Linux Media Jukebox on the Cheap

tsetem writes "Over on ExtremeTech, they have a write-up on building your own Linux Media Jukebox for a little over $500 and a bit of elbow-grease. This is probably the PC we were hoping that the Lindows Media PC would've been." This particular project uses Freevo which has matured significantly since I last looked at it.

Comments

Freevo, MythTV

[Mysticalfruit]

I like Freevo, but MythTV actually have live TV pause features and lots of addons...

http://www.mythtv.org

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[AKnightCowboy]

The problem I had with Freevo is I could never get the XMLtv stuff to work right without tons of fscking around. Maybe I was just doing it wrong, but it seemed like you had to enter all the channels you want it to pick up into the config file. Seems like too much work. :-) With MythTV on the other hand I grabbed a handful of Debian packages with apt-get, configured the mysql setup via the dialog prompts and had a PVR up and running on a prototype server in no time at all.

Now all I need is the $1500-$2000 to build this project ($1000-$1500 for a backend server with between 500 and 800 gigs of space, $500 for a nice quiet living room system). Maybe I'm way too into this "free software" stuff. I could just buy a ReplayTV if they don't go out of business for much cheaper, but I'd have less functionality. Hmph. My goals are at least 500 hours of recording time, two tuners, enough horsepower to do DivX encoding from two tuners at once, and a nice quiet set top box for TV output in my living room.

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[AssFace]

great link - thanks - if I had mod points I'd mod this up!
I'm moving out of the country and where I'm moving doesn't have TiVo. I currently have TiVo and love it - but once I move, I'm considering making my own system, and it looks like either Freevo or MythTV would be great for what I want.

the downside is that for the first few months I'm there, it looks like I certainly won't have more than dial-up in terms of internet, and I'm not sure I'll even have a TV for awhile... hard to do TiVo type things with no TV.

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[starvo]

Yea, and unless you're running Mandrake 9.0 or 9.1, it ends up being a bizarre ritual that takes into the 3rd level of hell when you try to get everything working.

MythTV has more features, and it works slightly better, BUT.. It's a pain to config and setup, and don't even get me started on the hell of making LIRC work with MythTV, on Redhat.

Freevo is nice only because it puts everything together, in a slightly simpler package than MythTv. But it lacks features.. Hrm.

Recently my roommate and I each built PVR boxes, and in the end, I heard a lot less swearing, and cussing from him, because he went with a Windows (XP) solution. He's using the Snapstream 3.0 Beta.. Pretty much does everything that Freevo/Myth does.. except you don't go insane when installing it. But yeah, if you can't get beyond having to run windows, then try MythTv or Freevo.

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[AssFace]

for me, the nice part of running a linux box is being able to telnet/ssh into it and setup scripts on it to do xyz, and then more importantly - track stats on it - have it run a webserver that you can watch to track fan rpm levels, heat levels, cpu, etc.

windows is very likely easier, but from the geek standpoint, I think the linux way allows so much more tinkering ability - so it is whether you want something that just works - or something that you can fool around with and have fun.

I'm personally a stats junkie, so I'll likely go the linux route (or perhaps both - the windows one for "everyone" to use in my apt, and the linux one for me to tinker with)

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[Silwenae]

I would disagree that Snapstream is a fair comparison to MythTV, especially when you include the weather, music and game modules available, though setup is the biggest differentiator.

In addition, with MythTV having the ability to do frontend and backend - record on one box and play on another, so you can have the noisy machine in a closet somewhere and the quiet one by the TV, is one of the best things Myth has going for it.

That, and it has an extremely active community on the mailing list.

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[Saint Aardvark]

Holy crap -- 500 hours of recording time? Wow. I suspect your long-term storage requirements are higher than mine. :-)

I agree about two tuners though -- one of the things I'd want from a box like this is the ability to record one tv show while watching (w/full Tivo-like 30-second replay ability) another. I'm guessing two CPUs would do best for this...anyone care to let me know if that's right?

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[PhysicsExpert]

Has anyone tried running MythTv on one of the VIA Eden boards? I'm really tempted to build a media box but all the solutions I've seen so far are either too ugly/too noisy/too expensive. If the processor on one of these boards can cope with the video stuff then they would solve these problems at a stroke. As a side issue do you know how the MythTv people are coming along with hardware encoding? The news on the site is a little confusing on that one.

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[Anonymous Coward]

In MythTV CVS there is basic support for the WinTV PVR 250/350 card. You can record/watch live tv/playback but right now there isn't any seeking functionality -> coming soon.

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[Anonymous Coward]

Too much work? Geez, dude - just go to tvguide.com and put in your zip code, pick your service and get an html page with all the channels. Then awk for the right fields and cat it into the config file.

This took me about two minutes (I'm on win32 right now) and the spam filter wouldn't let me post all 500+ lines ...
2 WPBT
3 WPTV
4 WTVX
5 HSN
6 WXEL
7 WGN
8 WPXP
9 WPEC
10 WPBF
11 WFLX
12 QVC
13 WFGC
14 WBZL
15 WTCN
16 TVGC
17 WHDT
18 WLRN
20 GOVACC
21 WPLG
22 WSVN
23 PSA
24 LIFE
25 COURT
26 MAX
27 HBO
28 HBO2
29 HBOSG
30 SHO
31 TMC

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[Tack]

I'd want from a box like this is the ability to record one tv show while watching (w/full Tivo-like 30-second replay ability) another.

I have a 15GB ring buffer setup with MythTV, which gives me 10 hour replay ability. :)

Jason.

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[skillet-thief]

I think that having a separate server is definitely the way to go for this kind of thing. Get the jet-engine into a closet somewhere and have a semi-thin box in your living room.

Now the modern household will have a utility room for the washer and dryer, and a server room for all those backends.

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[leighklotz]

I dunno, the perl intaller for XMLTV just did that all for me by itself.

Freevo, on the other hand, is a moving target with tons of documentation about how to solve obscure past problems for people deeply involved. Despite there runs at it with a WinTV card, a DVD drive, a Packard-Bell remote, and a Matrix G400 (at one time the recommended configuration), I've not been able to get it working. Once or twice I tried installing from RPMs hoping that would set more defaults up, but it failed in obvious ways. When I noted this to the list, I got back a polite "Please don't report bugs when installing the RPMs; use the .tar.gz file." Next time when I tried the .tar.gz file and provided a bug fix, I got back "Please use the CVS tree." Conclusion: Freevo is not for ready for me to try. And yes, I looked at it this week.

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[/dev/trash]

MythTV looks cool but for god's sake don't go looking for help from the developers. They point you to instructions that don't work. Then when you ask a question they again pint you to the instructions and then they call you stupid when you tell them that you get an error on step 3 of the instructions.

The whole attitude was that MythTV was great and had no bugs. Anyone who reported a bug was an idiot and should go back to Windows.

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[ncc74656]

Holy crap -- 500 hours of recording time? Wow. I suspect your long-term storage requirements are higher than mine. :-)

Indeed...that's nearly three weeks of nonstop TV. DVDs and SVCDs are cheaper, infinitely expandable, and less likely to fail. DVD-RW drives start at about $200 now, and blank DVD-Rs start at a little under $1.00. (For the budget-minded, CD-RW drives and blank CD-Rs are dirt-cheap, but everybody here knows that already.)

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a great deal of experience with both systems (Freevo and MythTV), so I am just adding my 2 cents.

First off, I built a Linux From Scratch system to do this, because I wanted just the DVR stuff on these systems.

From personal experience, I like Freevo quite a bit more. The big winner for Freevo is the user interface. It is more designed for a TV. The problem with MythTV (and the MythVideo and MythMusic modules, specifically) is that the interface seems to "computer oriented."

Freevo isn't as mature in the TV Timeshifting stuff, but a lot of progress has been made. Also, Freevo records to a standard file format, so you can play it using any media player (MPlayer, RealOne Player, Windows Media Player, etc.) MythTV uses a Myth-specific file format (based on NuppleVideo), and currently you can only play it with MPlayer, after you've applied patches.

Anyway, both systems have their benefits, but Freevo wins my personal vote for best media system.

