Messages

436

Users / Re: Because inquiring minds want to know...

« on: May 14, 2008, 10:18:29 pm »

 
My TV and entertainment rack are built into my wall at home. I have a dual-headed ir blaster dongle plugged into the back of my USB-UIRT. One of the heads is in the AV rack with the satellite receiver, AV receiver, and sirius receiver. The head on the blaster is powerful enough to hit all devices. The second head of the blaster is run behind the wall into the TV recess. I have it mounted over the TV's ir sensor.

On my MD I have a mce usb receiver with a single irblaster, that one I have run to a second satellite receiver, underneath the 27" TV in the same recess of my entertainment center, its blaster is strong enough to hit both the TV and the receiver.

However, if running a 64bit version of lmce, connected to the USB-UIRT, the ir blaster dongles are not required. I have done this with beta4, for whatever reason, running 64bit LMCE allows the internal ir blaster to function on the USB-UIRT.

But that is my layout. I made my own ir blaster dongles from radio shack parts, but there are other resources on line.

Regards,

Seth

437

Users / Re: Because inquiring minds want to know...

« on: May 14, 2008, 08:28:36 pm »

 
Good news, your mce remote/receiver will work on install. The USB-UIRT is used to control IR devices.
For example, my core, has a dish network receiver, a sirius satellite receiver, a RCA AV Dolby Digital receiver, and a 42" Big screen TV. Using the USB-UIRT to learn each one of those devices remote control (this is very simple to do through the web admin after install) once all of the codes are learned, no matter which device I use, it has all been consolidated to a single mce remote, so if I want to watch a dvd, it automatically changes the input on my AV receiver to DVD, puts the TV on the correct input, and does it all with a single button press on the mce remote.

I also use it to change the channels on my dish network receiver, and all I had to do was learn the receivers codes. LMCE knows exactly what device to control, and which inputs to use, all controlled by IR and the USB-UIRT.

This is the main feature for me of the USB-UIRT, the ability to learn and reproduce any IR code I throw at it. 

After the receiver is installed, it is automatically set up, and allows you to use your existing mce remote. This gives you the option to put your other receiver on a future media director (MD) and just carry the remote back and forth, so you have 2 places controlled by the same remote, and if you are on an MD, and you want to change a channel on the STB for cable or dish the MD sends the commands to the core, and blasts them using the USB-UIRT, so you can be in another room, and still have access to your main core devices.

Definitely a worth while purchase.

Regards,

Seth

438

Users / Re: Because inquiring minds want to know...

« on: May 14, 2008, 08:01:21 pm »

 
Any NVIDIA 6x00 or 7x00 serires card will work great, out of the box, as far as receivers, I recommend windows mce remote/receiver bundles, i bought 2 on ebay for like $15US a piece plus shipping. I also highly recommend getting a USB-UIRT. This is by far the best purchase I made www.usbuirt.com it will learn any IR remote command, and replicate it for your system. And now with the 710 release, the ir blasters on the mce remote receivers also work well.

The USB-UIRT is about $55 US plus shipping, but well worth the price, it can really control everything in your system from within LMCE.
The MCE remotes are plug and play, as are the ir blasters. You may also wish to purchase an ir dongle or 2 for the USB-UIRT.

Get that little bit squared away, and welcome aboard. You won't regret making the change 

Regards,

Seth

439

Users / Re: Because inquiring minds want to know...

« on: May 14, 2008, 07:37:29 pm »

 
That would make a great LMCE box, there is just one issue you my find. ATI support in Linux is inherently just bad. Upgrade that video card to an Nvidia product, and you will be ready to go.

