Bandwidth for multiple streams?

[Mpegger]

I have plans to start putting together a future media server that will stream live TV, both standard-def and hi-def, to 3 clients (maybe as high as 4 or 5). Since these will be using standard hardware capture cards, they will be MPEG2 streams ranging from 6Mb to 19Mb. A 100Mb network sould be able to handle that many stream just fine, but will it really? 5 Hi-Def streams could easily over saturate the network, as most home networks never even get close to the full 100Mb speed. Sould I consider putting a Gigabit network in place, or just stick with the 100Mb?

[Jon]

Gigabit will be needed. The HDHomeRun I have streams directly to the network. If more than two (two tuners per device) are placed on the network, Gbit is required. It's possible that 100Mb can handle up to four streams at a time without any interrupts, but it will be completely loaded. Your switch is going to be hammered, so make sure it's kept cool (a cheapo probably won't last long under loads like that).

[Mpegger]

Ahhh. Perfect you chimed in, as I was planning on using a HDHomeRun (simple easy HD is always good :D ). I also planned on using my current Hauppauge 350, and maybe a software encoding card. I would currently be the only one using the HD portion since I'm the only one in the house with a HD capable monitor/TV, but, most likely I would have to stream pre-recorded/live HD material to SD clients if all the clients are requesting live TV data. I know the server wouldnt re-encode on the fly HD to SD, so the clients would simply receive HD content, but only play it back at the resolution its capable of.

Btw, what do you think of using a dedicated NIC for the HDHomeRun box on the media server? The way I plan on setting up my setup, the Media server will be doing all the PVR and streaming to the clients, so no client would actually have direct access to the encoders on the media server. Would that keep the network traffic low enough by keeping the HomeRun box on a NIC seperate from the main network?

[Jon]

If the server is doing the streaming then it could help...especially if you plan on doing any transcoding to it beforehand. Using something like the Orb that has UPNP capability, I'd say you could definitely keep your 100Mb and have room to spare. The only problem then is the processing power of the server while transcoding multiple streams. You could pick and choose which get transcoded and which don't, so it might not be as big a problem as it could be.