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I read in another thread that it is possible to have diskless MDs even with wireless netwoking. I would really like to build at least one wirelss MD.

It requires BIOS to be able to use a wireless card without a driver, am I right? None of my wireless does network boot from wireless card. Which wireless cards (or chipsets) support diskless MD?

I read somewhere that you can have a simple Linux boot loader on a floppy with just the network driver and use that to do a network boot. Anybody tried that kind of a MD setup before?

Edit: http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/GRUB_PXE_network_boot

TIA

I could not get Sony DVD changer working 100% with LMCE. But the same setup works fine with Vista Media Center.

This is what I did.

Vista
====
1. Power up DVD changer
2. Insert 35 DVDs into the changer by pressing "Load" button (in front of the changer) for each of the DVD
3. Hooked to PC using a firewire cable
4. Start the PC as Vista Premium
5. Navigate to DVD Library and manage discs and Vista come up with a prompt saying that it needs to catalog new DVDs and it might take a while and all that. When you click Ok to that message Vista retrieves movie/song information off internet. After about 10 minutes cataloging is completed and you can browse all the 35 DVDs and watch the one you want.

Now I continued this setup in to LMCE
============================

1. Shut down computer
2. Power cycle DVD Changer.
3. Restart the machine in LMCE
4. In LMCE go to Manage Drive for DVD changer
5. LMCE reports that there are 13 discs in the box (there were in fact 35 of them) ==> PROBLEM#1
6. To check if it can read DVD datal I clicked the play button on the top side box in the same screen (which shows the currently loaded title), LMCE complains that it could not play the disc and there may not be any disc present or something like that. ==> PROBLEM#2

I have to load this DVD changer with about 150 DVDs and catalog them so that it can be shared among all the MDs.
What am I doing wrong? Any comments would be appreciated.

TIA

I was looking at the mini ITX mobo "VIA EPIA EX Series EX15000G" as an option for a future MD.
They come with two options for CPU. 1.0 GHz Fanless and 1.5GHz with fan.

Which CPU is recommended for decoding HD programs?
A review I came across said that even while decoding HD program the CPU stayed under 25% load (with 1.5GHz).

I know that there is a firmware update available for Sony DVD changer in Windows XP MCE. Is that required for LinuxMCE at all? If yes, how can I do it in from within Linux? I am not sure if Sony supports the DVD changer on Linux platform.

TIA

I just started playing with my HDHomeRun, I got some general questions about TV architecture itself in LMCE.

Since there are two tuners in one HDHomeRun, can two MDs watch two different programs at the same time? Is it possible to add one more HDHomeRun to increase the number of tuners available so that multiple MDs can record/play different channels at the same time?

First the good news! I got my HDHomeRun. I hooked it up to the subnet and switched on LMCE. LMCE detected HDHomeRun and installed it automatically. The whole process was very smooth and this must be the easiest installation of any TV tuner card I ever did!

Now the bad news! I get no audio from TV. I do get sound from DVD, music and setup screens. In fact, even before ordering HDHomeRun, I got working ATI HDTV Wonder card with LMCE. Again there was no sound with ATI either and I suspected the unsupported ATI card or the drivers as the culprit. But it looks like something else is missing in my setup. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

I noticed that LMCE starts several daemons (services) by default such as HP printing support. I am wondering if we can disable some of those  daemons for a dedicated media server catering only to MDs? Can anybody comment on what daemons are not required for LMCE and how to disable them? Thanks.

I am thinking of adding all my pictures into LMCE. But how can I view them as a slide show and/or with navigation buttons (next and previous)? Does LMCE has any such feature at all or no?

(I posted it in Installation Issues forum as part of another post. But I think it fits better here.)

My Core/MD hybrid setup was working just fine with S/PDIF through my receiver for last few days. All of a sudden it started making only severely distorted sound .. sounds like extremely over saturated input signal (scratchy, metallic). I tried even with another hard disk with a previous trial installation of LinuxMCE with the same result. In fact The problem happens in all the outputs. SPDIF, coax as well as analog. Sound is integrated in the motherboard which is http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186104&Tpk=N570SM2AA-8EKRS2H. .

