Messages

Okay, so for many of the same reasons already stated I too have not really got beyond being "another user" of LMCE.

When I came here, I didn't come to become a coder, I came to prove I could get it LMCE up and running, but have stayed because unlike most products available, coding is possible.

I will admit right now, I have not looked into the dev side at all so before linking me to some other thread or pointing me back somewhere higher in this one can the following be answered.

For any of the "typical" areas that dev work is needed are there well written and well documented sections of existing code that can be interpreted and effectively reverse engineered?

Like many I am a fast learner have a reasonable amount of programming knowledge (hobby only) but have been severely limited in my ability to commit time (three children under 5).

I can spend hours examining code, reading up, learning and trying new stuff, but right now I can not devote the vast amount of time required to get completely under the covers. Some nights are good and I could drop 4 hours+ of time, other nights, when I have been up all night with a sick kid and at work all day, not so much. At least not of quality and reliability.

If I can grab some well commented, existing examples of something, throw together a dev environment and get somewhere contributing time as I can physically spare it, I'm in.

Craptastic

Okay, been doing some searches within the forum and with Google and perhaps I can not state in four words or less what I am asking.

I have content on two HD's in my hybrid and it is mixed on both between our (parents) content and kids content.

Is there a way to identify each video, for example, and attach it to a user? I have three users, one for me, one for my wife and one for my kids. Can I define kids content from parent content so I don't have to wade through the other depending on what I am looking for? Or, is it just easier to split the content by physical media and attach the media to the user. Obviously, less preferable.

Perhaps I have missed something in the admin site, guess that's why I am asking.

Thx

Welcome.

I have the same motherboard, which really is the critical piece and it has worked really well for me. For ongoing testing and implementing I had to move off our main TV (720p) and use CRT so I added in an EVGA 6200 PCI Gfx card and for $50.00 it works even better.

With an upgraded nvidia driver (of early April, forget the rev) the board would do full UI2 very well. I only saw occasional artifacting of one or two lines during high action scenes. The addition of the EVGA card gets full UI2 with zero issues. Works flawlessly with DVI, VGA or S-Video up to 720p that I have tested.

I have not yet upgraded kernel or migrated to 810 to get the onboard NIC working  but I am still learning and deploying and it does what I need right now.

For a second NIC I would suggest a PCI Express card to save one of only two PCI slots. Forget the model off hand but I have an Intel NIC that works out of the box.

Anyway, I am certain you will be happy. There is so much to explore and learn and try. When you see this working on a tablet PC like a WebDT with audio and video information and cover art added in it is very slick and definitely a conversation piece for any guest.

Craptastic

Okay, so my box is up and running, with the exception of the onboard NIC. (I have the ASUS M3N78-EM).

I have played around and read posts and got to a point where I am comfortable with the LMCE environment.

So, based on the wiki page for the mobo the solution to resolve NIC is to upgrade kernel. Now, looking at page after page of documentation, mostly warnings, it begged the question as to whether or not 810 would be the best option with a fresh install.

Only thing of concern I have read are comments about the xorg.conf file under 810 not liking changes.

If it were you what would you do?

I also don't have to do this today, it's a hybrid, I have no MD's and for what I need right at the moment it works, but I am a tinkerer and will likely do one or other anyway.

Thanks,

Craptastic

Only comment I would add is consideration for use of the pool for the purpose of purchasing hardware and widgets etc. There are a million things out there and many would be really cool but let's face it, all this gear costs money. I would see no issue in the developer of the app benefiting from the free hardware for their system while supporting dev work of either user based prioritized lists or functional/technological steps forward of LMCE.

Obviously, guidelines and governance still required.

Craptastic

Thanks,

You read my mind. I was having a lot of issues, the plug and play part was just not working. I ended up doing a new install of LMCE off the new card. And yes, my BIOS only supports GPU order, not disabling.

I was having a lot of trouble out of the box so did the driver update to 180.51 and then started having a lot of issues with OpenGL so from other threads did the:

sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia-glx

It worked enough to boot but graphic quality was not so good. So I re-installed the nvidia-glx and I kept playing around with it and for a brief moment everything was fine. Until I played some more and screwed it all up. I had looked in my original xorg.conf right after the fresh install and saw the reference to Bus ID but didn't pay close enough attention. When xorg got overwritten I was right back where I started.

I was able to plug a monitor in with DVI-VGA and get back into the AV Wizard but the xorg file would constantly get overwritten. I manually added the Bus ID, which for anyone else will look like this, on the line following the driver in device section:

Bus ID   "PCI:1:7:0" - your numbers will be different based on values from lspci but it should be noted that lspci referenced 1:07.0 nomenclature while the data in xorg is separated by colons and there was no leading zero. Not sure how critical, but a technical difference.

Everything is now working great. I have full UI2 working again and I have absolutely zero tearing. I have ran the same video feeds I had previously used for the native 8300 on my M3N78 mobo and performance is actually better. My video card is the EVGA 6200. I will add it to the wiki.

Best $50 I have spent in a long time.

Thanks.

