[??] Building a PC for broadcasting

[Compton]

Dear everyone,

I'm in the need of building a system for broadcasting digital content (mostly MPEG-2 videos). It should be stable enough for 24/7 running. I need to direct my content's signal out as AV signal for input into broadcasting devices of the broadcast station. I'm totally noob with signal directing between PC and broadcasting devices.

Would you guys suggest which kinds of part I should get? Especially the data storage and access. They are should be as fast & reliable as possible, aren't they?

Thank you very much in advance.

 

[sabregen]

so you want to kno what it takes to broadcast your pr0n collection to the world? Questions:

what is your broadcast method (IP based, or OTA based)?
How big are your files, and at what audio/video BR's are being used?
Approximate average duration of the files?
Current file types, and encoded containers?
Are you editing the files on this system, or is it purely for shooting out the already chopped content?
What is your preferred delivery method (if going IP based delivery system)?
What is your intended usage? (Do you want to be able to just type in a server address and see the pre-defined stream? Do you want a front-end? Do you just want to be able to choose the file? Does it need to stream or download?)
How long do you intend to keep your data on disc?
How important is the data, should a physical drive failure occur?
What is your uptime requirement should data loss be an issue?
Who is directly supporting the system, and at what cost are they engaged on a system failure (dollars per hour, flat rate per day, etc)?

 

[DeChache]

If you are not editing the files on the machine you don't need that much hardware all you are doing then is serving files.

Answer the questions above and then we can help.

 

[Compton]

Dear [H]ers,

so you want to kno what it takes to broadcast your pr0n collection to the world?

I'm not gonna broadcast pr0n or something eurotic. I plan to broadcast my own TV channel

Below are my answer for your questions

what is your broadcast method (IP based, or OTA based)?

OTA-based, sir.

How big are your files, and at what audio/video BR's are being used?

I think DVD-quality is quite adequate for my situation. I'll may broadcast HD content in near future

Approximate average duration of the files?

I'm gonna schedule the whole channel for a week. So the signal/data should be transfer continuously

Current file types, and encoded containers?

Most of the content will be encoded using MPEG-2 codec

Are you editing the files on this system, or is it purely for shooting out the already chopped content?

This is totally for chopped content.

What is your preferred delivery method (if going IP based delivery system)?

Again, it's OTA-based.

What is your intended usage? (Do you want to be able to just type in a server address and see the pre-defined stream? Do you want a front-end? Do you just want to be able to choose the file? Does it need to stream or download?)

This server will play the content as its weekly schedule, and its out putshould be AV signal in order to be directed into the broadcasting device of the local station. As I know, they are only capable of AV signal input.

How long do you intend to keep your data on disc?

Coz, the schedule is planned weekly so the data should be changed once a week. Hot-swapable storage is gonna be the best.

How important is the data, should a physical drive failure occur?

Again, I'm gonna broadcast so the storage should be reliable and the failure should be kept as low as possible.

What is your uptime requirement should data loss be an issue?

Please see previous answer.

Who is directly supporting the system, and at what cost are they engaged on a system failure (dollars per hour, flat rate per day, etc)?

I'm not sure about this question. But we hire the local channel and we gonna broadcast our own content on that channel. I dont know whether the server will be placed at the local station side or at our own basement but the system should be as reliable as possible.

Thank you so much.

Peace

 

[Vertigo Acid]

Over to GenHard since this isn't really a question about dualies

 

[ultatryon@ecc]

What kind of hand-off is your broadcaster looking for? Baseband Video? ASI? SDI? MPEG IP Stream? I understand that it is destined for OTA (presumably ATSC) transmission, but whatever your broadcaster is using as a backhaul would be geared for a specific type of input.

 

[Compton]

Over to GenHard since this isn't really a question about dualies

Thank you so much for your location correction

What kind of hand-off is your broadcaster looking for? Baseband Video? ASI? SDI? MPEG IP Stream? I understand that it is destined for OTA (presumably ATSC) transmission, but whatever your broadcaster is using as a backhaul would be geared for a specific type of input.

