Messages

4531

Developers / Re: VIA EPIA EX15000G Mainboard anyone tried?

« on: August 30, 2007, 07:50:37 am »

Zaerc, you make a very valid point. I have no issues dealing directly with VIA as long as they are punctual with new releases. ATI and Nvidia do seem to have this down, but I haven't had to deal with VIA closed drivers before, so I wouldn't know. However, if we have to go through Fiire, which has to go through VIA, in order to get a new release then you can pretty much not do anything non-standard with X or the Kernel... like you would do as a developer... the same developers they claim to support.

We would at the very least need to have the ability to rebuild the driver against various versions of the kernel and X. Yes, both ATI and Nvidia closed drivers can do that (for those who didn't know).

Having said that, the hardware HD playback is a huge plus for this purpose and from what I understand you can not do that on either ATI or Nvidia cards without closed drivers. With this board, you can and do it with open drivers and even better then with an ATI or Nvidia card with the closed drivers. If you choose to use the closed drivers then you will also get the 3d acceleration, but with the added headache of trying to actually get the driver for the kernel/X version you are running.

So as ever you are free to not buy the Fiire hardware... its your choice.

4532

Users / Re: Seriously..

« on: August 30, 2007, 07:10:12 am »

Anyone still know about if the Via Motherboard with the S3 Unichrome Graphics card can do UI2? I've seen a couple of people on the forums  who have said that they have the GFX card.. anyone?

Any of the Via motherboards based on the C7/CX700M chipset (like Fiire's Fiirestation) can potentially run UI2 excellently... problem is you need Unichrome Pro II drivers and currently they have to be licensed from Via. The Fiirestation has these drivers bundled with it.

4533

Users / Re: Thin client MD giving the 6040A a try.

« on: August 29, 2007, 09:21:24 pm »

any updates?

I contacted the company a week or two ago and they suggested that I try the 6030P

"is our fanless unit with PXe software.  This unit costs $199 for 128 RAM.  I can see what the cost would be for 256, 512 or 1 gig RAM.  Let me know if you would like these quotes.  If you looks at he specs for the 6030 series in the attachment I sent you in the previous email, it will have the same specs as these, only differences being the software and flash/RAM."

I haven't inquired further.. but if you got one for 139$ that works I would love to hear about it.

We have a lot of experience with Via based machines with Pluto and now with lmce. The 6030 range is based on a C3 processor which we have used successfully in the past so it should be ok. You'd want at least a 1Ghz processor and if you want to us the machine to act as a full MD with video playback etc then you'd need have enough RAM to allocate at least 64mb to video memory... so realistically that means 512mb in our experience. Remember PXE boot means that all the processing/video handling etc is happening locally in the MD's processor and the Core is just acting like a big remote hard drive essentially. A C3 at 1Ghz would be about the minimum for SD video playback under UI1.

Currently we are focussed on motherboards using the Via C7 processor clocked at between 1.2 & 2.0 Ghz combined with either the CN700 or CX700M graphics chip.

4534

Developers / Re: VIA EPIA EX15000G Mainboard anyone tried?

« on: August 29, 2007, 03:58:18 pm »

Well if you want to use UI2 then the Fiirestation works great... the drivers are far less closed than nVidia's are in fact. We are'nt using UI2 so we use the Unichrome Pro on a number of different Via based motherboards.

I'm sory but that does not make sense to me.  As far as I understand the Unichrome Pro II drivers needed for the alpha-blended UI2 are not even available for binary download.  So how can they be less closed then nVidia's?   

Without the alpha-blended UI2 properly supported, I see little reason to buy a VIA board at all, and I'm having some very mixed feelings about what Fiire is (or rather appears to be) doing.

Sorry... I meant the Unichrome Pro drivers that we are using (which *currently* do not support UI2) are less closed. Show me an nVidia driver you can build yourself?

Fiire are selling a combined solution of Via based hardware and a binary driver, I can't see any problem with that... if you can't stand the thought of running a binary driver that you can only get if you buy their hardware then don't buy it.

I agree its a pity though that Via do not make their drivers open or at least provide fully functional binaries available... after all it would just make their hardware more compelling.

4535

Users / Re: Seriously..

« on: August 29, 2007, 02:30:20 pm »

I have a wireless router and a wireless extender ... brick walls are a bitch.  Signal to my lounge, etc are poor.  I have a single story house, im keen to try and put the wireless extender in the ceiling ... signal should travel better through the soft thin ceilings ...

Lan over power is interesting, here in south africa we have 240v ... so will have to find devices that support this.