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[AKnightCowboy]

Indeed...that's nearly three weeks of nonstop TV. DVDs and SVCDs are cheaper, infinitely expandable, and less likely to fail. DVD-RW drives start at about $200 now, and blank DVD-Rs start at a little under $1.00. (For the budget-minded, CD-RW drives and blank CD-Rs are dirt-cheap, but everybody here knows that already.)

Hmmm, I guess you're right. I could cut $500 in drives off and just buy a DVD-R to archive the shows instead. Hmm. I just kinda liked the idea of having an all-in-one media convergance box. CD's, DVD's (ones I own, ripped and encoded), TV, etc. all in one box available at my fingertips.

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[Anonymous Coward]

"I would disagree that Snapstream is a fair comparison to MythTV"

You're absolutely correct.

Snapstream just works, whereas MythTV requires days of frustration. Not a fair comparison at all.

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[daveball]

Not my experiance at all. They've been very helpful and intereasted with fixing bugs all the time i've been hanging out on the list (~6 months). Some responces are terse - but not to the extent of rudeness, but that is generally reserved for people that haven't made the effort to fully read the docs. I don't think i've seen any new "bug" reported to those lists that hasn't been investigated and fixed a few days later. It's the basic law of free support - if you dash in, demand an answer and are abusive to those that try to help - you won't get very far. If you put in the time, read the documentation, search the archives, read the documentation again - and _then_ post, you'll be a lot happier (90% + of the installation questions asked on the myth list _are_ covered by the documentation.) Take the time to help yourself, and others will take the time to help when you get stuck.

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[daveball]

mythtv does have quite a few dependancies - but it's really not that difficult. Using gentoo or debian its a two or three command install.

If it's a pain to install with your particular distribution - get your distribution to produce a package for it. I'm sure when myth gets up to a 1.0 release it will be nice and packaged up with those packages tested and dependancies fixed for most of the common distributions. But until then, time spent packaging is time not coding - and i'd rather have them coding :)

Alternatively - use gentoo or debian. They seem to have pretty good user submitted packages with dependacies solved.

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[delorean]

Yup, I've been trying out Freevo for like a month. It's taken be almost that long to get most functionality working. Documentation sucks and is mostly irrelevant. I've tried to participate in that by fixing the wiki some.

I compiled Mythtv, and it was horrible on my 800mhz Duron with 512mbRAM. I already have like four to five computers on in the house at any one time (mine, the wife's, the two kids, and the firewall) I don't really want a backend db server for a frontend media server. I like the one quiet piece does it all. I have thought about adding the mysql db to the firewall box, but hate doing that.

I actually found the XMLTV portion to be the easiest and most well documented. Now... there was bug in the freevo scripts that needed some help after that was working. And then there were the daylight savings issues, which shouldn't have been an issue, and all the skins' bugs and errors. And hey, I had as much trouble with Nvidia's driver and tv output.

I believe they are JOBOKHPAMAA (just o' bunch o' kid hackers playing at making an app) but there is some GREAT potential. If you don't count my frustrated time, I am getting my money's worth.

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[msimm]

I notice you've accidentally started a small freevo/mythtv war!

Well, I'm not hear to flame. I think they are both great projects and I respect the efforts of their maintainer a lot.

That said I just wanted to point out that Mythtv doesn't *just* pause live tv. It lets you rewind, fast forward, pause and most importantly it lets you skip through commercials! You never *actually* watch "live" tv, you always watch the "live" video which is a tiny bit behind (enough to start the recording which it reads from) and can move around as if you where watching a video (up to the point that you've recorded to).

Pretty darn neet project IMHO. Not painless to install, but its getting there and keeps getting better!

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[Anonymous Coward]

nope - ad far as i know currently neither mythtv or freevo take advantage of smp. Just get an athlon xp 2100+ overclock to 2800 speed like i do and then you can record 2 640x480 mpeg4 streams

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[Anonymous Coward]

dood! you need to seriously respec your system. Here is my mythtv box:
Athlon xp 2100+ overclocked to 2800 - 80$
thermalright cooler for said overclock - 30$
2x WD 200gb drivezillas - $400
asus v266 mobo - $50
csae/power - 80
512 mb ram - free after rebates
cd burner - free after rebates or $20
total - $700

and I built my uber quiet frontend for $300 - do a netboot and you run without a hd and put on a quiet fan and an enermax powersupply.
My case cost me $150 for my frontend cause i modded it to look badass.
And myth doesn't do divx. It uses a special nuppel video codec. Perhaps in the future it will.
And please please please dont by 800gigs now!
Buy 400like me, if you fill it within 6months you have a serious problem. Wait for hd prices to drop and buy more!

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[Anonymous Coward]

dumbass - if apt-get install mythtv is a pain to setup well then you don't deserve to use linux

Re:Freevo, MythTV

[KingFoo]

I've been monkeying with an EPIA M-9000 board and MythTV for about a month now.

The C3 900 is too slow to do the whole job on it's own. The M-series boards show promise, with the onboard MPEG decoder, but VIA's support for the video hardware is poor, and the mpeg decoder support is non-existent at this time. When everything is being done in software (color conversion and decoding) is able to play most video file formats (not DVD). Right now, if I could do it over again, I'd go with one of those PCI all singing all dancing video card/pvr cards (remember that the EPIA boards only have 1 PCI slot, or 2 with a riser). If VIA wants to (and is able deal with legal/company issues), it might be able to do everything at once (mencoder can record divx 320x240 movies in realtime, and possibly a larger format at higher quality), but right now, it'll 'just' work as the set-top portion.

here's another one ;D

[Brian Boitano]

made by a friend of mine ;)

Re:here's another one ;D

[AssFace]

very cool!

it is nice to see someone that has pictures and an account of what they went through (or are still going through) in order to do it.

the best part of that site for me is the list of hardware that he has running it, and then the pros and cons that come from that.

I'm adding that to my bookmarks to check back on when I go to make my own pvr.

thanks for the link!

Re:here's another one ;D

[lordrich]

And then theres Movix as well.

Re:here's another one ;D

[HeelToe]

And don't forget:

http://davedina.apestaart.org/content/

Or even less thanks to Microsoft...

[iainl]

I've been labouring under the impression that one of the reasons why chipping XBoxes (list price £129 as of last Friday) with a mod chip (~£50) or even less thanks to yesterday's /. story is so great is because they do an excellent job as media jukeboxes themselves.

The only part missing is that they don't have the inputs to record your own stuff, unlike these tv-tuner equipped boxes. If you just want to use playback (either from the internal drive or over the local network) then a chipped XBox is much cheaper.

Re:Or even less thanks to Microsoft...

[13Echo]

The XBox still doesn't support any halfway decent video accelleration under Linux. It has framebuffer support though, but it wouldn't be ideal for any form of video playback without acceleration.

Re:Or even less thanks to Microsoft...

[glesga_kiss]

Exactly, you answered your own point! The XBox lacks the tv-tuner part. I was going to go down the XBox route myself, but I'd rather have TIVO-like functionality if possible.

For a media centre, this seems like the ideal choice. I'm not sure if the MythTV or similar projects are mature enough yet though.

Re:Or even less thanks to Microsoft...

[iainl]

Aaah. It all really boils down to what you want from a media thing, really. I never bother recording stuff off the TV, and just wanted something that would play mp3, CD, DVD and video files off my main PC's hard drive, which the homebrew media player does admirably.

Re:Or even less thanks to Microsoft...

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, I currently run mythtv (frontend) on a Xbox and it works perfectly for video playback and time shifted tv.

Re:Or even less thanks to Microsoft...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it works, but look at your CPU load.

Re:Or even less thanks to Microsoft...

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need a tv-tuner to use mythtv with xbox. It seperates the frontend and backend components, so you watch and schedule on the frontend which streams the video being recorded on the backend. I used to own a ReplayTV and MythTV works better already in my opinion. Installation is not as hard as you would think. For a modded XBOX running ed's debian, its as simple as adding a source and then apt-get install mythtv.

Re:Or even less thanks to Microsoft...

[juhaz]

So what? That's why the CPU is there. To do something.

And if you are watching TV, you're not doing anything else with the box anyway.

Small but more than just an MP3 player

[robslimo]

I'd like a media play that is a nice compromise between portable and full-featured.

