proc useless, tons of ram, CPU speed, RAM speed, etc) I'd appreciate it.

Thanks for the suggestion tho, tomshardware is a good site.

[eastwind]

If you're looking to process TY files after extraction I would say get the fastest two hard drives you can afford and put them on the fastest bus you can afford. You'll also want a lot of fast RAM and a fast graphics card. But most of the processing is reading and writing to disk I believe. So you'll want them on separate interfaces (or at least separate channels). Tom's Hardware can probably point you in the right direction for the interface (ATA/133, SCSI, and Serial ATA come to mind).
Anyone else?

ew

[ttabbal]

If you're looking to process TY files after extraction I would say get the fastest two hard drives you can afford and put them on the fastest bus you can afford. You'll also want a lot of fast RAM and a fast graphics card. But most of the processing is reading and writing to disk I believe. So you'll want them on separate interfaces (or at least separate channels). Tom's Hardware can probably point you in the right direction for the interface (ATA/133, SCSI, and Serial ATA come to mind).
Anyone else?

ew



You've got the right idea, IMO. The process is I/O bound, not CPU bound. With the exception of the FAE cut points, you do real encoding there. Everything else is all disk. Get a pair of the fastest HDs you can afford and RAID-0 them. If every cycle counts, get SCSI. If you can handle letting your CPU do some of the shuffling, IDE/SATA is fine. In practice, you probably won't notice the difference as it's all sequential reads/writes and if you have DMA on, you won't use much CPU for it. I barely notice when I've got a Ty processing, I can still use my computer for other things. It's only an AMD 1800+, single proc with WD 7200 RPM drives. Nothing special or costly.

As for Dual-Proc, I have no real experience. I'd like to build one as my next comp, but the stuff is expensive and not as easy to find. The best bang for your buck is probably Athlon MPs, but the 64s are out, or there is always the P4 line.