For a host of reasons, mostly the time spent testing on the TV, I am migrating my installation from LCD to CRT. I now have to disable onboard GPU and replace with a 6200 with SVideo.

As a relative newbie to Linux, are there any obvious pitfalls to changing the nvidia driver and using the card versus the GPU?

Obvious windows reference here to not "uninstalling" old software and drivers.

Searched the wiki and the forum and could not seem to come up with search criteria that could find a reference.

Oh, and the newest 6200 driver is a higher rev than existing 8300 one that I have upgraded.

MoBo is the ASUS M3N78-EM if it matters.

Thanks.

Can one then create their own id3 tags for other media? And if so, what is the format or naming convention? Does it follow the same as MP3's since it referred to as an 'id3' tag?

Thx

Anyone looked into a source for replacement Lithium-Ions for the DT's?

The batteries were made by Panansonic. I found one source for $13 USD per battery, four in the DT, and am still awaiting a response from Panasonic. I also have another company providing a quote.

If no one else knows of any places, anyone else interested in new batteries?

Craptastic

Although not on my Linux box, I have used an IDE to SATA adapter to salvage some legacy storage. Works perfectly fine. If you shop around you can get one cheap.

Craptastic

I have not yet started using Z-wave devices but will over the next few months so I don't know a lot of specifics but can add the following.

Z-wave devices generally work better based on the more you have as each one is both a receiver and transmitter (a repeater to more precise). This allows signals that are not strong enough to reach through your entire house to simply hop from device to device until the one the signal is for is found. This is done on a Mesh Network. There are plug-in nodes available that will can help bridge two parts of your house if there are no actual devices or an insufficient number of devices.

As for ceiling fans, you can use dimmer type technology but you want to be looking for a fan control. Fan controls are built to reduce/eliminate the humming noise from the motor that you get with standard types of dimmers. If you only have "one wire" going from your switch to your ceiling fan and use the pull chains for the fan, you would need to try and find a device designed for that, or pull another wire. Most ceiling fans can be wired for a switch on the fan but a lot of homes are only run with 14/2 and not 14/3 so the pull chain is used.

Unless there is a special purpose Z-wave alternative, you basically want two switches on your wall. One for light and one for fan. One dimmer and one a fan control.

Craptastic

In my relatively short time here I have already learned a hell of a lot and have a basic working LinuxMCE setup that I will expand to total home domination when I can spare more time.

For all of this I thank all of you who have gotten this to the stage it is at.

I don't really know any of you, yet I have followed your instructions, learned from your experiences and educated myself on things I knew nothing about.

I have seen the many posts by the many people that are generally answered by only the few. To you, thank you. It is largely a selfless act of devoting time to the problems of others. This is one of the most responsive forums I have been involved with.

From one of the many, thanks again,

Craptastic

Forgot to mention that I too did not see the proper image during the test procedure. Same results as Ray_N with missing quadrants. Didn't expect it to work, but it works great.

Okay, so hooked up to Samsung LCD via DVI out of m/b to HDMI input on LCD.

Booted to monitor, ran AV Wizard, changed to DVI/HDMI output/720p/60Hz

Loaded up fine to LCD, looked great.

Ran the same host of different video files and overall it ran extremely well.

The only thing I could notice, and it is difficult, is what appears to be one, maybe two horizontal lines that seem to loose sync. This line is about 40% of the screen height down from the top and I could only see it on one Divx video I played during very high action scenes. Even then it was barely noticeable and over in a flash. Based on how it performed I will be leaving it in UI2+alpha.

For the other videos I ran I did not see any artifacting at all. See xorg.conf below.

colinjones, having just ran the AV Wizard again to change to 720p I can not see any differences between my two xorg.conf files except for the monitor and resolution. What should have happened?


_________________________________________________________________________
# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:  version 1.0  (buildmeister@builder63)  Thu Feb  5 00:18:17 PST 2009

# xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
#   sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "ServerLayout"