Features:

1) tablet form with about a10" screen with a foldable or removable stand
2) support solid state media (smart cards, etc) along with a replaceable/ugradable hard drive for (somewhat limited) data storage.
3) WiFi capability (to network to a media server in your home) and wired network capability.
4) runs from battery or wall wart
5) robust. don't want to break the display the first time I accidentally knock it off my desk.
6) affordable!

So, any entrepeneurs out there with a load of ready to design and tool up to build this thing for me?

Re:Small but more than just an MP3 player

[Zathrus]

6) affordable!

Sorry, this criteria is incompatible with all previous criteria. Thank you, play again.

Re:Small but more than just an MP3 player

[ites]

I got a Surfpad when these were going cheap, it is pretty much exactly what you describe: the price came down from around $2500 to $600 and you can still find them second-hand.

risky

[xao gypsie]

is probably the PC we were hoping that the Lindows Media PC would've been.

well, lets hope that this jukebox isnt plagued with half-arsed claims this time....

xao

Cases

[minaguib]

I've been researching this myself for a while and one of the problems I faces was actually finding a case that resembles a VCR in dimensions rather than the traditional TOWER-pc. Here are a few links to interesting cases/systems that you might find interesting:

http://www.littlepc.com/
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/slim_pc/slm /pro_slm_detail.php?UID=335&MODEL=MS-6243
http://www.partshelf.com/giggmaxmodgb.html
http://www.storever.com/
http://www.linux-works.com/browser/html/our_produc ts.html
http://www.evalue-tech.com/evalueweb/products/spec ifications/model.cfm?mn=EEC-5000

For the ones that come with a mobo/any hardware I cannot vouch for how well they work under linux (or windows for that matter).. These are just bookmarks from some initial research I did.

Re:Cases

[tommten]

been playing with something like this myself..
I found a few nice boxes.. but since i want to put in a few cards (bt848,dvb-c,dvb-t,cmpci soundcard,geforce graphics) a matx motherboard isn't enough.. so I gave up and am now using a slighly modded rackmount case :)

btw.. the site seems getting slashdotted.. anyone care to put up a mirror?

Re:Cases

[Lumpy]

compusa has sitting on their shelf a pc case that LOOKS like a 100 disc CD changer/ amp/whatever with a nice fold down front door that revelas the drive bays.

$250.00 for it but if you are screaming for a look and dont want to do it yourself.

Re:Cases

[jjshoe]

what you want is a rack mount case, about 1 or 2 u, definatly not bigger then 2

and next time try to use little html in your comments ;)

Re:Cases

[drkoemans]

Why not hack apart a VCR or tape deck? That is what many people have done on mini-itx.com? This one is particularly cool. And as a previous post stated, rack mount cases are the same size as standard A/V components (19").

Re:Cases

[sootman]

here is the ultimate case for you. (more info here.) or maybe try this. Enjoy.

Re:Cases

[davidsturnbull]

How about this? :P
I've got a Via Eden M-series board in there with a 1 GHz C3, half a gig of PC2100 and a 160GB disk :)
The only problem is, the new TV card won't fit in until I get the hacksaw out again :P

Re:Cases

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't mean to be picky, but I'd rather not have a PC that looks like a VCR...no matter how good the VCR is.

Re:Cases

[benb]

DVB-T? Are you living in Berlin? Or is that broadcasted somewhere else as well?

Samba Server?

[mahdi13]

Not a bad machine, very nice job with it. But why install Samba Server? Server would only be required for Windows -> Linux, Samba-client is for Linux -> Windows...which sounds like all it needs.

I guess if you are going to be sharing the files with other system on your network that makes since, but I didn't see a mention of this...did I miss it?

Re:Samba Server?

[skillet-thief]

They don't seem to be too god awfully uptight about security -- they assume that if you are behind a NAT router you don't really need to worry about a possible Samba hole --, so that is probably why they didn't wonder about whether to install samba server or not.

That said, it could be handy to get some of those files off your A/V box and onto your... well, some other box running samba client.

Re:Samba Server?

[Sagz]

I use samba on MythTV so that my wife may easily dump her music and pictures on the box without my help.

Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[mccalli]

Quick question to the world: is anyone running one of these on an Epia board, preferably the fanless variety?

I'm a current (and very happy) Tivo user, but I wouldn't mind the ability to add MP3 playback and so I've been keeping half an eye on Freevo. The idea would be to put a fanless Epia-M into a hi-fi style case, and use it purely through a remote of some kind. Just like a Tivo in fact, but with the ability to do music too.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently my Media box is running a Fanless EPIA with DVD and Remote only control, with all the disk residing in a different box in the basment. (Yes the machine net boots:) As for performance the machine works great with DVD's, mp3s, DIVX etc, etc. The machine is running FreeVO, but currently has issues with playing CDs and randomizeing 40GB of MP3s :(

Re:Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[wulffi]

I am currently running a self built mp3 playback box from my 800 mhz Epia board.

I strongly suspect that it won't have enough power to do the encoding/decoding of the video streams that you need.

Re:Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[Zathrus]

I presume you don't have a S2 box, since they can do MP3 playback now with HMO.

Re:Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[stratjakt]

I played with one of the 800mhz boards, wanting small form factor PCs to build for my kids with at least enough juice to play some light games and stream DVDs and DivX off of my network.

DVDs played, but were skippy and annoying. High-quality DivX was even worse.

It has so much trouble playing back these streams, I cant imagine the struggles it would have trying to encode them in real time (with a capture card in its free PCI slot).

All in all, I thought it would be neat for a little kiosk-type workstation or something, but didnt cut it as an entertainment device. So back it went.

There are newer, faster, better models. But, I ended up going for Shuttle's FV25 flex-atx boards with Celeron 1.0a's (tualitin core, 256k cache). It's almost as small, has everything onboard (just add 40$ celery CPU and ram), and was much more powerful.

It has onboard S4 savage video with shared ram (it aint high end by any means, but is more capable than people give it credit for - my kids play Dragons Lair 3D and other recent titles on it all the time). DVD/DivX/MP3/etc playback is A1.

It's not fanless, of course, but the way they mounted in the cases I used (refurbed and repainted "Barbie PC" flex atx cases), air is drawn in the bottom, over a fanless CPU/sink (I had to hunt for a sink that was not too big, the intel stock sink wouldnt fit) and straight out the back, so one 80mm fan pinned down to 7 volts keeps the board nice and cool, and you cant hear it.

Shuttle also has FlexATX boards for P4 and Athlon, if you wanted some real power for gaming. You find 'em primarily in their spacewalker barebones kits, but you can buy them seperately if you look around online.

Re:Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[mccalli]

presume you don't have a S2 box

Yep, I'm UK-based and you can't get Tivo hardware here at the moment. That's another reason why I'm keeping an eye on the alternatives.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[luzrek]

I'm using a EIPA-M with a 600 Mhz Eden processor. There is a fair amount of information over at mini-itx.com including a review of that board/processor combo. From the reviews of the EPIA with the 400 Mhz and 500 Mhz processors over at Tom's Hardware I'ld have to say that these are not sufficient for anything past mp3 service. The main difference between the two setups seems to be the amount of processing which has been moved onto the other parts of the motherboard on the EPIA-M as opposed to the EPIA. If you do descide to go with the EPIA-M/Eden combo I'ld suggest getting a TV encoder card with onboard compression, such as the Hauptpage PVR line since that will off-load the processing involved with the compression.

If you use the EPIA-M you might want to consider the ALSA sound drivers. Oh, that's the other problem. If you want to use 5.1 sound, you lose your line-in and mic inputs.

Re:Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[Anonymous Coward]

I meant to mention it has onboard TV-out, which can be enabled always-on through the bios, and the quality of which is on par with my Radeon card.

Re:Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[13Echo]

Decoding shouldn't be a problem. Even if it had a VIA C3 chip, proper X drivers with the "xv" extension support would allow it to run on machines as low as a P233 with the right media player. The key is hardware accelleration, and it isn't a task for any run of the mill video card in Linux most of the time. I'm running on an ancient ATi at work, with a lowly PII, and all videos playback very fast. At home, my Kyro 2 and Athlon 1400 experience no more than 10% CPU load in the worst cases, but are around 2% for most video playback.

