Choosing a decent hardware for DVR

Channels DVR Server
#1

I am thinking of expanding my DVR for the rest of the family household use where there would likely be up to 3 simultaneous, or concurrent users doing lots of things. I have been running and testing Channels for a while for mostly my personal use and think it's great.

On an Rpi4, it works well enough for personal use, no real complaints other that it's limited horsepower, noted mostly now in the time it takes to do a commercial scan. The RPI is doing plenty of other things, is headless, not running the image but normal Raspian, Plex and a few other tidbits. Fanless, tiny footprint, and low power is a plus with the Rpi4.

I tested on an old Nvidia Shield and again, seems to work fine for limited use - about the same power as the Rpi4. I would not say the Shield is always reliable, but I have an older one and it also runs Plex.

Ran the DVR it for a few weeks on a mostly unused i7 Windows laptop with plenty of power and it is refreshingly quick on almost everything.

I have been looking at headless sub $150 at refurbed Lenovo m93p i7, or an old Mac Mini 2012 i7 in the same ballpark, a barebones NUC 11,NUC11ATKC4 N5105 Atlas Canyon and marinating as to whether I should just hold off for some better/fresher hardware or potentially a better $$ deal. Probably would be running Ubuntu. Although I can do it fine, I am getting weary of tinkering endlessly with older/aging or dying hardware (the 10yo Mac Mini seems the most troublesome to upgrade, probably the Lenovo is just as fiddly). Mostly in the mind to set it and forget it, plugging in usb ssds. Reliability and not needing maintenance is a plus.

Thoughts or suggestions from the experience of others?

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#2

The newer NUCs can be problematic in terms of drivers and video encoding. Hit or miss.

A $100-$150 intel machine would do great. You can find lots of "thin client" and "mini pc" at that price point.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KPKLCPF/ref=sspa_dk_detail_3

https://www.amazon.com/Wyse-3040-Thin-Client-Quad-core/dp/B071CW3DRV

#3

I feel compelled to chime in, only because you mentioned my favourite Mac ever.

I LOVE the 2012 i7 Mac mini! (I have three, actually... :sweat_smile:) Ran one as my DVR/Media server for years. If you can find one that includes an SSD for ~$150, it might be worth it. (I'd throw 16GB of RAM in there regardless. Just twist the bottom open & you can swap it out. $23! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SNSKH7M/)

While the hardware definitely shows its age at times, they do make nice Linux boxes. Or (with an SSD & 8GB+ of RAM) OpenCore Legacy Patcher allows them to work quite well on macOS Ventura! Two of my 2012 minis are running Ventura flawlessly & I still use them for various tasks. (The third is running PFSense!).

That said... (and this might be too costly/excessive but...) if you REALLY wanted future proofing power with absolutely no fiddling needed, a refurbished base-model M1 Mac mini can be had for $469 from Apple. Used ones are even on eBay for sub-$400. Or wait for the prices to dip below $400. Regardless, an M1 mini will be overkill & last you a long time!

But the ones Aman linked to are definitely the cheaper, more sensible option... :wink: Time vs. money, I suppose.

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#4

I have a Late 2012 Mac Mini, i5, 10G, 1.5TB SSD running Catalina. It is great for Channels DVR. Its doing relatively light duty now compared to what it was in our last house where I had 2 quad HDHRs, a couple TVE, and Pluto via Docker. I had then 3 x 10TB USB drives for storage. It runs headless and no issues to speak of. It would frequently have 7 recordings going and 2-3 TVs going. I've more recently dropped the antenna since we moved, and replaced the external drives with a Synology NAS. I also moved Pluto to the non-Docker version but have Frndly going in Docker. I've toyed with getting an M1 Mini, but this just works and no complaints.

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#5

If looking for cheap server. I recommend a used intel laptop. You can find them on FB, EBAY, Pawshops cheap.

Laptop only has 1 advantage over nuc, minipc, old mac mini. But its a really good advantage.

BUILT IN BATTERY BACKUP.

Other the that any mini pc can hadle it.

#6

If building your own, I’d go Intel 8th/9th/10th gen. It has the newest version of QuickSync video encoder/decoder available in consumer chips before you get into the generations which seem to have quirky issues not yet worked out yet in applications like Plex/Channels/etc.

While older chips can do transcoding as well, there are quality improvements and additional features with each generation of QuickSync (and the NVENC encoder from Nvidia too). NVENC is supposedly higher quality than QuickSync but when I went from a Maxwel era Quadro card to Quicksync on a 9th gen Intel chip it was noticeably better.

Not to mention power improvements (performance per watt) on newer chips. A modern i3 is often on par with an earlier gen i5 or even earlier gen i7, and for a fraction of the power.

It’s also a lot easier to replace a 5 year old motherboard when it dies than a 10 year old one.

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#7

I 2nd the 2012 mac mini. I found one on eBay with an i5 processor and 8GB of ram for under $100, all I needed to do was add a small SSD for OSX and Channels. I use the original mechanical hard drive for my recordings. I've been running Channels and a Docker for ESPN+ on this headless mini for about 10 months with no issues.

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#8

Also running the same Mac Mini from 2012. Works great for almost three years now.

#9

I'd also like to point out: do NOT, under any circumstances, buy a 2011 Mac mini. It only has USB 2.0. Also, the i5 2012 models, as well as ALL 2014 models are, in my opinion, not worth it. Those models only have dual-core chips (plus soldered RAM on the 2014).