Regards,

Seth

440

Users / Re: MythTV frontend access to LinuxMCE

« on: May 09, 2008, 04:26:58 pm »

 
LMCE's version of MythTV still runs a mythbackend server. As long as your versions are close or exact, you should simply have to put the MythTV frontend PC on the same subnet as the core media subnet (default is 192.168.80.1) when running mythfrontend it will ask you for the masterserver backend ip address or hostname (again the default is 192.168.80.1 or dcerouter), after providing this information, you will most likely be able to connect to your content (I do this all the time from my laptop booted to kubuntu 710, and the mythv-frontend package installed) and I can view my recordings and watch TV live from the tuners.

the latest version of MythTV in LMCE is 0.20.2 fixes, so as long as the version you install is of this variant or package level, you should be able to connect up. If you for whatever reason do not wish to attach the myth frontend pc/laptop to the media subnet provided by the core, you will have to make ammendments to your LMCE firewall from the web admin to allow mythtv to talk to it, or simply disable the LMCE firewall so that the mythfrontend can connect to its address. You will also have to go into mythtv setup on the lmce core, and get the username and password for the mythtv mysql user. Otherwise you will not be able to connect to the LMCE master backend.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Seth

441

Users / Re: How to exit MythTV and more

« on: May 05, 2008, 04:57:26 pm »

 
How are you controlling your system. To exit out of MythTV, you can do several things depending on how you control it.

At the very simplest level, using a a keyboard, hit F7, then using the arrow keys, navigate to the bottom option on the far left to "Off"

If using a keyboard and mouse, hit F7, and then move the cursor over to the far left and click Off.

If using a MCE remote, press the "Home" or "Microsoft symbol" button, and then use the remotes directional pad to select "Off" from the far left. Or even simpler, press the "Stop" button on the remote.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Seth

442

Users / Re: Hauppauge Nova-HD-S2?

« on: April 30, 2008, 03:29:05 pm »

 
You could also use a terminal session either by invoking "Ctrl-Alt_F2" or by using the "Konsole" terminal in KDE, and run the following command:

Code: [Select]

dmesg | grep dvbor

Code: [Select]

lspci -v | grep dvbIf it shows up as configured, but Sarah did not see it, it is still very possible to set it up using MythTV-Setup manually from the "Computing"  menu option on your UI, located on the far right of your screen. I had to do this with my Air2PC DVB-T OTA cards. They were set up by the kernel, but not detected by the setup wizard, and they work well on both my MD, and my core/hybrid.

Regards,

Seth

443

Installation issues / Re: Configure mythtv frontend on MD

« on: April 30, 2008, 03:25:20 pm »

 
If you have configured MythTV on the core which has the pvr500 card installed, you should not need to configure it on the MD. In traditional MythTV fashion, it should (in your case both tuners) be available on your MD automagically!

If for whatever reason, you do not have MythTV installed, you can check this by running Mythtv-Setup from the "Computing" menu at the far right of your UI, on the core. A TV button should be presented to you on your MD, that will access whichever tuner is not in use on the core.

Hope that helps.

Regards,

Seth

444

Installation issues / Re: 710 RC - Changelog questions

« on: April 24, 2008, 07:23:00 pm »

 

Thanks for all the replies. I can not wait to try it out.

Regards,

Seth

445

Installation issues / Re: 710 RC - Changelog questions

« on: April 23, 2008, 10:30:32 pm »

 
Well I will download and install it, but I had just hoped to know ahead of time what I need to do to get production back up. I run the 4/15 build on both my test and production systems, and it works great. But to know in advance in the least about the insteon cm11a stuff would have been nice. And I have satellite internet, and I have to abide by download restrictions, not unlike gazzzman, so I will probably just wait until more info is available.

Regards,

Seth

446

Users / Re: Thinking about installing LMCE and have a few things to ask

« on: April 23, 2008, 09:49:03 pm »

I run LMCE on my hp dv9033 laptop. It has Intel Centrino Core Duo T5500 (1.66GHz) CPU's and 2 GB of ram. It uses the Nvidia 7300GO with 256MB dedicated. I use this as my portable core for music and videos. I also use it to test new releases of LMCE. It work flawlessly with LMCE and UI2 with alpha blending. You might have issues with your version of the nvidia card. But the latest nvidia driver resolves these I beleive. (Search forums for Enable VSYNC) My laptop has 2 HDD's SATA 100GB. Something you may want to know is if you use the DVD version of the LMCE install, it will take an entire HDD. So if you only have one, it will wipe it out. If you have 2, well you can figure that bit out  . The way to circumvent this is to use the CD install method. Installing Kubuntu 710 firstly, then LMCE. This will allow you to install it in a partition, vs. taking an entire drive. As to video playback, playing a DVD will work fine for your video watching, however, if you decide to use the LMCE Rip DVD To Hard Drive option, you will need on average of 4 to 8GB of space for each movie. Music works either way using existing songs on a different disk/partiton, as well as ripping your own CD's or downloading Music with your favorite service/sources. LMCE also gives you access to the KDE Kubuntu desktop. This you can use for all other applications like open office, K3B burner, and a host of other software pre-installed. You can also add new apps to KDE via the standard Ubuntu/Kubuntu repositories. Regarding the tuner issue, I know there are a variety of supported USB Standard and HD Tuner cards. These can be found here, in the wiki http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Category:TV_Cards Those are the currently supported plug an pray devices 