Encoding is another story though. That takes some time, but works. But for real-time stuff, it might be tough for the Epia solutions to handle.

Re:Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[Eric Ass Raymond]

DVDs played, but were skippy and annoying. High-quality DivX was even worse

There must have been something wrong with the setup.

I have the fanless 600 MHz version and it plays DVDs just fine. DivX play perfectly too if you drop the quality by two notches in the DivX player.

The only time I had problems with DVD playback when I tried using Xine.

Re:Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[dk.r*nger]

This makes for an interesting case mod .. put the Epia mobo inside your TV, and rewire IR, sound out (to your Hifi) and, ofcourse, video out. Even connect a relay to control tv on/off (now that we stole its remote IR-reciever)..

As another poster suggested, put tunercards and harddrives in a powerful (noisy) computer in another room. No boxes, no fans, just your own invisible PVR :)

Re:Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[DeBaas]

The new models run at 1 Ghz and have a hardware MPEG2 decoder on board. Unfortenately that decoder seems unsupported in Linux.

Runnig Windows some tests show that it will play DivX etc.

Encoding is probably still a problem!

Re:Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[hardcode]

Hi Ian,

Building a ME-6000 box this weekend (for a firewall but wtf, I'll have a play with the video etc too) - I'll post something about it soon.

Rich (ex-Pindar)

Re:Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[Bombcar]

I have the EPIA-600 /proc/cpuinfo says I'm a CentaurHauls at 599.723 MHz, and is quite nice. No fan, and plays MP3s like nobody's business. Don't know about video or X, see linitx or miniitx for more info!

Re:Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[embo]

Yes. Or at least, someone is trying. Check out http://www.freevix.org

Re:Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[mccalli]

From the greeting, you probably already know it's me. I take it this Rich as in scanning software (avoiding names on this public site)? Chuck me a mail (not too hard to work out from the homepage) about how it goes.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[orichter]

I have done something similar, using an EPIA M-6000 and a Hauppauge WinPVR 250 board. It plays back DVD's flawlessly, and since the WinPVR 250 is a hardware encoder, it encodes flawlessly as well. There are a few issues, however. Currently, there are no linux drivers (but I believe they are coming along quickly.) The second thing you should note is that if you run the CPU at full power, and run the MPEG encoder at full power, the system overheats fairly rapidly if you don't have a case fan. It makes a huge difference in heat, with a relatively minor noise difference. My Casetronic 2699R with the case fan running is about as loud as my Playstation 2, and a little louder than my laptop. It's also about the same noise level as my Directivo. If you want a totally silent case, you might try the Hush PC, but I don't know if that will solve the heat dissipation from the MPEG card.

Re:Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[Anonymous Coward]

expensive firewall!!! Why do you did an mpeg decoded on your firewall?? My pentium200 out of the trash heap works just fine and was free

Re:Curious: Anyone running this on a fanless Epia?

[hardcode]

Expensive because I want it as near as dammit silent. I live in a one bedroom flat ("apartment" to USians), and have no room to stash to kit out of the way.

It will also serve all my online code samples and docs out via an SSL encrypted Apache server.

The current firewall is a Celeron 533 box with lots of QuietPC.com silencing kit, but with the best will in the world bearings wear and it gets noisier with time.

hardcode

Why not an Xbox?

[calbanese]

$199 for the Xbox. $59 for a mod chip. $10 for some Cat5. And the open source Xbox Media Player.

Though you won't get Tivo-like functionality with it. But at that price you could afford to buy a Tivo if you really wanted it.

Re:Why not an Xbox?

[Anonymous Coward]

$199 for the Xbox. $59 for a mod chip. $10 for some Cat5. And the open source Xbox Media Player.

Though you won't get Tivo-like functionality with it.

There. You answered your own question.

Re:Why not an Xbox?

[satchm0]

If only it were that simple. The fact of the matter is that many of us do not want / need a PC in the living room plugged into our stereo / TV / etc. Well, I guess I should say ANOTHER pc in addition to the Xbox.

It is still cheaper to buy a $199 xbox, a modchip, and add a TV card to the computer in the office/basement/bedroom. Then just stream the captured video from the PC over the LAN to the Xbox.

I've been running XboxMediaPlayer for a couple of weeks now and absolutly loving it.

Re:Why not an Xbox?

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry but that is not true.
I build my mythfrontend for $150. It is a pcchips m758lmr+ running linux bios on an underclocked silent celeron tualatin. I just added 2 tv tuners to my file server. You really cant compare the two either. And, I can switch consoles during commercials to check email, ssh into work.
The coolest thing by far however, is using the xmms lyrics plugin to learn guitar songs on my tv and using mplayer to watch concert videos and learn the guitar part on my tv at my couch! Oh i also use the box as an effects processor for my guitar using jack and ecamegapedal straight to my home theatre speakers!

Re:Why not an Xbox?

[Anonymous Coward]

don't need to pay $50 for a modchip any more: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8942

HDTV

[boy_afraid]

What about HD signals? I currently have Tivo, but is there another capture card that can take in HDTV?

Re:HDTV

[vondo]

Well, there are cards, of course, but none of them seem to be supported by linux. As I recall, the prospects don't look too good either since manufacturers aren't willing to share the specs.

I've been looking at this too, but figure I'll just have to buy an HD-Tivo when they become available. A usable more open solution doesn't seem likely.

Re:HDTV

[Silwenae]

There are HDTV PCI cards, but good luck getting them to work in Linux.

The Hauppauge cards are infamous for getting not working in Linux, and the Hipix cards, I *believe* can be made to work, but it's a ton of work.

I recommend you head over the AVScience forums, they have a dedicated forum for HTPC, and a subforum for Linux HTPCs.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb

Great service, but software could be better

[Interesse]

Thats a service I am looking for for a while now.

Im not the hardware geeks that's able to finding the best and cheapest combination of hardware for a special purpose. Other can do this better and they did, so now I can start building my own media portal. Great!

But I would suggest another software for a all-in-one media box: vdr, a pvr software running under linux for digital satelite tv, very stable and complete.

ps: my first /. post, very exciting*g*

But how quiet is it?

[elwinc]

Sounds interesting, but how quietly does it run? The article never mentions noise/quiet. The case comes with 2 6cm fans; are they needed? The PSU is a 200W microATX that comes with the case; is it quiet? The AthlonXP 1.47GHz runs pretty hot; what kind of CPU cooler does it need, and how quiet is that? A noisy media PC is not much fun...

Re:But how quiet is it?

[Sloppy]

This sounds like a good application for an older Mac or one of those generic PPC motherboards that are finally coming out (e.g. Pegasos, AmigaOne, etc?).

Athlon's main advantage is bang-for-buck, where "bang" is defined as crunching power. But if your application's "bang" is silence, then you want a CPU that doesn't use much power, thus doesn't generate a lot of heat, thus doesn't need a lot of cooling. A G3 is a better tool for the job than an Athlon.

Re:But how quiet is it?

[4of12]

A G3 is a better tool for the job than an Athlon.

So that's why the TiVo uses a PPC chip!

Re:But how quiet is it?

[mistermund]

I've got the same CPU, and until recently had a big roaring PC. Then I got an iBook, and realized just how loud the PC was.

The Zalman flower heatsinks support these processors, and can be used with or without the included 90mm fan. For the 1.47 XP, a strategically placed Panasonic Panaflo case fan is more than sufficient, and keeps the CPU at 107F. Now my main PC makes less noise than the ceiling fan - when the noisy old hard drives I have in it aren't grinding. I've been meaning to replace those with one of the 120gb seagate drives I put into my media box. Pardon me for not having the model number off hand, but it's the one with the fluid bearings.

It is possible to have a powerful PC that doesn't sound like a carrier deck.

What I want from a media PC

[WIAKywbfatw]

1. Small form factor, similar to VCR/DVD player.

Hey, it's a media PC. I want to put it in the front room with my TV.

2. Near silent operation.

See above. No use being in my front room if it sounds like a jet engine.

3. Ability to play, rip and stream (to other PCs) a variety of music file formats now and effortlessly accept more codecs in the future.

Right now my collection is in MP3 format. When I have time, I will probably rip to Ogg from scratch. In two years time, who knows what new super-duper format will be king?