How much bandwidth does high def video streaming use ?  ie. how many bits per second ?  I can play with my network and test data transfer rates through the house before investing any real time or money in one solution ?

1080p takes about 13mbit's a second at 30fps... roughly

4536

Developers / Re: VIA EPIA EX15000G Mainboard anyone tried?

« on: August 29, 2007, 01:11:32 pm »

Thank you for answering that.  I am definately NOT investing in hardware I can't fully use.  So I guess VIA just lost a couple of sales as far as I'm concerned, congratulations to their marketting department for this brilliant strategy. 

Well if you want to use UI2 then the Fiirestation works great... the drivers are far less closed than nVidia's are in fact. We are'nt using UI2 so we use the Unichrome Pro on a number of different Via based motherboards.

4537

Developers / Re: VIA EPIA EX15000G Mainboard anyone tried?

« on: August 29, 2007, 11:52:41 am »

So let me get this straight, these proprietary drivers that Fiire is using are not freely available at all?  At least Nvidia and ATI make theirs available for download. 

According to Fiire... they have licenced the Unichrome Pro II drivers from Via and it is those drivers that are bundled with their Fiirestation box and it is those drivers that enable the Fiirestation to work with UI2 as it needs compositing functions to do the overlay etc and these functions are not in either the Openchrome or Unichrome Pro drivers.

We use the freely available Via Unichrome Pro drivers that are mostly open but they do have some small precompiled binaries. You can download the sources for these from Via and build them yourself. The resultant Unichrome Pro drivers work great under UI1 or in terms of the video playback performance (premium video playback performance is what we are focussed on by the way)

4538

Users / Re: uk rig to replace sky+

« on: August 29, 2007, 11:10:47 am »

Hi mce peeps,

I have only just come across Linux MCE and so far from what I have read it seems to be exactly what I have been looking for.

I have been using Ubuntu on a few linux boxes for quite a while so was doubly please to find that linuxMCE seems to be based on this.

Of my experiences of linux in a desktop enviroment ubuntu so far has been top so this gives me a good feeling about this being the right way to go.

I am in the UK and currently I have sky+. I love the ability to be able to record 1 channel while watching another but this is tied to the room where the box is located and quite often I find I need to record 2 programs while watching another and want to be able to do this in any room i have a tv in so as you see I am experiencing a few drawbacks and restrictions which it looks as though linuxmce could solve.


After watching the mce video and having a good look around the forum I decided I would start putting together the parts i want to use to build the core for my setup

I have started with the Asus M2UPV-VM mother board as it seem from what I have read that this is what they develop on and then a AMD AM2 Athalon 64 dual core 4000, 1 gig RAM - will I have enough power here?

initialy the main functionality I need to get set up on this base is the sky+ style functionality. I am obviously  going to need some tuner cards if I want to do this.biostar 200n uk

My plan is to have 2 conventional tuner cards taking their input from 2 different sky satalite boxes which from what I can make out I should be able to control with an ir usb dongle to change channels then I would like to have a third digital tv tuner to allow me to make use of all the freeview digital channels that are broadcast in the uk giving more channel options and recording possibilities.

I am wondering if any one can just make sure I am heading in the right direction with this and what I want to do is possible?
I am also not sure about what choice of tunner cards to go with. i have read quite a few threads on this and hauppage is a name that keeps appearing. checking prices they go from £20 to £400, mpeg2 sounds as though it would be helpful, but can anyone suggest any models that are going to be upto the job but not overkill and un needingly be pushing up the prices.


I would also like to hook up my security cameras to the systebiostar 200n ukm, I currently have a Conexant BT878 based card, will I be able to get this setup in the system?

biostar 200n uk
I want to be able to control the whole system with ipaq pdas if possibly as we already have a couple and have a blue tooth usb dongel. how stable is this as a method of controling stuff? I also like the look of the cutom remotes so maybe that is a better way to go.
any
I woulds also like to get a zwave control unit to be able to start controlling lights heating etc although it seems the module thingies are limited in the UK currently as we run on 230volts and this isn't compatible with all the US stuff.


for the Media Directors (md) or slim cliConexant BT878ents I think they are also refered to as, I have a few biostar 200n systems which I would like to make use of. currently they only have AMD sempron 2300 in so i am thinking of upgrading them to athalon 3200 should this be ok with 512 ram? these come with a built in ir port which I assume should allow the MD to turn the tv and audio on and off in thier respective rooms?

there are few more things I want to look into being able to do through linux mce but this, I think, is enough for now.

sorry for the long post and I hope its in the right place. I will start to get the parts shortly and keep you informed of how I get on and probably answer a lot on my own questions which hopefully will help others

Hi,

Wow... too many question ;-)
Conexant BT878
I can't see anything in you post that look a deal stopper. You'll need two cards to grab the Sky box outputs - a    Hauppauge 150 or 250 should do the trick (you would not be using the tuner side of the cards just the video in functionality). Then you need to control the Sky box over IR. Again doable but the none of the codes will be in the database... but you can add them. So no real gotchas there.

