Below is a system i’m looking at buying from Dell. Do you think this will help improve transcoding and playback?
Processor: Intel Xeon E3-1505M v6 Processor (Quad Core, 3.00GHz, 8M Cache, 45W) + Thunderbolt 3
Windows 10 Pro
1TB M.2 SATA Solid State drive Class 20
32GB DDR4 Non-ECC SDRAM 2400MHz (2x16GB)
15.6 inch FHD (1920x1080) Wide View Anti-Glare LED-backlit IPS
NVIDIA Quadro M620 2GB GDDR5
Dell Outlet Precision M3520
Way more than you need for a DVR, what are you trying to “improve”? If you’re just using it for a DVR you should save your money and get something less expensive, if it’s your main desktop as well then that makes sense, or run something like freenas/unraid and load more apps on it bc it will handle it.
I’m currently running a dell 17in quad core 2 gig machine with 16 gig of ram. it works but its having issues with the gigabit lan port disconnecting constantly, so now i’m up on wifi only…windows 10.
I’m thinking of just doing a fresh reload of windows. Its probably a setting i messed up. it did work fine, but it just seems to disconnect constantly. not sure why.
The onboard nic may be faulty, you could buy a new Intel nic if you have a free pcie slot.
This could be the network card, network cable, and/or switch problem. You could save a lot of money by replacing the NIC and network cable before you buy another system. Anyhow, I’d get a standalone low end system with a Intel CPU they can do video transcoding. The hardware requirement of channel DVR shouldn’t cost more than $600.
I think I figured it out. I reloaded win 10 and that didn’t solve the problem so I hooked up a docking station and that solved it. Bad nic card on laptop itself. So I’ll up and it works pretty good even doing well with HD video. So now the question is can I run an ota Plex server and Channels on this laptop at the same time? Part of me thinks not. Is not got enough processor to transcode two separate HD streams. What does everybody think? It an i3 or i5 2 gig processor quad core
Update to this, the process is listed below with 16 gig of ram:
intel 4th gen I7-4510U processor
2 physical cores, 2 virtual
running at 2GHZ (turbo boost up to 3.1 GHZ)
So should I upgrade to a mid 2017 IMAC running a 3.4 GHZ quad core (4 full physical cores) with 8 gig (expandable to 64) of ram to run both my channels server and my backup Plex Ota server? It does not have a ssd but a fusion drive, but does support usb 3.0 for my external ssd. this would also triple as my desk top computer. I know Macs last along time. My current one is a mid 2010 and still rocks, but doesn’t support usb 3.0 so no external ssd. Any suggestions on what way to go?
FYI for interested folks: I am running Channels DVR on a late 2012 iMac 27, 3.4Ghz Core I7, 24Gig. The iMac has a 1TB fusion drive, but the Channels DVR storage is an external 6TB Western Digital Purple drive in an OWC Mercury Elite Pro case (no fan noise) via USB 3. A 4 tuner SD HD Quatro supplies TV shows. So far, 4 shows recording and commercial processing does not affect playback at all on 4 Apple TVs or iPads. Been running a few months with zero playback issues. I believe this system is way more than enough, it’s just that it was leftover from an upgrade and this was a fantastic use for it.
The only CPU intensive task in Channel DVR is comskip, commercial identification. Depends on the CPU and various tasks the system is doing, comskip could run about 3 to 8 min. If you have multiple recordings end around the same time, it may take longer. Other than that, Channel DVR is a very streamline app which doesn’t take much of the CPU when it is recording multiple streams. I also have Plex running along with Channel DVR in the same system. Plex is little different, the periodic scans and transcoding would make your CPU busier. If you want to also run Plex, you might want a system with little more horsepower.