4. Ability to play DVDs (of all regions) effortlessly.

Region encoding is ridiculous. If I bought it then I want to be able to play it. It shouldn't matter if I live in London, New York or Tokyo. 'Nuff said.

5. Ability to watch and record TV, PVR-style.

Hey, it's not that difficult.

6. Ability to do more than one of the above at once.

If I want to stream music to elsewhere in the house, I still want to be able to watch a DVD without it skipping frames. It's not that much to ask.

7. Ability to burn CD-RWs and/or DVDs

It would be really nice if this DVD+/DVD- format war would just resolve itself. Multi-format players, like the ones from Sony, are nice but we shouldn't have to pay a premium just to avoid the risk of buying a turkey.

8. Automatic update option.

Some people like to have complete control of their box but the mass market demands simplicity. The Average Joe doesn't want something he's going to have to tinker with every two weeks. Let the AJs have their automatic updates and let the power users do what they want too.

I'm sure I've left something off this list but these are the bare minimums that I'd look for in my ideal media PC.

Re:What I want from a media PC

[lordrich]

In two years time, who knows what new super-duper format will be king?

Dare I suggest wma?

Re:What I want from a media PC

[Eric Ass Raymond]

VIA EPIA mini-ITX series would seem to fit your requirements.

I've built a multimedia box based on one of these sweet motherboard/CPU combos. They can be run without fans (or with a small 40 mm fan) and have integrated 100 Mbps LAN, USB2, Firewire, VGA (+tv out), 6 channel sound and a hardware MPEG decoder. Add a slimline DVD/CD-RW combo and a large external harddrive (external to avoid problems with the small power supply). There is a one PCI expansion slot for the TV card.

I'm running it under Windows, but Linux drivers are available here.

Re:What I want from a media PC

[Anonymous Coward]

no

Re:What I want from a media PC

[Anonymous Coward]

My needs are somewhat simpler.

I don't need to encode, just decode. I'll hive off the decode to something else. Drip/Grip on a more powerful machine.

I'll store the information on the network, so it only needs a small disk, not necessarily all that fast.

I want it quiet.

I want it low-power.

I want it upgradeable (basically, run linux as I could on a normal box).

I want Stereo Phono Out, Digital Out, SVGA Out and TV out.

If I have to use a remote, I'd like bluetooth on a Zaurus to do so, so the machine should have a web interface available.

Re:What I want from a media PC

[Anonymous Coward]

In two years time, who knows what new super-duper format will be king?

If you are worried about that, pay for a few more gigs and encode in lossless formats such as flac.

Re:What I want from a media PC

[Anonymous Coward]

"'Nuff said."

I HATE that.

Noise / fanless epia

[slim]

My first reaction to the article was that it doesn't consider noise, and my ideal Freevo box would have to be whisper quiet, if not silent.

I've investigated the mini-itx boards, and it appears that they might have just enough oomph to play back video, maybe to encode video with low compression, but not do both at the same time.

Some of the mini-itx boards have onboard hardware MPEG decoders, which would help a lot, but I'm fairly sure there is no Linux support for these, and I know Freevo doesn't support any hardware MPEG decoders yet.

One day, one day.

Adding an PCI MPEG encoder/decoder uses up your one PCI slot...

Re:Noise / fanless epia

[Strog]

The latest release of MythTV is broken up into a server/client model if you like. A mini-itx system would be perfect as a front-end for this and put your noisy powerful system out of earshot.

Re:Noise / fanless epia

[slim]

The latest release of MythTV is broken up into a server/client model if you like. A mini-itx system would be perfect as a front-end for this and put your noisy powerful system out of earshot.

This is true, and a great solution if you don't mind putting your video/audio sources in the same out of earshot place. Certainly possible, but it's not conducive to dipping your toe in experimentally.

Re:Noise / fanless epia

[Lumpy]

and I know Freevo doesn't support any hardware MPEG decoders yet.

WRONG!!!!

it supports the Hollywood + mpeg decoder board.

I can play a DVD quality mpeg2 on a P133 with only a 25% processor load.

Mpeg ENCODER support is missing in linux except for the horribly overpriced optibase cards.

Re:Noise / fanless epia

[Anonymous Coward]

WRONG!!! :D

WinTV PVR 250/350

http://ivtv.sourceforge.net

Re:Noise / fanless epia

[slim]

WRONG!!!!

it (Freevo) supports the Hollywood + mpeg decoder board.

So it does. My mistake. My excuse is that the documentation is hidden behind the cryptic link "dxr3"... Your rebuttal was a little gleeful for my liking though ;)

So that's good news, although it seems a shame to spend money on a board when the epia mobos have MPEG decoding built in.

Re:Noise / fanless epia

[Strog]

You can still run it on one machine but either use a fairly powerful machine to experiment with or drastically reduce the settings.

I used a K6-2 450 to test and play with and am putting together my final box now.

Re:Noise / fanless epia

[msimm]

Pffft! Forget mini cases! ;-)

Make it PROUD! This is the perfect project to combine two geek past-times into one glorious project: case modding and the entertainment center!

I'm using the full atx clear case with lights. The possibilities are endless!

Oh, right! And quiet, fan and power supply! (if it looks good but pisses off your family, well...)

A swing and a miss

[stratjakt]

This is all fine and good. A guy built a PC and put linux on it and hooked it up to his TV. It's no great feat, but it's linux so it's on slashdot.

Anyways, here's what's missing or could have been improved..

TV Tuner Card Hauppauge WinTV PCI $60

Does the Hauppage WinPVR card not work? This costs only a few more beans, but provides vastly superior captures and onboard MPEG2 compression, IIRC.

Keyboard Silitek SK-7551 $20

A keyboard and mouse? This is the main stumbling block. A true MediaPC needs to be controlled through a simple interface with a remote control.

Also, stick an LCD display on the front with a few buttons so it can be used without the remote.

Of course that requires a bunch of coding work to make sure everything fits together seamlessly, and there's no trace of being a "PC" left in there.

The new Radeon AIW Pro cards fit the bill for both video capture, playback, remote capabilities, and firewire transfer. Of course, they cost as much as this whole project.

(In a nutshell I just spelled out the Media PC I'm working on putting together)

In the end, this guy built a PC and installed Red Hat on it. Whoopty do. He can call it a MediaPC, he can call it a Star Trek supercomputer. It's still just a midrange PC with Red Hat installed.

Re:A swing and a miss

[Sagz]

"Does the Hauppage WinPVR card not work? This costs only a few more beans, but provides vastly superior captures and onboard MPEG2 compression, IIRC."

I know that the MythTV folks are working hard on getting this to work.

Re:A swing and a miss

[Beatbyte]

but it's linux so it's on slashdot.

it's a bitch about slashdot and how shitty the articles are so it's modded +4 insightful.

newsflash! nobody forces you to come here! besides, I've seen 2 posts on this particular story from you. must not be that bad.

*endofrant*

anyways, the LCD display and a few buttons won't ever happen. the most you could hope for is a wireless keypad to do basic controls and move the mouse cursor around with a built-in trackball.

It's still just a midrange PC with Red Hat installed.

I can do wonders with an extremely old computer with Red Hat. With a midrange PC I could pull of plenty of useful things. It may not fry your eggs but its more than just a midrange PC with Red Hat installed.

Re:A swing and a miss

[stratjakt]

the LCD display and a few buttons won't ever happen

Really? I've already done it, and so have many many others. Look here.

It's pretty much a no brainer to read keypresses off the serial port.

Likewise with most remote packages. The "devil in the details" is getting everything to work flawlessly together, with an intuitive Tivo-like interface, and all the process control - like making sure that the DVD player stops when you start a DivX and so on.

can do wonders with an extremely old computer with Red Hat. With a midrange PC I could pull of plenty of useful things. It may not fry your eggs but its more than just a midrange PC with Red Hat installed

No, it's still just a midrange PC with Red Hat installed. That's not a bad thing, but it's not a MediaPC (take a look at how Windows XP Media edition, or even the Xbox works and note the differences). Its still a PC, not a piece of AV equipment, until you can sit back on the couch, press the play button, and start a movie. There should be no mouse cursor, no CLI, nothing but a simple menu that you navigate with UP/DOWN/START.

