can this system run snapstream?

[pupster]

Pentium 3/450 w/ 768 Mb Ram, XP SP1 w/ patches + Hauppauge WinTV/PVR 350. I'm looking for a tivo replacement, and I'd like to stream stuff off my computer so I can watch stuff while I'm on the go. I realize from reading other posts that the PVR can't stream live video since it's an MPEG stream, but can the 350 w/ hardware encoding be used to stream? Or, since it only encodes MPEG2, I still need software to encode to WMV to stream from snapstream (which only supports WMV streaming, right?)?

[RobertH]

if you are going to watch around the house then you can just watch the mpeg streams using windows file sharing.

If you want to stream them else where you can have snapstream "transcode" the recording when it is finished recording it (or at a specific time period during the day) and it will auto convert the mpeg files into wmv so that you can stream later. I dont see why the 450 shouldnt be able to stream pre-recorded content as that is basically just file serving. The only streaming feature you will not be able to access while using a pvr card is the live tv feature, since that is a streamed wmv session that is compressed on the fly.

The only problem I see with this setup is the amount of time it takes to do a transcode. On my second system (see sig) it takes roughly 2.5 hours to encode a 30min dvdready-highres (6.4Mbs) video. so on a 450 you are probably looking at twice that. Also even with the enhanced mpeg playback in 3.2 you probably would not be able to playback livetv at more than dvd-ready lowres if you were lucky.

A slighly beefier machine might be better off, like a low end athlon like my second system

[pupster]

hm.,.thanks. see..i'd like a setup that can allow me to wach cable news wherever i am (i travel a lot), so i wouldlike to be able to go to a computer and log in to my snapstream server and watch CNBC, for instance. what specs would you recommend for a computer and video card capable of streaming live video (and being able to beused for other things too?)

[RobertH]

one of the wintv pci-go's or the pci stereo version (both are sold on the snapstream store and are available at most retailers) these are software based cards so you would need a beefier system but if you are streaming out of a cable/dsl device then you would only need somewhere around an 800mhz box because the profiles for both cable/dsl are on the low end and use the resolution of 320x240 ish if I remember correctly. You could still use the 450 box with the pvr card to do hardware based recording for archival or playback on anothermachine / dvd authoring. But if you want to use a card with the software encoders for higher resolutions you quickly need higher than 2ghz (IE with my first system if I want to record at the same bitrate/resolution as my second system it peggs out the cpu at 99% and starts to drop frames )

There are several users on the forums that are using sub 400mhz boxes to do recordings then using a small formfactor pc where you couldnt fit the pvr into to watch the recordings on a tv set.