A laptop with dual core CPU's and the amount of RAM you have, can also function as your home CORE. It might be a laptop, but it is more powerful than most peoples desktops 

There is a host of info in the wiki. Almost all questions can be answered there or in the forums, and if you are having troubles, from the forums or from your favorite IRC client you can reach the brains behind the whole thing at irc.freenode.net #linuxmce.

Have fun, enjoy the power of what you are about to unleash 

LMCE is a wonderfully "complete" entertainment solution


Regards,

Seth

447

Installation issues / 710 RC - Changelog questions

« on: April 23, 2008, 05:15:18 pm »

 

I see that the RC will be made available for download in a few days. I have some questions regarding the changelog

1. MythTV updated to the latest fixes (is this .20 or do we now have .21?)

2. VDR Integrated into LMCE (Does this mean it is automatically installed, or will there still be choices?)

3. Fixed internal drive detection for MDs (does this eliminate the constant messages regarding it finding an in use drive?)

4. Upload pic for rooms is converted to png to be displayed both on page and on orbiter. (so now any image is automatically resized?)

Also I did not see mention of 2 other enhancements important to me
  a. ddamron's PLM code with PNP detection included in this release
  b. jondecker's CM11A code included in this release

These may seem like stupid questions, but rather than bark them out in the IRC room, I figured this would be a good place to ask.

Regards,

Seth

448

Users / Re: Video brightness adjustments

« on: April 18, 2008, 04:49:28 pm »

 

I have this issue with an older 36" TV/CRT. If you have an nvidia card, there is hope. From the kde desktop, launch a terminal, become root

Code: [Select]

sudo -iThen from the terminal window run nvidia-settings

Code: [Select]

nvidia-settingsThere is an option in the window presented for "X Server Color Correction" Select it and adjust Gamma, Contrast, and Brightness to about 3 or 4. Then exit the application. This will have created a file in roots home directory /root/ called

Code: [Select]

.nvidia-settings-rcTo get this to stick (and after you play around until you get the right picture quality) add the following line to /usr/pluto/bin/lmce_launch_manager.sh

Code: [Select]

vi /usr/pluto/bin/lmce_launch_manager.shadd

Code: [Select]

nvidia-settings --load-config-only&This will apply your changes every time the launch manager is started.
Hope this helps.

Regards,

Seth

449

Users / Re: Any instructions on how to get the usb uirt to learn my tv or receiver codes

« on: April 17, 2008, 08:24:13 pm »

So, I am not understanding what you need. You can learn the codes in the web admin, but it is not working? If this is the case, are you running an i386 version or amd64 version. I know that after LMCE 704, the USB-UIRT only works w/out IR dongles while running the amd64 version. If you are running an i386 version, a dongle is required to use the blaster feature of the usb-uirt. I have a bug report posted here:
http://mantis.linuxmce.org/view.php?id=4075
If tis is the case, you will need ir dongles available here: http://www.smarthome.com/8170.html?src=WG1000118&gclid=COiVwq_b4pICFQUilgodGlcj_g, or anywhere else you can manage to find one.

Hope that helps.

Regards,

Seth

450

Installation issues / Re: KDE fonts/resolution problem

« on: April 15, 2008, 05:59:44 pm »

 

OK. Chances are changing the options via the AV Manager also changed the file to a default set like it was before. You may need to add the -dpi switch again, after running the AV Wizard.

LMCE likes to overwrite changes, when it does the changes after the fact. Check the file again, and see if it did not channge back to its original form.

Regards,

Seth