Messages

136

Feature requests & roadmap / Re: Setting right refresh rate for media playback = judderfree playback

« on: July 10, 2012, 03:17:54 pm »

Do you know of an easy way to detect the frame rate of a specific file?

Mediainfo.  # apt-get install mediainfo

DESCRIPTION
       MediaInfo supplies technical and tag information about a video or audio
       file

       What information can I get from MediaInfo?

       - General: title, author, director, album, track number, date, duration...
       - Video: codec, aspect, fps, bitrate...
       - Audio: codec, sample rate, channels, language, bitrate...
       - Text: language of subtitle
       - Chapters: number of chapters, list of chapters

       What format does MediaInfo support?

       - Video: MKV, OGM, AVI, DivX, WMV, QuickTime, Real, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DVD (VOB)...
       - Video Codecs: DivX, XviD, MSMPEG4, ASP, H.264, AVC...
       - Audio: OGG, MP3, WAV, RA, AC3, DTS, AAC, M4A, AU, AIFF...
       - Subtitles: SRT, SSA, ASS, SAMI...

       What can I do with it?

       - Read many video and audio file formats
       - View information in different formats (text, sheet, tree, HTML...)
       - Customise these viewing formats
       - Export information as text, CSV, HTML...
       - Graphical Interface, Command Line, or library versions available

EXAMPLES
   Display information about a video file
        $ mediainfo foo.mkv

   Display aspect ratio
        $ mediainfo --Inform="Video;%DisplayAspectRatio%" foo.mkv
        $ mediainfo --Inform="Video;file://Video.txt" foo.mkv

       Both forms are equivalent if Video.txt contains:
        %DisplayAspectRatio%

   Display aspect ration and audio format
        $ mediainfo --Inform="file://Text.txt foo.mkv

       If Text.txt contains:

       - "Video;%DisplayAspectRatio%"
           Then the display aspect ratio is printed out.

       - "Audio;%Format%"
           Then the audio format is printed out.

HTH!

/Mike

137

Installation issues / Re: system freeze

« on: July 10, 2012, 03:43:46 am »

I've had errors like those, including the hard resetting link when one my raid 1 sets was doing it's weekly checks.  Occasionally, it would become totally unresponsive, requiring a power down of the system in order to restore it, and then I'd have to re-add it to the array and re-sync.  It's happened a few times (and only under heavy load), and I was close to RMA'ing the drive.  Then, this past Sunday morning I found my server off, and unable to power it back up.  The power supply had quit (and probably been on it's way out for a while due to capacitor aging), and was likely browning out under load.  So it's possible your power supply is on it's way out, or it's under-powered for the load.

There's a good power supply calculator at  http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

Try entering everything you have, and see what the recommended size is.  You can also add 30% for capacitor aging if your power supply is over a year old.  You'll be surprised how much it changes when you factor that in.

Hope that helps!

/Mike

138

Users / Re: Newbie camera question

« on: July 09, 2012, 06:49:06 pm »

Glad you're still fiddling with kmotion, Mike. What, apart from the RAM disk buffering, does kmotion bring to the party? I had initially assumed it was just a graphical wrapper for motion and would not add functionality beyond visualisation.

Jamo,

Kmotion2 brings a few things (as a stand-alone package), but not all apply in the LMCE context.  Some of those features can be replicated with existing LMCE features.  So, I was looking to try and understand both, rather than just bolting on Kmotion2 and incurring the wrath of Thom.

• Fire off scripts (like e-mails w/picture attachments) when motion events occur (some functions could be done with LMCE events)
• Ability to configure motion masks in the Web GUI (doesn't presently exist in LMCE)
• A timeline view on a per-camera basis (I'm still trying to understand LMCE and it's alerts view)
• Selectable multi-camera views, single , pairs, quads, up to 16 cameras
• Motion conf file configuration using a web GUI ('motion wrapper' and individual devices in LMCE)
• motion executable service management (done with motion wrapper and/or OS init scripts in LMCE)
• RAM-disk based processing, for multi-camera performance improvements

The big ones for me were the Mask configuration (mask off areas that you don't want triggering motion events), the firing off of scripts/e-mails/events, and the camera views.  I'm going to back-burner this project until I get the CM-19a 'mochad' driver done, and look at what the Advanced IP Camera template will do for me...  Too many projects on the go right now...

HTH!

/Mike

139

Users / Re: X10 CM19A

« on: July 09, 2012, 06:14:44 pm »

Thom,

Mochad is GPL v3.  Is there any issue with rolling it's code into a DCE device driver, which I think is GPL v2?  I plan on contacting the author of Mochad as well, to see if he has any issues with rolling it into LMCE.

If all's good there, I'll likely implement it as a C++ driver, and as a GSD.  It'll give me some experience with both, and there's a possible use case of the GSD with a remote mochad instance running on another computer/embedded device.