It is very disturbing as I was pretty close to finalize my LMCE core -- even my HDHomeRun is on the way. It is intriguing since the exact same hardware setup works fine with Windows XP ME.

Thanks for any help...

I fixed it:  I tried to enable and disable SPDIF in ALSA using alsamixer as described in http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Dolby_Digital_Out_(AC3,_SPDIF)

SPDIF in my core motherboard works with LinuxMint when IEC958 is enabled whereas it works in LinuxMCE when it is disabled!

How to use PDA as Orbiter or remote control? Specifically I am trying to find use for Toshiba e310 and e335. (I searched wiki for pda and nothing turned up).

TIA

I was testing an Intel D815 mATX motherboard with P3 1GHz for an MD. Everything works fine including audio and movies from hard disk as well as disk changer. The problem is that this configuration runs only the simplest Orbiter, but I want to get overlay format (Medium format with OpenGL). Also this MD could not play HD recordings from the core. I am wondering if I can solve these two problems by using a video card with hardware mpeg2 decoder. Is there anything like that which LMCE likes?

TIA

http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/4245/microsoft_releases_first
http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/4329/microsoft_unveils_extenders

Edit: Hopefully they won't apply for patent for all the "new technologies" involved!

There are two different Microsoft MCE remote controls available. One for WindowsXP and the other for Windows Vista. Anybody knows which one works better with LinuxMCE?

Thanks

First of all congratulations to those who released a product with a great future! Thanks to all of you who spent their time and money to bring it up to this level. it is already an amazing package!

I just did a trial installation of a Core and a Media Director. Installation was not too difficult, still there are plenty of quirks. I have been using Linux for close to an year and tried several distributions just for fun (LinuxMint is my favorite). I don't think the LinuxMCE installation would be very easy for a hard core Windows user or even a not-too technical Linux User. DVD  installation is a better bet in those cases.

I think new users should be advised to try out only those hardware and configurations that are already tested by the community. Even though there are wiki pages for this purpose they are not helping much because users do not update it (wiki is a little intimidating for me too!). If the forum moderator can create a sticky thread for users to post working hardware configurations that would be more interactive and should better serve the purpose.

I also think that developers should not claim that one can use any hardware and accessories with it and everyone is going to have a heavenly experience with LinuxMCE and all that. Usability features of LinuxMCE (look and feel in general) itself needs lot of improvements before it can compete with other MCEs like Windows MCE, Media Portal and such. LinuxMCE already has plenty of functionality no other popular MCE's ever imagined. Now with low power multi core machines and disk-less media directors, I certainly see a very bright future for LinuxMCE if we can get more developers, users and companies to support the idea. It certainly would make ones life and home computing scenarios easier.

Even though I am a windows developer (knowledge and experience somewhere between a system programmer and Database application architect), I was thinking of helping the Linux community however I can. May be I should start with LinuxMCE. LinuxMCE turned out to be one of my favorite projects in the recent past.

Thanks again for the interesting project!

First of all please excuse me for such a long post.

I just started my expedition to LinuxMCE! I have another WindowsXP MCE already mostly used with MediaPortal. Media portal is much better than Windows XP MCE for playing archived music in local machine or from a FTP server. I preferred LinuxMCE because I can use it to share music files and DVDs either archived or by using the CD/DVD changer. I also like the concept of disk-less MDs. For movies I prefer to use DVD changer so that I do not have to use huge disks for storage and thereby reducing huge data loss in the event of a disk crash. I might later add an HDHomeRun for local TV channels. But for now it is exclusively to share media (DVD/CD) across all rooms in the house. Right now I am just experimenting with the setup and will be commissioning this once the basement is ready. My setup, so far is:

==== Core =====

Motherboard: http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=249235
             (which is same as http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186104&Tpk=N570SM2AA-8EKRS2H)
             (has two Network connections - one for Internet from my home network and the other connected to an 8 port switch for a separate media network)
Video Card : ASUS EN6200LE http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121019
CPU        : AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ 2.1GHz
RAM        : 2GB DDR2-800
Harddisk   : 80GB (will add more later)
Drives     : DVD drive/writer
External Dr: Sony XL1B3
InputDevice: Media center compatible Keyboard/Mouse combination
           : Gyro Mouse
IR Remote  : USB-UIRT (not yet installed)
OTA TVTuner: ATI HDTV Wonder (not sure if it is compatible - not yet installed)


Media Director ======
Currently I am using an old motherboard with minimum configuration as MD. (This sort of old school h/w costs very inexpensive these days)

Motherboard : Intel D815EFV with built in Video/Network/Audio
CPU         : P3/Celeron 1GHz 
Memory      : 256MB SDRAM 
(Power consumption of this setup is only about 40W or so. I will use similar configuration for all my MD needs if it serves the purpose)

My experience so far:

Even though most of it is working, there are quirks and they are.

