Hello.
I've read posts with forum rules and I've done a fair bit of search over the web and over this forum but I am still at a loss.
Let me explain my goal: build a PC capable of receiving scrambled dvb-s2, descramble the stream and then stream it over to several media player set top boxes. I know, I know, descrambling talks are not allowed and I won't ask here (though I'd be glad if someone offered help through email/IM).
What I have now that may be used (or not) on this project:
- Seagate Dockstar at 1,2GHz with 128 RAM and a 500GB external HDD
- Asus O!Play HDP-R1 media player capable of hardware decoding MPEG-4/AVC - 1080p@60fps
- Was planning on buying a Sundtek SkyTV USB DVB-S/S2 but still haven't ordered it
Expected end result:
- fanless and low power consumption PC that can receive SAT signal and send it over LAN to several media players.
- capability to view Live TV and record at the same time (or have 2 different Live TV streams from same transponder) all with a single tuner
- capability to select which channel to watch on each media player (maybe through predefined playlist?)
What I need to know:
- is there a thorough VDR manual in pdf format? The MANUAL file that comes with the zip has only small amount of info for newbs like me. Same goes for the english wiki docs.
- amount of CPU power needed to do the job (hence why I also pointed out that l also intend to do signal descrambling on that box)
- since I want to keep it noiseless and low power, will I gain by buying a tuner with hardware decoding capabilities? Remember, I won't watch it on the server, I'll be watching on clients. Maybe I am confusing tuner hardware decoding with VGA hardware decoding, right?
- can I do all this using my Seagate Dockstar? Will it handle the job? Descrambling uses a lot of CPU cycles, right?
- using such a setup, will I be able to use the OSD capabilities? Remember, these media players that I have can load m3u playlists with mms/http/rtmp streams.
- using this server but with XBMC clients, would I be able to use the OSD capabilities?
- what is the easiest VDR liveCD/liveUSB for doing just the backend, as I need? Just to speed up initial testing ;).
Bottom line: any advise on the hardware specifications for such server are very welcome. Just remember: noise and power usage are a big factor in my mind.
And please remember that I am very newb to all this, maybe except Linux. But even with Linux I am far from an experienced user ;).
Cheers