Conexant BT878 cards should be no problem.

The PDA Orbiter software is only compatible with specific releases of MS Windows Mobile software... make sure your PDA are compatible. The Gyro remotes are great by the way... and i would say they are the better option from a usability perspective... although froma cost perspective your existing PDA's look better if the are compatible!

Zwave... you need UK compliant control modules (ie the need to plug into a UK socket) and all your Zwave kit must be intended for the European market (even if it does not attach to the mains) as in Europe Zwave kit uses a different frequency to the US. The only Zwave USB interfaces that are currently supported are the Home Pro unit and the Boca USB stick. Both seem to be either out of production or extremely difficult to obtain.

The Biostar's with 512mb should be fine... I dont think the onboard nVidia graphics will support anything more than UI1 though (thats a guess on my part though).

We're UK based by the way.

Hope the above helps you out.

Andrew

4539

Users / Re: Play DVD ISO's from big remote repository?

« on: August 29, 2007, 10:48:05 am »

Hi, everyone.  I just found LinuxMCE and it looks fantastic.

I have a large array with hundreds of DVD's stored in ISO format.  They're currently in subdirectories, ie /Gladiator/Gladiator.ISO, /Gladiator/Gladiator_Disc_2.ISO, etc. 

I'm looking at picking up a dedicated HTPC/LinuxMCE box for playback.  But before I go that far, will someone kindly confirm or refute:

- That LinuxMCE will be able to mount my remote (FreeBSD) repository by Samba, NFS, or other means?
- That LinuxMCE will be able to read and catalog the big collection of ISO's?
- That I'll be able to import metadata to get the same result as if I had ripped the DVD's using LinuxMCE?
- That LinuxMCE won't do anything weird like modifying ISO files (even renaming, etc)?

Thanks in advance!

-b

Hi,

Can't see a problem with that other than currently lmce-0704 expects dvd iso's to have a '.dvd' extension. You could rename all your iso's to fix this or I guess create symlinks to each iso file in another directory that have the .dvd extension. We use to use the last trick to get .mpg files to play (you don't need to do that now). LMCE will initially scan your share for media and will create id3 files for each of your .dvd files these are used to contain meta data about the individual ripped DVD's (it will not modify the your .iso's). The process of adding a large amount of media to lmce's media database can take some time by the way ;-)

Hope the above is of help.

Andrew

4540

Developers / Re: VIA EPIA EX15000G Mainboard anyone tried?

« on: August 28, 2007, 10:08:01 pm »

FIIRE and the Unichrome II drivers...The problem I have with that is that once a company starts creating specific custom things that only belong to them they start becoming more like a Micro$oft and I start looking for something different.  I think we need to look at why the LinuxMCE product was created in the first place and really try at keeping as much stuff as public as possible while still keeping EVERYONE's budget insync.  This way the product progresses quite fast and everyone wants to use it because it doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

Well... as I said you can run Via hardware with the standard 'open' Unichrome (or totally open Openchrome) drivers and you get top notch Video performance using these drivers. We have the exact same Via hardware as the Fiire station but we use open Via drivers and I can honestly say that the video playback performance blows nVidia right out of the water... its just that some X features that UI2 needs like compositing etc are not supported with these drivers and therefore UI2 is not possible.

If you don't like Fiire's approach then don't use their products... its easy really ;-)

4541

Developers / Re: VIA EPIA EX15000G Mainboard anyone tried?

« on: August 28, 2007, 10:54:18 am »

This might be the wrong place to post this so please forgive me as it is my first post.  I am looking at getting the above board and wanted to see if anyone has tried it with linuxmce?  I want to make sure that it works before I purchase.  I have some sneaky suspection it might be what is in the FIIRE system.  I am trying to build a good system for around $500 bucks or less.  I already have some Hard Drives. 

