Hardware choice for WHS 2011 and Mezzmo

[machine]

I'm building a WHS 2011 box and plan to use Mezzmo.
I am worried about the hardware needed to support streaming with transcoding.
Seems some people have really heavy duty hardware and still are having issues.

File types to be streamed:
DV (.AVI) - from Sony MiniDV
AVCHD (.MT2S) 1080p/60 from Panasonic TM700
DVD (VIDEO_TS)
BLU-RAY - Format yet to be determined but most likely .MKV format medium/high settings

Main Device is Sharp 70" TV with PS3 slim and Windows 7 PC attached to it
Also have
Wii attached to old Toshiba Front projection TV
WD TV Plus - Not in use, but can be
Various Windows 7 PCs

How much transcoding will be going on?

Should I use a Dual Core E8500 (or E5800) with 4GB or Phenom x4 B50 with 8GB.
What ever is not used for WHS 2011 will be box attached to Sharp TV with GTX 560ti for gaming.
Also building a 2700K box, but want to use this for Video editing with Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platnium 11 and ripping.

Would really like to use the E5800/E8500 if possible.
If I stick to the PS3/Sharp TV would this be OK?

Thanks for your help.

[Paul]

I think you should plan this with the expectation that you have to transcode video files either now in the future as you download/create more files. That way, your computer should be able to handle your needs today and in the future. Video transcoding is very CPU and RAM intensive. The higher the resolution of a video and the higher the bitrates of a video, the more work it is to transcode a video to another format. In terms of CPU, the more cores the better. The minimum we recommend (for video transcoding) is quad core, but more than that (i7, etc.) is even better. Mezzmo uses FFmpeg for audio/video transcoding and it utilizes the cores on your CPU. In terms of RAM, we recommend a minimum of 4GB RAM (but more than 4GB RAM is even better).

[machine]

Thanks for the info Paul.

MicroCenter had a $199.99 special today on the i7-2600K.

Picked up that and a ASUS P8Z68-V LX Motherboard ($69.99 after $50 off when buying processor), 8 GB Corsair Vengeance RAM.

With a mild overclock I should have a nice WHS 2011 box.

I guess it's better to have too much Horsepower than not enuff...

[Pootle]

This probably won't help now, but my WHS 2011 box is built around a Q9450 quad core (2.66GHz, no OC), Gigabyte G41 MB and 4GB of DDR3 RAM. I stream/transcode m2ts and mkv containers to a Panasonic.

It copes really well with transcoding full HD blu-ray rips on the fly - CPU usage peaks at 40% or so. Having said that, I'm only streaming to one device that requires transcoding - not sure how it would cope if I hooked it up to another TV.

As you said, too much is better than not enough in this case, so what you have ought to be a good set up - I'm not sure you'll need to OC the i7

Not sure how you are networking everything, but bear in mind that this could be the weak link. In my experience, wired ethernet is the only way to go if you are streaming 1080p otherwise your playback will probably have judder.

Have fun and enjoy Mezzmo!

[machine]

Pootle,

Thanks for the info!

I may be streaming to multiple devices, especially with 3 kids!

Gonna start off with the server set to 'energy saving mode' in the Asus BIOS.
Using stock cooler so I want to watch my temps. I can always OC later if there is need.

Most devices are wired into GigaBit network, except for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 devices. I agree that wired is the way to go.

Have box built and am now trying to decide how to setup boot drive for WHS.
Have 2 6GBP 2TB 7200 rpm drives mirror by MB and think I'll just install to this. Gives me redundant OS drive.
Other choice is OS to 64 GB SSD keeping these drives separate.
Plan to attach a couple of 4 bay external boxes with port multipliers. Each box will have 2 x 2TB of mirrored storage.
I also have a few mirrored 2TB NAS boxes which I use for periodic backups.

[Pootle]

Hi machine

No problems, glad to be of help. I know what you mean about kids - we have constant battles over who is watching what!!

My own storage preference is to have a separate boot drive for the OS. I have a partitioned 500GB for the OS (min 160GB needed), Mezzmo and any other programs (on C: ) , plus the backups from my laptops/desktop of the other partition (on D: ). Then I have a couple of 2TB Barracudas for media.

For back-up, I have an external 500GB onto which I put the contents of the OS drive (plus a recent system image of the OS), and I also have a hot-swappble drive bay into which I plug 2TB drives (5900rpm green drive - doesn't need to be fast) to back up the media when I need to.

The reason for this set-up is that I've had to re-install WHS2011 a couple of times lately. As it was installed an a different drive, I didn't have to worry about losing any media from the 2TB due to re-formating etc

Of course, it depends how many spare SATA ports/drive bays you have, but just my £0.02