Would it be sufficient for me to set up a chrooted dev environment, or do you recommend a separate development environment (VM).  I'm not running production workload on my LMCE instance at this point in time, so I'm not overly concerned about it.

Thanks for your time!

/Mike

140

Users / Re: X10 CM19A

« on: July 06, 2012, 03:51:48 am »

The most correct approach for mochad is to wrap the C in the C++ provided by our DCE driver.
-Thom

Thom, if I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying it would be best to take the mochad C source code functions, and put those into the C++ functions provided by the DCE driver, correct?  Or are you meaning to wrap the binary like the General Info plugin wraps the mailx binary?  I'm not a C programmer by any stretch of the imagination, so I'm just looking to clarify my understanding of which direction you're pointing me in ;-)

Thanks!

/Mike

141

Users / Re: Newbie camera question

« on: July 06, 2012, 03:37:41 am »

One of the interesting things that kmotion2 does, to improve performance, is that it grabs images from the camera to a RAM disk in /dev/shm, and runs motion (and other processing) against the images in the RAM disk.  It also spools them back out to disk for archival purposes.  I've been looking at possibly integrating it's functionality, but Kmotion2 and LMCE are both complicated systems, and I haven't made much headway into it yet (still trying to figure out both, and what parts should/could be integrated where).  I was considering what baby steps could be made, when I noticed Sambuca working on the Advanced IP camera template.  I have a D-Link DCS-932L configured with it right now, and was considering posting for suggestions as to the configuration options so I could help test it.

I thought that I should point out the RAM disk thing, as that is something that should be implemented across the board (if the Dev's choose to do so), so that it could be leveraged by all camera templates as infrastructure. It could also tie in with other's suggestions to move the caamera's storage location to the media pools, vs /home, as many seem to be running with small OS drives.

Just some thoughts for consideration...

/Mike

142

Users / Re: Windows 7 enterprise and samba shares does not work :-(

« on: July 04, 2012, 04:57:14 am »

Ok, I'm running 3.5.6 on Debian Squeeze.  The following was added for Vista Compatibility, which should work with 7.

Code: [Select]

#vista compatibility
        client lanman auth = no
        client ntlmv2 auth = yes
        domain logons = yes
        guest account = nobody
        map untrusted to domain = yes

I also have local and preferred master set to yes, time server and wins server also set to yes.  You'll likely have to configure Win 7 for NTLMv2 as well.

HTH!

/Mike

143

Users / Re: Windows 7 enterprise and samba shares does not work :-(

« on: July 03, 2012, 08:02:05 pm »

I seem to remember having to force Windows Vista to use NTLM v2 many moons ago to make it work with Samba.  You might want to google for Vista +Samba +NTLM, and see if that does it for you.

Chances are, your old employer's infrastructure may have had some legacy systems that they had to force compatibility with, whereas your new system image doesn't have that "'baggage".

It's not likely to be a Samba issue, because I'm running Samba with Vista (laptop) and a Windows Home Server 2011 VM (based on Server 2008r2) at home, with no issues for years now.  I do remember setting a couple of parameters in my smb.conf file, so I'll look those up later when I'm home to see what I'd set.

HTH!

/Mike

144

Users / Re: MD wake on Lan not working

« on: June 28, 2012, 06:18:40 pm »

Jamo,

Generally, the interface has to be configured to support/Listen for the WOL packet.  This is generally done by

Code: [Select]

ethtool -s eth0 wol g
It could be done via an init script, like below, or in rc.local

Code: [Select]

sudo cat << EOF >> /etc/init.d/wake-on-lan
#!/bin/bash
#
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: wake-on-lan
# Required-Start: \$network
# Required-Stop: \$local_fs
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: Enable Wake-On-Lan
### END INIT INFO
#
. /lib/lsb/init-functions
 
do_start() {
    ethtool -s eth0 wol g
    exit
}
 
do_stop() {
    ethtool -s eth0 wol d
    exit
}
 
case "\$1" in
  start )
        do_start
        ;;
  restart|reload|force-reload )
        echo "Error: argument '\$1' not supported" >&2
        exit 3
        ;;
  stop )
        do_stop
        ;;
  * )
        echo "Usage: \$0 start|stop" >&2
        exit 3
        ;;
esac
EOF
sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/wake-on-lan


Code: [Select]

sudo update-rc.d wake-on-lan defaults

Now, if this solves your problem, then it should probably be added to the MD generation scripts.  If not, then there's something else at play, possibly power management.

HTH!

/Mike

145

Users / Re: X10 CM19A

« on: June 27, 2012, 03:57:50 am »

Mochad <http://mochad.sourceforge.net/> is a good project to use to create a driver.  From the wiki,

Everything sent by mochad appears on netcat standard output. In the simplest use case, mochad/netcat can be used to see X10 PL and RF activity. For example, run mochad on one host with a CM15A(CM19a) then connect to it using netcat from a netbook. Walk around with various X10 RF remote controls and the netbook to see which remotes work from various locations.