• Core and MD both keep running the detection scripts (for various TV models and such) every few minutes (or more frequent than that) -- which is very annoying
• Core and MD both saying they found some Windows share called MOON or MOON12 or something and is ready for use!!
• Could not play DVDs from the DVD changer, it is saying DVD changer drive is not accessible. But it can list the filled slots, eject a disc etc in the drive management screen. The same hardware setup including DVD changer worked fine with Windows XP Media center (I just installed WindowsXP MCE to test it).
• I would like to hibernate (or shutdown) my Core when not in use and get it remotely woken up (or switched on).  I will tackle that myself, once everything is working fine. But I noticed that each time I start the Core it goes through all the initialization scripts such as re-building the screens and all that -- which really slows things down. Same issue is with MDs also. Is that normal?

Future plans:

• Move my DirecTV HD-DVR along with MCECore and DVD changer to a basement corner Room (nook).
• Rip all my CDs using DVD changer to MCE's native format (ogg?)
• Mount all my DVDs in DVD changer and make it available for entire house.
• Run wires from DirecTV DVR to two different locations in the house to watch DirecTV programs/recordings (one LCD TV in Living room and one Projector in basement family room). Have two MDs in these two locations control the TV, local receiver and DVD player using USB-UIRT.
• Have one or two MDs in bedrooms for music, DVD and OTA TV programs from HDHomeRun (no receiver - audio though TV)

My questions:

• While someone is watching a DVD from DVD changer using one MD, if someone else try to play another DVD in another MD what will happen?
• If I get one more DVD changer can I watch two movies in two different places (one each from two different collections)?
• If I change resolution of an MD or add new devices to one MD will linux keep track of the changes per MD?
• Is it possible to remove the KDE Desktop option from the menu and add an option to start just the web-browser?
• Can LinuxMCE play DVD-Audio?
• Can LinuxMCE use shared folders from the external network?
• I hear a lot of bad things about DVD changer, is it too unreliable for my use?
• Movies can be stored (after ripping) in a raid-5 array or a DVD changer, which is better?
• Should I wait for a Gigabit version of HDHomeRun? Or is 100mbps good enough?

Any other comments are also welcome. This is my favorite project now!

I want to configure my media network on its own switch with LinuxMCE as the DHCP server. The original (wireless enabled) home network will continue to use the DHCP server built in into the wireless router. This lets media server to shutdown or sleep when not in use. Can any one review this network diagram for me, please?

If I feed internet to LinuxMCE server directly from the main switch, will it make any better or worse?

I have a few questions about tuner cards for LinuxMCE...

Which is the best TV Tuner card (internal or external device) for LinuxMCE? I am considering HDHomeRun. Is there a better alternative?

I like HDHomeRun because it has got two ATSC tuners. The bad is that there is no NTSC tuner so it cannot  tune regular NTSC (correct?) .
Since it has two tuners, two Media Directors can watch two different live channels at the same time, am I right?
At the same time, I am also wondering if 100Mbps bandwidth is sufficient to stream two HD channels in the network.

I am wiring/configuring the whole Media network with its own Gigabit switch to optimize network bandwidth. Will plugging in HDHomeRun into this switch bring down the whole network to 100Mbps? Router is going to be DLink DGS-2208 which has got 128MB buffer.

BTW, does TV Tuner cards come with FM tuner built in? Or should  I get FM tuners separate?

Thanks

I started experimenting with LinuxMCE. I am wiring 8 network drops for LinuxMCE on its own sub network with its own Gigabit switch on CAT6. If I simultaneously use three Media Directors with a LinuxMCE server to watch three different DVD movies (from harddisk), what kind of Network speeds are required?

TIA