Well, I think I should divided my issue into pieces to make it more sensible.

1st thing 1st, would you guys tell me the system requirement for a MPEG-2 broadcasting server in terms of CPU, RAM & data storage system?

I think data storage for this kinda system is quite significant too. Which sort of storage should I use: normal HDD, RAID or SAS or hot-swap stuff? I need to change the schedule weekly & there should be a back-up for drive-fail during broadcasting.

Am I sensible when asking about this stuff like this?

I think I'll talk about the signage problem after have a clear understanding about the stuff about.

Thank you so much and I'm really sorry if I made you guys hard to understand my point

Cheers & have a nice weekend [H]ers

 

[ultatryon@ecc]

Well.. my answer will be completely dependent on what the hand-off is. CPU power is not that important, nor is really overall system throughput. An ATSC stream is limited to ~19.3Mbps, so just about anything can handle that from an IO perspective, and even then, you are talking about very high motion 1080i video to use all that. SD is more in the 3-6Mbps range.

For storage, I would probably go with a pair (or more) of RAID1 SATA drives, SAS if you want hot-swapability.

If you need to transcode to an MPEG2 TS, or even an MPEG4 TS (if their handoff needs that), then your CPU requirements go up.

It might be easier to explain exactly what you are trying to accomplish, with a little more detail. Is this for some sort of Leased Access programming, or "Infomercial", Public Access, or some other part-time stream?

 

[nitrobass24]

Yea the CPU/ram will depend on exactly what you have to do for the handoff.

For storage I would grab 5x 10k SAS drives, and run 4 of them in RAID10, with the 5th set as a Hotspare.
This will give you some wiggle room in case of a drive failure.
Im also reccomending SAS over SATA because this sounds like this is going to be a 24/7 operation, and consumer SATA drives are not designed for this kind of use.

 

[Compton]

Dear all,

Thank you so much for supporting me with those helpful answers. I just figured out what I need to accomplish this sort of PC. The hot-swap or SAS drives is quite expensive, that fact made my budget exceeded. Therefore, I decided to go with the following parts:

• Mobo: ASUS P5Q
• CPU: Intel Core 2 Dou 5200
• RAM: 2x2GB Corsair DDR2 800MHz
• GPU: ASUS nVidia 8600GT 256MB
• HDD: 4x1TB WD SATA @ RAID 0/1 for video data & 1x 160GB WD SATA for OS & Software
• PSU: 500W CoolerMaster Xtreme Power
• Case: CoolerMaster case
• Display: 17" LCD for monitoring the PC

All those parts will be responsible for video content I/O.

However, I still have another issue to think of: Would a PC like this be able to run 24/7 for 1 or 2 years?

 

[ultatryon@ecc]

Yes, it would run just fine 24/7.. seems a tad overkill for what it is however. How much video are you serving? Do you really need 2TB of video, and do you really want to trust a mirrored/stripe? If you can get away with 1TB, I would just mirror all 4 drives.

Did you ever find out the hand-off needed? You never did tell us.

 

[Compton]

Yes, it would run just fine 24/7.. seems a tad overkill for what it is however.

Do you mean these rigs are too powerful for the task? I'm also considering another option:

• CPU: Athlon X2 7750 (@2.7GHz)
• Mobo: Gigabyte MA780G-UD3H (AMD 780G + SB700 Chipset + RAID capability)
• GPU: HD3200 on-board with 128MB of sideport VRAM

Other things are the same with the previous configuration

How much video are you serving? Do you really need 2TB of video?

Yeah, I do think so coz some of the data should be kept for a few months before deletion.

and do you really want to trust a mirrored/stripe? If you can get away with 1TB, I would just mirror all 4 drives

Does this mean that all 4 drives are @ RAID 1 would be more reliable than 0/1 in my case?

Did you ever find out the hand-off needed? You never did tell us.

I am not sure about the hand-off that you mean here. I'm sorry but would you mind clarifying this term in this context for me? I would appreciate a chance for me to improve my English.