VistaMCE limitations - can LinuxMCE solve these problems

[markt]

Hi, been investigating media centers. Have borrowed an VistaMCE from PCworld - but find that its 10' interface does not work for analog video capture nor can I find a way to control the on/setup of my old projection TV.

Could someone explain, how much can be done with the LinuxMCE 10' interface, in particular will it be able to do analog video capture (and editing?).

Could you also confirm that configuring the ir blasters is straight forward.

Thanks in advance for your advice

[tschak909]

You should check out:

(a) Our Demo Video: http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Video
(b) Our main wiki site: http://wiki.linuxmce.org/

We show all the features of the system in the demo video, so hopefully this can answer your question.

-Thom

[totallymaxed]

Hi, been investigating media centers. Have borrowed an VistaMCE from PCworld - but find that its 10' interface does not work for analog video capture nor can I find a way to control the on/setup of my old projection TV.

Could someone explain, how much can be done with the LinuxMCE 10' interface, in particular will it be able to do analog video capture (and editing?).

Could you also confirm that configuring the ir blasters is straight forward.

Thanks in advance for your advice

Hi there,

Analog capture is working now as part of the MythTV integration and will soon be part of the vdr integration too. There capturing an analog source from a Sky box or a Virgin Media box would be perfectly possible (or any other analog source in fact). As for editing I know for sure that vdr allows for basic editing eg remove the commercial from a recording etc and I would guess MythTV has some similar features too (we're focussed on vdr so Mythtv users will have to confirm that). The UI can be driven 100% from a remote or wireless keyboard so the "10 foot" question is not a problem.

Configuring IR blasting is pretty easy once you get the hang of it. If you want to control a Sky box (or several Sky boxes) using the Sky control interface then that is possible too using Dianemo (our professionally installed system based on LinuxMCE).

As to your projection TV... I can't say for sure whether that will work. It depends on its inputs etc. We have configured systems with a wide range of LCD/Plasma screens and also with various video projectors and very few of these cause any problems significant problems.

Anyway i hope the above helps you.

All the best

Andrew

[danielk]

MythTV will also let you edit recordings. You need to play the recording from within MythTV then hit the "E" key to enter the editing mode. When done editing you can use mythtranscode to make the edits permanent and seen by the Xine player.

In LinuxMCE 804, I plan to make MythTV the default player for MythTV recordings so the export step will not be needed. But I need to make sure that the MythTV_Player wrapper is aware of how to do absolute jumps so that the Orbiter jog functionality works firsy and also run some stress tests to make sure the MythTV player is as stable under LinuxMCE as Xine.

[Zaerc]

Just for the record, despite the name LinuxMCE is not a free drop in replacement for windowsMCE.

[freymann]

In LinuxMCE 804, I plan to make MythTV the default player for MythTV recordings so the export step will not be needed. But I need to make sure that the MythTV_Player wrapper is aware of how to do absolute jumps so that the Orbiter jog functionality works firsy and also run some stress tests to make sure the MythTV player is as stable under LinuxMCE as Xine.

 Would this also mean that commercial skipping would work to then? (Gee, I hope so!)

[richard.e.morton]

Hi There,

I was wondering if there was even a preliminary timeline for LinuxMCE804? I have just bought a box for LinuxMCE that works perfectly with Kubuntu804 but wont boot under 710. I know software development is difficult and timelines are difficult to say, but an indication would be really useful for me. Is it likely to be a month, 2 months, six months?

If it is going ot be a while i'll build a myth box while I wait, but if it is going to be just a few weeks... I can probably wait ;-)
I've been very lucky and acquired an SP13000 for a second mediadirector, a gyromouse and an N800i as an orbiter...
Thanks, and sorry to ask and disturb you.
R

[freymann]

I was wondering if there was even a preliminary timeline for LinuxMCE804? I have just bought a box for LinuxMCE that works perfectly with Kubuntu804 but wont boot under 710. I know software development is difficult and timelines are difficult to say, but an indication would be really useful for me. Is it likely to be a month, 2 months, six months?

Last I heard there wasn't going to be an 8.04 release.... things would wait for 8.10 (which is at least October?)

[tschak909]

correct, we skipped over 8.04 to build for 8.10...

while Zaerc has successfully built atop 8.04, we still have a lot of work to do.

