1080p for a Media Director

[jtgamble]

What is recommended for getting 1080p from a media director? I'm trying to do as small a box as possible to keep it hidden behind the TV. My friend is saying I'll need a video card to do the output, but are there any motherboards with on-board video that will do 1080p decently?

Thanks

[cobradevil]

Hello,

You could try a mainboard with integrated nvidia graphics!

e.g. http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=101&l3=567&l4=0&model=1944&modelmenu=1

But you have to keep in mind that no video vendor has realy good accelerated video playback for linux so the processor has to be fast to process 1080p streams!

I am waiting for intel x3100 graphics chips to be supported with the vaapi from intel http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/vaapi

They promise to give accelerated video playback for:
MPEG-2
MPEG-4
ASP/H.263
MPEG-4 AVC/H.264
VC-1/VMW3

With kind regards

William van de Velde

[JimmyGosling]

tkmedia has been successful running 1080p with this board as well as some of his own tweaks to the xorg.conf file in the 0710b4 release.  You can speak with him directly on the IRC if you have additional questions.

I have the same board but was unable to get it working in 0710b3.

[jtgamble]

Awesome, thanks I'll look into it...now finding a nice tiny case to use with it

[tkmedia]

mine is an ABIT AN M2HD not a asus      but am running at 1080p with alpha blending stop by for a chat if u need more info

[nite_man]

MM200 (http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Convergenthome) should be ok for HDTV. I didn't try it but Andrew promised that its MD supports at least 720p.

One of the best options for MD can be AppleTV. I have one with installed Kubuntu 7.10 but I still cannot boot it from TFTP server.

[jtgamble]

Interesting.....AppleTV. How easy is it to get working with MCE as a director? And you need to actually install the director software correct? You can't boot it via the network? Also, it doesn't do 1080p does it? Just 1080i or 720p?

And Convergent Home won't ship to me...stupid product liability in the US

[nite_man]

Interesting.....AppleTV. How easy is it to get working with MCE as a director? And you need to actually install the director software correct? You can't boot it via the network? Also, it doesn't do 1080p does it? Just 1080i or 720p?

And Convergent Home won't ship to me...stupid product liability in the US

You can investigate aOpen miniPC (945VDR, for example). I suspect it has similar hardware as MM200.

To use AppleTV as MD it should be install MD software on its HDD or it should be boot via network. The possibility to use diskled MD was dropped in 0710. So, I'm trying to boot my AppleTV via network but without luck. There is a project - Mythic Beasts (http://mythic-beasts.com/resources/appletv/walk-through.html) which gives a way to install Linux on AppleTV and boot it via HDD or TFTP server. Have a look it. Maybe it'll be interesting for you as well.

[jtgamble]

Thanks for the link, I'll take a look at it. I'm just a bit discouraged that AppleTV doesn't seem to support 1080p.

[totallymaxed]

MM200 (http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Convergenthome) should be ok for HDTV. I didn't try it but Andrew promised that its MD supports at least 720p.

One of the best options for MD can be AppleTV. I have one with installed Kubuntu 7.10 but I still cannot boot it from TFTP server.

Yes the MM200 works fine at 720p and we hope soon to confirm 1080p too shortly - under UI2 with Overlay

Andrew

[totallymaxed]

Thanks for the link, I'll take a look at it. I'm just a bit discouraged that AppleTV doesn't seem to support 1080p.

We have been testing today a new AMD based unit with onboard ATI x1250 based graphics and after installing xorg-driver-fglrx_7.1.0-8.37.6+2.6.22.4-14 .9_amd64.deb and manually tweaking xorg.conf we managed to get UI2 with Overlay working nicely too. AvWizard needs some additional work in its con'f to correctly configure the ATI driver/X but the basic driver support is looking great.

Andrew

[nite_man]

Thanks for the link, I'll take a look at it. I'm just a bit discouraged that AppleTV doesn't seem to support 1080p.

We have been testing today a new AMD based unit with onboard ATI x1250 based graphics and after installing xorg-driver-fglrx_7.1.0-8.37.6+2.6.22.4-14 .9_amd64.deb and manually tweaking xorg.conf we managed to get UI2 with Overlay working nicely too. AvWizard needs some additional work in its con'f to correctly configure the ATI driver/X but the basic driver support is looking great.

Andrew

Good news! The next step is supporting of transparency

[jtgamble]

Yes the MM200 works fine at 720p and we hope soon to confirm 1080p too shortly - under UI2 with Overlay

Andrew

Mind if I ask what case and motherboard you use for the MM200?

[jtgamble]

Does anybody know if any of the Jetway Micro ITX motherboards are working with MCE? Has anybody tried them?

Something like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813153077

[totallymaxed]

Yes the MM200 works fine at 720p and we hope soon to confirm 1080p too shortly - under UI2 with Overlay

Andrew

Mind if I ask what case and motherboard you use for the MM200?

The MM200 is built for us by a contract manufacturer in Asia. The motherboard is custom designed for the MM200 but is based on a standard laptop Intel i945 chipset (GMA950 GPU). The case is also custom design/manufactured for us as part of the MM200 and is not available separately.

Andrew