Re:A swing and a miss

[Bombcar]

Actually, try Matrix Orbital. They are a little more expensive, but have more options, including LCDs with build in connectors for keypads (one even takes a AT keyboard!)

Re:A swing and a miss

[jjshoe]

retail i have seen the wintv pvr going for $200 to $300 how is that a few beans more?

and your right, its just a midrange pc with redhat on it, and your just a poar excuse of a troll. since you want to sling mud...

Re:A swing and a miss

[msimm]

Sounds like someone's got a bit of a case of sour grapes this morning! The reason this IS news is because this happens to be the next-big-thing. That's not to say its a brand new idea, just that we've been using PC's long enough in the DEN to do this sort of thing and its starting to occur to more and more of us that this would be perfect for the entertainment center! Wow! (ok, maybe your right its not revolutionary, but its current and I like seeing the different solutions to a reasonably new problem).

A keyboard and mouse? This is the main stumbling block. A true MediaPC needs to be controlled through a simple interface with a remote control.

Hmmm, "A true MediaPC". I'd have to disagree with you there too. You see, I've built one of these silly things. Using a remote is probably the best thing some of the time, but you'd never really be able to take advantage of EVERYTHING if you limited yourself to just one particular input device. I've found a better answer, this wireless keyboard/mouse combo. It works great and feels like it was built for the project.

Anyhow, most of your suggestions are pretty good, so I'll drop my little diatribe.. ;-)

Re:A swing and a miss

[Anonymous Coward]

No CLI? Why not? I would actually prefer it if
my vcr had a CLI, so I could script it any way
I like. And man pages so I could figure out how
to set the darn clock.

Re:A swing and a miss

[Anonymous Coward]

get off your high horse
What are most superr computers - well um a collection of midrange desktop pc's - if you want to be economical that is.

And a few beans more my ass. It is much cheaper to get a better processor and do software encoding that shell out for the wintv pvr and be hardware limited.
Buy an ahtlon 2800+ and you spend less than a cheaper processor+wintvpvr or buy a 2100+ an overclock for more bang for your buck. The only use for the pvr is being able to encode 3 streams at once. 2 from your cpu and 1 on the pvr. Or you could just get an even better cpu - see my point. The other use is for something like an epia board - but it makes more sense to seperate frontend backend anyway.

Re:A swing and a miss

[MartyJG]

You're right about the keyboard/mouse thing for a living room PC - it should be all-in-one, and wireless. You could try the BTC-5090. It's better than the logitech kits because it's designed to fit on your lap rather than your desk - it's not a full 105-key - taking the numpad off really reduces the size, but it's got handles for throwing around the living room. And it's also got a thumb-mouse (not ball) - like a giant laptop-nipple for your thumb - it takes some getting used to, but is cheaper than any logitech or gyromouse I've ever seen.

I support the logitech stuff where I work - but I bought the BTC for home, so I am speaking from experience - it's connected to the PVR/DVD computer in the living room ;-)

Freevo vs. MythTV

[staini]

MythTV really is better when it comes to features around TV. However Freevo plays any format that MPlayer does. It works on any Video-Out that SDL works on (fbdev, dxr3, x11, ...) and has some nice addons, too. GPhoto2 integration, imdb a web recording interface just to name a few.
From my experience it is much easier to make it look the way you like it and to make it do what you like...

Re:Freevo vs. MythTV

[Anonymous Coward]

MythTV plays any format that mplayer does to via the MythVideo module. FYI.

I've actually been looking at another option

[tweek]

Instead of spending money on an uber-silent case and mobo (allthough a mini-itx would do the job), I'm considering this.

I figure I can hook this bad boy up to my powerhouse machine and just send it all wireless.

The only thing I'm concerned about is sound quality. I've already got a dvd player so I don't need that functionality. I just want a way to play my divx files and ogg/mp3s on the main system.

I've done some testing, converting divx to vcd but I always end up with unsynched sound. I also figure that keeping things in divx would be much better than spending the time converting them to vcd and having to change disks halfway through.

Re:I've actually been looking at another option

[drkoemans]

I have been using the EPIA board (in a 1U case which btw is the same size as almost all home stereo components, 19") and a similar wireless 2.4Ghz video transmitter and I get a ton of interference from my 802.11b node. I think their frequencies are too close. If I want to watch TV in another room, I have to turn off my wireless access point.

Re:I've actually been looking at another option

[tweek]

That's interesting to know. I don't have any wireless stuff in the apartment but I will when we move into our house. One of the things I plan on adding.

I wonder if there's a way around this? I'm not a wireless kind of guy so I'm not sure.

Re:I've actually been looking at another option

[Future Shock]

Simple - get 802.11a wireless gear which doesn't work on the 2.4Ghz spectrum, but at 5+Ghz. Also get a 5Ghz. cordless phone. Encourage your neighbors to also use 802.11a... Future Shock

Re:I've actually been looking at another option

[buck_wild]

Tried this...and it interferred with my portable phones. Had to send it back.

Dreambox?

[frozenray]

The DreamBox DM7000 looks promising to me. What I'd like to have is a network ogg and mp3 player, and the DM7000 seems to have all the features I want, with hardware MPEG2/PVR functions thrown in to boot (and MPEG4 apparently on the way). It runs Linux, so retrofitting Vorbis and MP3 compatibility should be no big deal. Retail price is about $500 in my area, but I'm sure I can find a better deal on the 'net. More accessories (wireless keyboard) and pictures here.

Anybody have experiences with this one?

German c't magazine ran a cool (but pricey) DIY media center project in 2001, see this post of mine. They had plans to convert it to Linux, but it's outside my price range, mainly due to the large LCD screen.

the Linux Media Jukebox total cost

[Cached Hit]

based on my research, the total cost of this project is $503.93. see here for my sources.

Digital Cable, Remote Control

[g_bit]

Well I've gone digital and I'm not going back now 'cause I can get a lot of cool channels that I couldn't before (800 channels total).

Does this work with Digital cable?

Does it playback through my TV?

Does it come with a Remote?

I didn't see mention of these in the parts of the article that I could get to.

Re:Digital Cable, Remote Control

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure about Freevo, but MythTV supports external channel changing via either a serial connection (some DSS receivers and digital cable boxes have them) or via an IR blaster.

Freevo looks awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

How come I've never heard of it? I've considered ripping my DVDs and VHS tapes to disk for a media station in my entertainment system. This is very tempting.

forward video over X

[mufasio]

Has anyone with one of these homegrown TiVo type boxes tried to forward the video playback over X to view on your PC while browsing or other tasks? and if so what kind of performance have you experienced with playback? just curious sounds like a neat idea.

Re:forward video over X

[Anonymous Coward]

works fine - i can even send low res streams over wifi to my zaurus!!! Top that tivo!

myHTPC

[SheepHead]

If you're running Windows try myHTPC. It already does, can do, or will do nearly anything you want.

Play videos, MP3s, view the weather, XMLtv guide information, launch emulators like MAME and any others (see the forum for myGames), view visualization plugins with Winamp or Windows Media Player 9, launch executables, write your own plugins... view your MP3s by cover art, your games by screen shot, control it with a remote or a gamepad... (find a joy2key program in the forums to use a gamepad for now.)

Really, just check out the screen shots on the homepage. It's only been around for a few months and new releases come fast and furious thanks to Pablo's hard work. It is basically "like XP Media Center Edition, but better, and free." (as in beer, for now.)

sheephead

Re:myHTPC

[PopeAlien]

Thanks for the link, I'll check that out.

Right now I'm using showshifter for my media box, and I like it, but I really like the looks of myHTPC, and the price is right.

Have you been using it for long? How convoluted is the set-up. Do you have to manually add the info for those pretty screenshots, or is their a flawless interface with IMDB databases? In short, whats the user experience like?

..and I never knew that Bob Marley did the soundtrack to pulp fiction.. Any idea why those songs and album info dont match in this screenshot?

Re:myHTPC

[SheepHead]

User experience is "getting there." :) It used to be difficult, it is getting better. There is a wizard you can use for first-time setup. For simple things, for example, your MP3 (or OGG, or whatever) collection, it's easy enough, if you have them organized in some way on your HD.