-Thom

[richard.e.morton]

I am kicking myself that I bought a system with the following compoonents that wont boot! Infact it wont boot withLinux MCE OR Mythbuntu 804, but works fine under Kubuntu804...

ASUS GeForce 8500GT SILENT MAGIC 51   HDMI / d-SUB
VALUERAM 2GB 667MHz DDR2 Non-ECC
CORSAIR 550W VX PSU
IIYAMA 24" Wide 2ms LCD TFT HDMI/VGA d-SUB
INTEL Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz S775
CASES COOLMAST Elite 330 ATX No PSU Black
ASUS S775 INTEL P45 ATX DDR2 A L

Has anyone got anything like this working? I have tried Kubuntu 710 x86 and x64

Thanks

R

[seth]

 
@freymann

Commercial skip works perfectly while viewing the recording in mythtv. My wife use this interface daily, and I would definitely have heard about it if commflag, and commercial skipping were not working 

You do have to go into mythtv's etup menu (from within mythtv interface) and activate commercial skip, but after that, it does stick through concurrent reboots. In fact I used this feature last evening. And it still does a bang up job

Hope that helps.

@ richard

And while LMCE is not a  "drop in" replacement for vista (bleck, can't believe I typed that word ) I tis a fully functional media center, it just adds home control and a vast ocean of other goodies. You can't beat it with anything else IMHO.

I hope you give it a try. Your hardware looks as though it should work fine. Not sure why you are having issues. I really hope you get it working.


Regards,

Seth

[freymann]

Commercial skip works perfectly while viewing the recording in mythtv. My wife use this interface daily, and I would definitely have heard about it if commflag, and commercial skipping were not working 

You do have to go into mythtv's etup menu (from within mythtv interface) and activate commercial skip, but after that, it does stick through concurrent reboots. In fact I used this feature last evening. And it still does a bang up job

Yes, I was aware of that and we definitely utilize that feature!

But... if you go to Start > Media and then filter Type > TV and then play your TV shows through LMCE, you don't get the commercial skip because you're playing your recorded TV outside of MythTV. That is what I was referring to.

It's a bit of a PITA to have to launch TV, then Start > Recordings. If I do this with the gyro remote, I actually have to go grab the MCE Remote and press the left arrow to get rid of the LMCE menu overlay, and then use the left/right/up/down keys on the MCE remote to navigate through our recordings. Watching shows with this method of course utilize the commercial skip feature of MythTV.

It's not as graceful as launching the TV show from LMCE and the gyro remote :-( and you don't get auto commercial skip.

[seth]

 
@ freymann

Here is what the wife does. The MCE remote she uses has a "Live TV" button. She hits that, then after mythtv is up, she also has a "Recorded TV" button. This button instantly calls up the MythTV recordings menu, and she goes from there. I can also do this with the gyration remote. After MythTV is up, hit the menu button (green M$ symbol in the center) that brings up the LMCE menu, and then on the far left go up to recordings. Thsi changes it to MythTV recording menu. Then I hit the right button, taking the LMCE menu away, and from there I use the D-Pad directional buttons to navigate the MythTV recording menu.

I know its a few more steps, but at least it will get you where you need. Perhaps in the future the LMCE video menu, will take queues from mythtv as to commercial skipping and the like. But It can be done today, just not as fluidly as we would like. But it's not terrible either 

Regards,


Seth

[freymann]

Here is what the wife does. The MCE remote she uses has a "Live TV" button. She hits that, then after mythtv is up, she also has a "Recorded TV" button. This button instantly calls up the MythTV recordings menu, and she goes from there. I can also do this with the gyration remote. After MythTV is up, hit the menu button (green M$ symbol in the center) that brings up the LMCE menu, and then on the far left go up to recordings. Thsi changes it to MythTV recording menu. Then I hit the right button, taking the LMCE menu away, and from there I use the D-Pad directional buttons to navigate the MythTV recording menu.

 Hmmm, that seems to work fine with either remote! Thanks.

 I can't remember why I couldn't get rid of the LMCE Menu without exiting Myth too, but your steps work fine and we'll be doing that from now on.

[seth]

 
Groovy. Glad to have helped.

Regards,

Seth