For motherboard specs see:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/motherboards.jsp?motherboard_id=450
or system
http://e-itx.com/via-epia-ex-2677.html

We have not tested that exact board but have tested many similar boards. But I cant see any reason why it would not be suitable if you use the Unichrome drivers from Via. But remember that Fiire have licensed the Unichrome Pro II drivers from Via and it is these drivers that enable there Via MD's to run UI2 in all its glory ;-). With the 'free' Unichrome drivers you will not currently be able to run UI2... but UI1 runs fine... and importantly the video playback performance will be excellent :-)

4542

Users / Re: Seriously..

« on: August 28, 2007, 01:23:57 am »

Just a quick question,

Will 256 mb of ram will be ok for an MD? or should I splurge on a 512 mb? Thanks!

I use thin clients at work on Kubuntu/LTSP (http://wiki.ltsp.org/twiki/bin/view/Ltsp/WebHome).   I think that LinuxMCE is using the same technology.  The memory requirements of the CORE/Server is 500meg to 1 gig if you are running around 10 thin clients.  The thin client memory requirements are VERY low... on the order of 32 meg to 128 meg.  I have booted up 64 meg thin clients and the response is almost the same as a full blown computer.

Note that in the thin client / Core setup , all the computer processing is being done on the SERVER... not on the client.    I have not tested out thin clients with LinuxMCE , yet, but I will post the results after I do.  I would suggest that you try a thin client with 256 mb of ram before purchasing more ram. 

Mike

With lmce the PXE booted MD is handling all the processing in its local processor/memory and not in the Core. In essence the Core is acting like a local hard drive to the MD... it just has less performance. However we have found that the performance of PXE booted MD's really excellent and it is only in very rare circumstances that you see any performance issues. After using PXe booted MD hardware with Pluto and now with lmce we have a lot of experience with the hardware and memory requirements - our standard is to fit 512mb of ram as this seems to optimum currently. In some situations where for example you were using the PXE booted MD to maybe capture analog video from say an external satellite or cable box while still playing audio or TV/video locally you might look at fitting 1gb RAM to allow for more buffering in local RAM.

4543

Users / Re: Seriously..

« on: August 27, 2007, 04:34:27 pm »

Boot over powerline? I'm impressed. When we tried it we gave up after 15 min.

I am writing this to you from a machine pxe booted over 85mbit powerline from my home lmce system :-)

Hi,

could you please post more info to wiki about such setup ?

Thanks in advance,

regards,

Bulek.

Well there is not really much to it... Powerline adapter linked to port on my router.... 2nd Powerline box plugged into mains outlet behind MD with rj45 into back of MD. Set MD box to PXE boot in bios... and restart. Thats it really... the only gotchas are to do with the house wiring and devices like fridges/freezers that might inject some interference into the mains.

4544

Users / Re: Seriously..

« on: August 27, 2007, 09:23:56 am »

Boot over powerline? I'm impressed. When we tried it we gave up after 15 min.

I am writing this to you from a machine pxe booted over 85mbit powerline from my home lmce system :-)

4545

Users / Re: Seriously..

« on: August 27, 2007, 07:36:19 am »

I saw a lot of discussion on using WiFi for wireless access to media. Here is a short summary of my testing (and similar to the published results of a respected engineering magazine)

1) WiFi is fine for audio, but not video. Same room you can do SD. Multiroom forget it.
2) 802.11n: too soon to bet on anything. It may or may not work.
3) Powerline- if your house is compatible (important) it can support 1-2 HD streams. Forget booting across it. way too slow for that. (I have tried. . .) My house is allergic to all of the powerline stuff. However I have seen it work in a few houses. I would go with HomeplugAV, just because it has the most momemtum in the US. DS2 in Europe and Panasonic in Asia. But they are all expensive- approx $100 per connection.
4) UWB will just make it to the other end of the room.
5) Wiring isn't that expensive or difficult. I can get a pro here (San Francisco) to pull wires for well less than $200 a connection and a little shopping is closer to $75. Other areas can for $50 or less. its just not too difficult to do. Look for an alarm installer looking to moonlight. And its far more reliable and secure.

I have seen a system using WiFi deliver problem free HD over 100'. However everything in it was very special and not compatible.

I think as you say peoples experience with WiFi will vary. My experience having used 802.11G in all our setups since early Pluto days is that in most locations it works but is not perfect if you are streaming Standard Def TV or Audio to a laptop running Windows. We use 85mbit and 200mbit Powerline line boxes (mostly HomePlug) and again these can work very nicely and PXE booting from even 85mbit units is fine. But I agree some house wiring will just trip powerline up and it can take a lot of work and extra Powerline boxes to route around these problems... by which time pulling cat5 might have been easier and cheaper. I guess you just have to use the approach that best suits you... as each has its place.