# Uncomment if you have a wacom tablet
#   InputDevice     "stylus"   "SendCoreEvents"
#   InputDevice     "cursor"   "SendCoreEvents"
#   InputDevice     "eraser"   "SendCoreEvents"
    Identifier     "Default Layout"
    Screen         "Default Screen" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Generic Keyboard"
    InputDevice    "Configured Mouse"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Generic Keyboard"
    Driver         "kbd"
    Option         "CoreKeyboard"
    Option         "XkbRules" "xorg"
    Option         "XkbModel" "pc105"
    Option         "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Configured Mouse"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "CorePointer"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option         "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "stylus"
    Driver         "wacom"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
    Option         "Type" "stylus"
    Option         "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"      # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "eraser"
    Driver         "wacom"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
    Option         "Type" "eraser"
    Option         "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"      # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "cursor"
    Driver         "wacom"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
    Option         "Type" "cursor"
    Option         "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"      # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Generic Monitor"
    Option         "DPMS"
   Modeline    "1280x720" 74.250 1280 1390 1430 1650 720 725 730 750 +hsync +vsync
   HorizSync   20-500
   VertRefresh   59-61
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "nVidia Corporation NVIDIA Default Card"
    Driver         "nvidia"
   Option "XvmcUsesTextures" "true"
   Option "renderAccel" "true"
   Option "NoDDCValue"
   Option "UseEDID" "false"
   Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "true"
   Option "NoLogo" "true"
   Option "NoBandWidthTest" "true"
   Option "ModeValidation" "NoDFPNativeResolutionCheck, NoEdidMaxPClkCheck, NoMaxPClkCheck, AllowInterlacedModes, AllowNon60HzDFPModes"
   Option "DynamicTwinView" "false"
   Option "UseEvents" "true"
   Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
   Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true"
   Option      "ConnectedMonitor" "DFP"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Default Screen"
    Device         "nVidia Corporation NVIDIA Default Card"
    Monitor        "Generic Monitor"
    DefaultDepth    24
   SubSection "Display"
      Modes      "1280x720"
      Virtual      1280 720
   EndSubSection
   Option "XvmcUsesTextures" "true"
   Option "renderAccel" "true"
   Option "NoDDCValue"
   Option "UseEDID" "false"
   Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "true"
   Option "NoLogo" "true"
   Option "NoBandWidthTest" "true"
   Option "ModeValidation" "NoDFPNativeResolutionCheck, NoEdidMaxPClkCheck, NoMaxPClkCheck, AllowInterlacedModes, AllowNon60HzDFPModes"
   Option "DynamicTwinView" "false"
   Option "UseEvents" "true"
   Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
   Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true"
   Option   "TVStandard"   "720p (16:9)"
EndSection


Section "Extensions"
   Option "RENDER" "true"
EndSection


Thanks,

Craptastic

Same results here. I also have not connected to a TV stream, but all other methods of putting video through are working with no tearing.

I am running the following:

ASUS M3N78-EM with GeForce 8300 and the latest 180.29 Nvidia driver
2 Gig OCZ DDR2 800
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Dual Core Processor AM2 2.7GHZ 2X512KB 65W
Corsair VX550W 550W ATX 12V 41A 24PIN ATX Power Supply Active PFC

LinuxMCE  0710 i386 DVD install

While this machine is under construction the output being used is only VGA, out to an old CRT monitor.

xorg.conf below.
_________________________________________________________
# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:  version 1.0  (buildmeister@builder63)  Thu Feb  5 00:18:17 PST 2009

# xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
#   sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "ServerLayout"

# Uncomment if you have a wacom tablet
#   InputDevice     "stylus"   "SendCoreEvents"
#   InputDevice     "cursor"   "SendCoreEvents"
#   InputDevice     "eraser"   "SendCoreEvents"
    Identifier     "Default Layout"
    Screen         "Default Screen" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Generic Keyboard"
    InputDevice    "Configured Mouse"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Generic Keyboard"
    Driver         "kbd"
    Option         "CoreKeyboard"
    Option         "XkbRules" "xorg"
    Option         "XkbModel" "pc105"
    Option         "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Configured Mouse"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "CorePointer"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option         "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "stylus"
    Driver         "wacom"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
    Option         "Type" "stylus"
    Option         "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"      # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "eraser"
    Driver         "wacom"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
    Option         "Type" "eraser"
    Option         "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"      # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "cursor"
    Driver         "wacom"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/wacom"
    Option         "Type" "cursor"
    Option         "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"      # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Generic Monitor"
    Option         "DPMS"
   Modeline    "1024x768" 60.80 1024 1056 1128 1272 768 768 770 796
   HorizSync   20-500
   VertRefresh   59-61
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "nVidia Corporation NVIDIA Default Card"
    Driver         "nvidia"
   Option "XvmcUsesTextures" "true"
   Option "renderAccel" "true"
   Option "NoDDCValue"
   Option "UseEDID" "false"
   Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "true"
   Option "NoLogo" "true"
   Option "NoBandWidthTest" "true"
   Option "ModeValidation" "NoDFPNativeResolutionCheck, NoEdidMaxPClkCheck, NoMaxPClkCheck, AllowInterlacedModes, AllowNon60HzDFPModes"
   Option "DynamicTwinView" "false"
   Option "UseEvents" "true"
   Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
   Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true"
   Option      "ConnectedMonitor" "CRT"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Default Screen"
    Device         "nVidia Corporation NVIDIA Default Card"
    Monitor        "Generic Monitor"
    DefaultDepth    24
   SubSection "Display"
      Modes      "1024x768"
      Virtual      1024 768
   EndSubSection
   Option "XvmcUsesTextures" "true"
   Option "renderAccel" "true"
   Option "NoDDCValue"
   Option "UseEDID" "false"
   Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "true"
   Option "NoLogo" "true"
   Option "NoBandWidthTest" "true"
   Option "ModeValidation" "NoDFPNativeResolutionCheck, NoEdidMaxPClkCheck, NoMaxPClkCheck, AllowInterlacedModes, AllowNon60HzDFPModes"
   Option "DynamicTwinView" "false"
   Option "UseEvents" "true"
   Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
   Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true"
   Option   "TVStandard"   "1024x768"
EndSection


Section "Extensions"
   Option "Composite" "true"
   Option "RENDER" "true"
EndSection
_____________________________________________________________