You can set up a Music module (basically, a menu choice) and set it to let you browse folders. You can tell it that JPGs are covers, and it will pull the first JPG it finds in each folder and use it as the image - so there are your covers. You can tell it that MP3 and OGG are your media types for this module, and it will display those and let you queue them/play them. If you want more information (for your movies, for example) you can use the included .my file editor - .my files are metadata files about your videos/music/etc. The program will generate .my files for you, though, so unless you want to add a lot of metadata you don't have to.

There is no interface to, say, IMDB, out-of-the-box. People unrelated to this program are writing their own cover downloaders, one I remember is called Gotcha Covered which I found on the AVS Forum but I think it is mentioned in the myHTPC forums as well - it will help you download covers for CDs and DVDs, although for just one or two covers I go to walmart or buy.com on my own. Walmart has good covers for CDs - 500x500, and a good selection. Just drop a JPG in your album folder and that's it, essentially.

I have been using the software for a month or a month and a half. But, the program has come miles since then, and it is not very old at all. Electronic Program Guide is the newest big addition and a fully skinnable interface is coming soon (XML based; you can set up icons rather than buttons, for example, and trigger programming based on button presses.)

So, there is setup involved. Go check out the forums for some help if you need it - I don't remember how good the wizard is, since I had mine set up before the wizard was introduced. The price is right and Pablo is amazing with the amount of work he's done for it - it's come farther than any other HTPC/menu program I've seen in a matter of months. If anything, you should keep your eye on it while you use Showshifter. It is coming along quickly.

Regarding the Bob Marley / Pulp Fiction screen shot... Couldn't tell ya. Probably an accident. :)

This ended up long. I don't have a lot of time to proof it for coherency :) ...get your feet wet with the program and I'm sure you can feel your way around. The forums on myHTPC.net would be a good place if you have trouble; plenty of people there, including myself when I have time.

sheephead

VIA C3 boards?

[Alizarin Erythrosin]

Could this be done with one of those VIA C3 boards? They're mini-itx and they have svideo outputs built in, along with audio built in... I just dunno if they would have enough grunt or the Linux compatibility.

There's also a neato case for it that looks kinda like a home theatre component already, but I forget the URL for it (I'll keep searching for it though)... would be an interesting (and maybe cheaper) alternative.

Re:VIA C3 boards?

[satterth]

The top end range boards (933mhz) just barely have the grunt to decode a DVD. If you want to play medium resolution MPEG-4 files then you'll have to pick and choose the better CPU combination. Other type media (mp3, ogg,etc) is fine. The linux compatibility is there.

Here's your Tivo with MP3 playback

[jjjefff]

behold, the solution:

Tivo Media Option

and you don't have to set up any partitions, or get all that shit working together, or wait 5 minutes for it to boot up, or install samba, or patch anything, or compile anything, or spend hours trolling the newsgroups to make mplayer work when all you want to do is watch this week's Sopranos...

Re:Here's your Tivo with MP3 playback

[mccalli]

Thanks - looks pretty much like what I'm after. The trouble is though, I'm in the UK and Tivo has stopped distributing hardware here. I can't get a series 2 box, which is a shame because as you say it's exactly what I'm looking for.

Importing's out too - too many different I/O hassles (no SCART, NTSC not PAL etc.).

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Here's your Tivo with MP3 playback

[jjjefff]

argh... that's terrible... well, i guess you could always move to the states... might be easier than assembling a reliable, fast, silent linux media pc... ;)

Re:Here's your Tivo with MP3 playback

[ncc74656]

Thanks - looks pretty much like what I'm after. The trouble is though, I'm in the UK and Tivo has stopped distributing hardware here.

It's also worth noting that (AFAIK) you can't rip video from a Series 2. That makes it a non-starter, IMHO. I'll stick with my upgraded HDR212 until it conks out...the only thing that's likely to die is the hard drive, and that's easy enough to swap out.

Waiting for drivers..

[dmouritsendk]

Both MythTV and Freevo are really coming along nicely, the already challenge most commercial PVR system in the feature department. Both projects seem to be moving forward in a healthy speed, and projects of this type are bound to get a lot of support from geeks at home. So, the future looks bright for the OS PVR systems i reckon.

But personally Ill be waiting a little while longer before i make my own little PVR box, im waiting for the IvyTV project's drivers to mature some more. And then use a Hauppauge WinTV 350 as the base for my box, this will give me real time hardware mpeg-2 encoding/decoding. The IvyTV team are doing great, in record time they have a partly working driver and a plug in for mythtv. So i think its safe to say that within a years time well see a Video4Linux2 compliant driver with hardware encoding/decoding support from them.

So why do i want to encode to mpeg-2 anyways? I want to use mpeg-2 as the primary format on the box and divx as a "backup" format. Also with hardware mpeg-2 encoding, it should be possible for me to include a DVD burner and make it possible for me to record directly to a video dvd. Which would be really neat =)

Re:Waiting for drivers..

[Anonymous Coward]

you should seriously reconsider. As i posed earlier, price/performance of a wintPVR versus a faster processor isn't there. Do software encoding on a faster processor and save lots of money.

Geez, I'm getting tired of these articles

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm tired of reading articles about loud, ugly boxes that don't quite replace a Tivo while still managing to cost more and be way less user friendly.

The bottom line on a do-it-yourself media center is that it has to offer some combination of better performance, lower price, more features, and greater flexibility and capability than commercial products. If it doesn't, why not buy something that just works when you bring it home from Best Buy?

Plus with the above requirements it must be in a form factor visually compatible with current audio/visual components, must be silent, and must be remote controlled via some standard-looking remote control unit and TV monitor on-screen status display with an excellent GUI. In short, it must be a media center, not a tricked-up PC. If a wireless keyboard/mouse is required for simplied support of features such as entering/changing file names when ripping MP3s that's OK, but I want to be able to ignore it for day-to-day operation.

Oh, and HDTV. If I'm going to bother to spend the time and money to build one, it needs to be ready for the future.

Re:Geez, I'm getting tired of these articles

[Anonymous Coward]

This is also my complaint. In the two years I've undertaken to build a PC-based media center twice. Both worked - sort of. Both could tune in a TV channel or connect to an external source and record. Both would play back to a TV monitor. Neither would record full resolution TV flawlessly while doing MPEG2 compression in real time - in spite of vendor claims and a high-powered PC with a lot of memory and fast disks. Neither really supported an IR remote without a lot of screwing around. Neither offered a really good GUI interface. Both cost about as much to put together as a Tivo costs. Neither was actually used as a media center because I didn't feel like paying something approaching $400 more than I'd already invested simply for a case to put it in that looked right in my living room. Geek appeal? Yep. I got sucked in by it twice. Real utility and a replacement for my VCRs and DVD player? Nope.

Re:Geez, I'm getting tired of these articles

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll alert! The parent post is a sentiment that I see echoed by trolls on a regular basis:

"Why should I do X, when I can just throw money (because I have lots of it and want everyone to be aware of that since I have an inferiority complex) at the problem and by gizmo Y for Z dollars. (I'm rich remember?)"

The point that these trolls always seem to miss is that one of the main reasons a lot of us (call us geeks if you must) do this sort of thing because we LIKE to. There is n unmatched sense of satisfaction in drawing up plans, gathering components (or fetching/writing libraries if you are writing a program) and assemling them into a finished product that is either as good as or better than the commercial product. For one thing, you may have spent less money on the project. Yet another feature is that you know it inside and out and it has your personal signature on it. Oddly enough, you never see people asking a carpenter why he chose to build his own Entertainment Center instead of buyig one from Ikea. So, why the double standard here? Insecurity. These trolls are probably the same idiots who NEED to have SUVs to "protect" their families while on the road, or to hustle down to the grocery store to pick up a can of tuna. They are probably the same people that need to tell everyone they know about their latest house, trip around the world, or $1000+ stereo component. Get a grip folks!!! No one fucking cares about you or your money. Fine... you make more than I do, so be it. You apparently lack the ability to reason and build your own equipment. That's where I (and people like me) will ALWAYS be "richer" than you. Never has the saying, "a fool and his money are soon parted" been clearer. The person who coined that phrase must have had the conspicuously rich in mind when he created that saying.