<http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/mochad/index.php?title=Main_Page>

I'm using it with Misterhouse right now, and would need to port that to LMCE.  I'm using it with X10 RF keypads to trigger scenes, and to send commands to devices behind Arc Fault Breakers (haven't converted everything to Insteon yet. 

Thom,  what would be the best method to implement a driver using mochad, given that netcat is normally used to send and receive data from mochad (which then handles the interaction with the CM15/19a)?

Thanks!

/Mike

146

Installation issues / Re: Question: Adding 1360x768 resolution to video setup or other way?

« on: May 09, 2012, 09:14:15 pm »

The other issue is that you can get different resolution support over different inputs.  VGA inputs will sometimes only support "computer" resolutions, and not true 720p or 1080p, whereas DVI/HDMI will support more.  It all depends on the firmware for the TV's, and the quality of the ASIC's and display engines built into the TV's.  Usually, the less expensive TV's (which are usually the smaller models too) will not have the same capabilities as a more expensive (name-brand) TV.

Just my experience from shopping around...

/Mike

147

Users / Re: HomeOS - Microsoft reinvents LinuxMCE

« on: May 09, 2012, 09:08:02 pm »

kyfalcon,

do you need any more pointers to start?

Kyfalcon,

Me thinks you've been "volun-told"... 

/Mike

148

Users / Re: Design Question - New system install

« on: May 08, 2012, 07:55:56 pm »

JaseP,

I personally can't get access to my PCI/PCIe cards, only because my motherboard doesn't support AMD's IOMMU (the technology that allows you to map the physical devices to virtual machines).  VT/d is the Intel version.  Most server-class motherboards support it, which allows for Xen's/KVM's PCI pass-through to work in datacentre environments.  Ditto for VM-DirectPath, which is VMWare's version of the same concepts.  So, if I wanted to fork out the money for an 890FX or higher chipset motherboard, I could get it to work.  I'm not rolling in dough, so I'll be improvising by running a Myth-backend on the Host OS which will manage the cards, while the master backend resides in a VM.  Next time I have to life-cycle hardware, I'll be getting a mobo with IOMMU support.

So, yes it does work; it's just dependent on having the right hardware support for it.  The processor, chipset and BIOS all have to support it, which can be challenging with consumer hardware.  It can be more challenging with Intel, because some processors support VT/d, and some don't; buyer beware.  The only downside to passing through cards is that it negates the ability to Vmotion a guest from one host to another, because it introduces a physical dependency.

Hope that helps!

/Mike

149

Users / Re: Recommended alarm panels?

« on: May 08, 2012, 02:33:53 pm »

I have a Texecom 816....
Got the Serial connector to my Core, and thats about it.
Still getting around to learn C+ so that I can try and intergrate.

Karel

Karel,

If it's a Serial connector, a GSD is probably more appropriate, and probably a lower entry level than learning C++.  There may be existing templates you can re-use, and simply replace the appropriate commands with those from your alarm panels protocol page.

HTH!

/Mike

150

Users / Re: Design Question - New system install

« on: May 08, 2012, 02:51:51 am »

He might have other workload he wants to run on that same server.  There's nothing wrong with virtualizing the core (or anything else for that matter) if you have the reason and know what you're doing.  I'm running 5 other VM's in addition to a virtual LMCE core, which lets me experiment with LMCE without disrupting the "production" environment.  I'll probably stand up anther Virtual core as a dev environment to work on some stuff, and connect it to the virtual MD I sometimes play with.

On a six core AMD 2.8GHz system with 8GB RAM, I'm running the Core, a Windows Home Server 2011 instance (iTunes server for all the iDevices), a Astaro VPN end-point server, my mail/calendar server (Zarafa), MrHouse home automation, and a Ubuntu Desktop environment as a virtual hosted desktop.  During peaks, my load is about half what the system is capable of; I'm I/O bound more than CPU bound due to SATA disks.  When SSD's drop in price, I'm going to pick up a bigger one for the VM disk storage (I have the various databases on LVM's from a 40G SSD to handle the IOPS requirements, and to lessen the load/latency from the disks).

As far as networking goes, I have two NIC's in the system.  Eth0 is br_ext, a bridged network device connected to my home router which gives outside access.  Eth1 is br_int, another bridge, but for the internal LMCE managed network. The core owns that network, so any physical device connected to the switch on that NIC is seen by the core, as is any virtual Server connected to the br_int.  The virtual core's eth0 is connected to br_ext for Internet access, and for access from the existing production environment.  It's eth1 is connected to br_int, and it provides dhcp and all related services to the "internal" network, as per LMCE's architecture.  So, I can run both environments in parallel, without affecting the wife and kids.

So, the takeaway is, if you have a reason to virtualize it, go for it.  If you don't have a use-case figured out, then you might not want to, because it can be more work.  With great flexibility comes a lot of (your) overhead.

Hope that helps!

/Mike