The quad-core, i7, 2012 Mac mini (with an SSD!) really is the sweet spot & one of the finest machines Apple ever made. :blush:

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#10

Unless you get one of those obsolete Mac Minis for dirt cheap, like $50 or less, or just have an old one lying around, there are FAR better deals out there for much newer hardware. Late 2012 Mac mini seems to have 3rd gen Intel hardware, that is very very old. I see as new as 6 or 7th gen barebones mini pcs out there for sub $100 on ebay, or piles of older Dell office pcs. Apple fan peoples will never relent, and, true, they will run Channels fine. But, seriously, take few min to look around and spend your money wisely. Also, running a obsolete, never to get further security updates OS, as those old Macs run, not the best idea, especially for an always on machine.

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#11

While I love Macs, a 10yo Mac Mini is sorta beyond my age limit/tinker limit. I had a perfectly functional Macbook Air from the same vintage die because of mobo/solder (age) issues. I have a main board replacement I will try when I have the energy/time.

Old laptops and corporate mini cast-offs have pluses and minuses depending on how they were treated and configured. One semi-nice thing about laptops is you don't have to go fishing for a monitor and keyboard if running headless and something goes wrong. Still you never really know until you get a hold of one - but by that time you own it, can't return it.

I am playing with a Beelink (AWZ) N5095 11th gen celeron I saw a lightning deal on, running a trimmed *ix, and just as Aman noted, it took me several hours of fiddling to get the i915 GPU to light-up properly for the Channels and Plex. Not convinced this has any more capability than an RPI4 right now. And it can be returned :slight_smile: Nice thing about the RPI4 is it has zero moving parts, moving parts eventually stop at some point.

I did test in my normal workstation (i7 10th gen) I use for dev work and all kinds work stuff, and that will spoil you, ChannelsDVR really zooms on this. But it is not on 7x24x365 and follows me around.

Still explore options. Thanks all for all your continuing input. Lots of options to spend money on, but I am trying to keep some of it too.

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#12

Idk what happened, but the SHIELD has increasingly become unreliable to the point I'm ready to switch to something else. Is a high end NAS still the best set it and forget it server?

#13

I bought this 11th gen machine a year or two ago and couldn't be happier (after some failed attempts with Windows boxes older than you metioned). I think I've seen it go as low as $450 since (oh and I see it's just over $400 now).

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Acer-Aspire-Desktop-11th-Gen-Intel-Core-i5-11400-6-Core-Processor-UHD-Graphics-730-8GB-DDR4-512GB-NVMe-M-2-SSD-Black-Windows-10-Home-XC-1660G-UW93/405376644

It's running Channels DVR server and SageTV server simultaneously without issue. I did have a Sammy 980 1tb nvme drive that I swapped in as the boot drive, added a 2TB Sammy 870 (2.5") and 10TB 3.5" spinner that I pulled from my older media server. I did then purchase an extra 8GB of memory to bump it to 16GB. It idles around 10 watts as I recall, and ramps to about 80 watts when transcoding for multiple connected remote clients.

The actual dimensions of the box are 13" deep x 12" tall x 4" wide. I have it running headless in my basement and remotely connect to maintain.

#14

Depends who you ask. Mods will always encourage using a Mac.

However they do support NAS. And TMM1 had assisted me in troubleshooting my Asustor issues more then one time. Processing power on NAS do tend to be on lowet end. However still plenty powerful enough for anything a home user is doing in PLEX or Channels. My Asustor NAS has no problem running transcodes. Ive never attempted more then 2-3 at time.

NAS do tend to be plug and play, set it, forget it. Just add more HDD as you need.

I love my Asustor. However would not recommend them. Asustor sells far fewer then Synology so there is just more support on Synology. Asustor uses Raid 0,1,5. Synologu has SHR which allows you to mix HDD drive sizes without as much penalty as raid 5 (when comparing unused disk space)

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#15

I also was using the Shield as my server but gave up and installed Linux on a 2015 laptop.
It has been flawless. Zero issues

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#16

Been running Ubuntu on my Plex servers, one of which became my Channels server, for 5 years or so and in that time I haven’t had a single unplanned restart of the machine. Stable, and if you install a version with a GUI you can set up an RDP server to access from windows machines to make life easier if you want to use the terminal as little as possible.

#17

Defintely recommend Ubuntu server (not desktop). With server you will squeeze out every ounce of performance you can not having to run a gui. You can use webmin if you like so you can have a web front end to manage shares etc. Cli sometimes scares people. The good thing with Linux is all you have to do is Google "how do i xxxxxx in ubuntu server?". You will usually always find a response. Pick up a used intel Nuc on ebay and you are in business.

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#18

I prefer DietPi over Ubuntu Server. Very lean and fast. They have images for many many SBCs and other hardwares, even for VM, HyperV, and normal PC. Very easy to use as they have their own "GUI" like manager if wish to use that over CLI.

#19

I recommend a used laptop running what ever OS you are conferrable with. An Intel 8th, 9th, or 10th gen will do a great job and even the Core I3 versions will wiz through commercial skipping using two or three cores. The processor graphics are strong enough for real time transcoding for remote viewing. Set the machine so it can run with the screen closed and they tuck away and take up very little space. The battery on older laptops may not last as long as when they were new and can be expensive to replace. You don't the battery yet it's nice to have if power goes out.

#20

High end NAS's, in my opinion, are way overpriced. Cheaper to build your own, and much more powerful.

Which I did, and documented in this thread here:

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/101740-build-a-small-high-performance-nas-6-bays-for-only-392/

Overpowered, but future proof. Stays 99% idle 99% of the time. Runs emby server, channels dvr server, and a few docker containers to provide m3u lists.

It's been almost 2 years, and very happy with it.

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