Why do we do things like this? Because we can. And you apparently can't. So... go fuck yourself.

Re:Geez, I'm getting tired of these articles

[Anonymous Coward]

My, so much misplaced anger, makes me glad I posted as AC. Just so you've got the facts, money has nothing to do with it. Whether I have it (or not) and whether you don't (or do). The reality is that building your own PC-based media center is not yet all that satisfying or satisfactory.

Yes, I can build a media center. In fact I did it about 6 months ago. I wasn't thrilled by the results. It worked, but it didn't blow my socks off with it's various zippy features and outstanding ease of use. And it wouldn't have been cheap if I hadn't been recycling older hardware. Fact is, if I'd had to buy all that stuff new, it would set me back close to $900 (case, motherboard, processor, memory, large capacity disk(s) with drive trays - because I like 'em removable, DVD drive, sound card, fancy TV tuner/vido in/video out graphics card, etc).

My actual total expenditure was in the neighborhood of $400, most of it for the graphics card and IR remote control hardware. Oh, and one hell of a lot of my time trying to get everything to work perfectly. With only qualified success.

As to my Do It Yourself bona fides, I've been a ham since long before you were born (over 45 years in fact) and used to build a lot of my own gear. I've built two houses myself, using hired help only for rough carpentry (too damn much sawing, lifting, and hammering for one person), plastering (because I'm no damn good at it) and cabinetry (ditto).

Oh, and if you've been able to read this far, I don't drive an SUV. But I do have four (count 'em four) BMWs - two classics cars, one classic motorcycle, and one new sedan. And, yes, I do have $1000 stereo components. And, yes, I have been been around the world. Twice in fact - once traveling eastward and once traveling westward.

Thank you for your insightful comments.

Re:Geez, I'm getting tired of these articles

[Anonymous Coward]

Shaddup grandpa... just because you can design analog circuits doesn't make you a tech god these days. I've been building analog and digital circuits as well as working on computer stuff since I was 10 in 1970. So as I said before... go fuck yourself.

Why do this at all?

[jmcnamera]

Ok, mod me as offtopic but...

Why bother to reinvent on Linux what exists elsewhere commercially.

Yeah, we all want free, but why waste personal time on reinventing, shameless copying even.

How about people do something different, innovative even instead of trying to make Linux do what XP (or fill in your favorite blank) already does?

Ok, I don't watch TV much either, but hey, I have a life.

Re:Why do this at all?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the dumbest thing I've read. XP MCE is the most featureless of them all, and is only available on the edonkey network or through OEM channels. You cannot even buy it.

MythTV, Freevo, and myHTPC are free, and have many, more useful features than XP MCE.

Even Showshifter has more features than XP MCE.

Re:Why do this at all?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're so lifefull why are you even here at all? If you were a geek you'd understand the desire to have your hands on every bit of technology in your house. Plus it's fun.

The commercial products don't do everything you might want, either. Only the next generation machines are starting to do the stuff I'd want to do with mine. Using a PC with the software that's out there (myth, freevo, etc) I can custom build a solution that works perfectly for ME, unlike a commercial box (tivo) that works pretty well for everybody. I get to pick exactly which hardware components I want to use. I CAN UPGRADE ANY COMPONENT AT WHIM without buying a whole new system.

You sound like a PHB. Get thee behind me, Satan.

Re:Why do this at all?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why build a hot rod when you can buy a Ford? Or a monster truck?

Re:Why do this at all?

[Bombcar]

Why bother to reinvent on Linux what exists elsewhere commercially.

I wonder if someone should have told Linus that back in the early days........

Why bother to reinvent Linux when Minix exists elsewhere commercially? :)

Re:Why do this at all?

[TheRaven64]

Why bother to reinvent on Linux what exists elsewhere commercially

I came to a similar conclusion when I built my media PC. I installed Linux, and started trying to get all the bits of software I wanted working. After a couple of days I gave up and popped an old copy of Windows I had lying around on it.

Next I installed the copy of WinDVD 5.1 channel DTS edition that came with the sound card, and the video capture software that came with the ATi AIW card. Placing shortcuts to these on the desktop at a very large icon and text size made it easy to use with just the remote (which came with the Abit AU10 sound card, and plugged into the keyboard port).

No doubt I will now be modded down for suggesting that Linux is not the solution to every possible problem.

How about people do something different, innovative even instead of trying to make Linux do what XP (or fill in your favorite blank) already does?

This seems to be a common problem with Open Source Software. There is a certain amount of innovation, but in general it is eclipsed by the vast numbers of 'let's be an inferior copy of Windows / Mac / Other' projects.

Footnote: After about a year I came to the conclusion that I was only really using it as a DVD player, and replaced it with a hardware DVD player.

Re:Why do this at all?

[Thing 1]

How about people do something different, innovative even instead of trying to make Linux do what XP (or fill in your favorite blank) already does?

How about you do something different and innovative and let the developers (who are working on their own time, their own dollars) climb the mountains they want to climb "because they're there?"

If you were paying the developers, then you'd have the right to tell them what to do.

Re:Why do this at all?

[krylan]

Why does a dog lick his balls?

Re:Why do this at all?

[msimm]

I gotta agree with the above poster. Besides, I think this is one particular case where (in my opinion) Linux does what other don't.

My box uses MythTV, Vobcopy, Ogle and Mplayer together with getgui and cdde. If you insert a dvd into my box you get a pop-up menu asking if you'd like to View or Copy the dvd. Same with music cds (athough I've thrown in mp3 or lossless encoding), vcds or just about anything else.

This beats the pants off anything I've seen in the Windows, etc world. My media center is cdrom aware and fully scriptable. The best part of it is it means my girl friend doesn't even have to think about it, she just pops in the media and it works!

Glirnath

[SHEENmaster]

I just threw glirnath onto a pentium 120 with apache running Debian/Woody.

If anyone wants to do this really cheap, this script to remotely controll xmms through a console session.

My ultimate media box includes P2P

[ites]

Obviously: insert any CD or DVD to play, and it gets automagically ripped and compressed, so that you can play it again as you like.
But the really evil part is when the box gets online and shares. I'm trying to think of legit uses for such a thing but I can't. :-)

Re:My ultimate media box includes P2P

[TheRaven64]

Obviously: insert any CD or DVD to play, and it gets automagically ripped and compressed, so that you can play it again as you like. But the really evil part is when the box gets online and shares. I'm trying to think of legit uses for such a thing but I can't. :-)

Here's one. It's not a file sharing app, it's a caching grid computing solution. In order to reduce wasted clock cycles on your local machine, it determines whether any other machine on the grid has already ripped that CD, and if so it downloads them. Ideally, it should work out which CDs you are likely to rip, based on your history, and download those without any intervention from you.

Call it a research project, and you may even get funding :)

You completely missed his point.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nice that you can do all that you do with an old or a midrange PC. That wasn't the point (at least that was my take on it). The point he was trying to make was that the user shouldn't even know or care that it's a PC. It should just be another component in his video/audio rack.

Onboard video and sound?

[Anonymous Coward]

They expect the onboard video and sound features of the mobo to deliver good performance. Yeah, right.

for $500 get the new Tivo with updated services

[Locutus]

The newer Tivo2 and the $100 one-time service upgrade gets you remote MP3 and picture viewing along with PC connectivity across a LAN. Hey, and it's Linux so you can hack and compile your own addons if your into that.

And it's got no keyboard but comes with an Ir remote.

Cool project though.

LoB

Re:for $500 get the new Tivo with updated services

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget hacking and compiling your own add-ons with a Series2 unit.

It may be possible, but it is damn near impossible for the average SKILLED person.

The Series2 units are locked up at the PROM level (BIOS) and the newer kernels verify the file system and reset it as necessary.

Re:for $500 get the new Tivo with updated services

[Locutus]

bummer. never mind. :/

LoB

Because you don't live in the US?

[EnglishTim]

You could get Tivos for a while here in the UK, but then Thompson, the only people who were producing them for this market, decided to pull out.

You can get them on ebay, but good luck getting an account with Tivo - I hear you can't get through to their customer services department any more...

If you've got satellite TV, you can get Sky+, but if you've got cable or terrestrial digital, you're stuck.

Now that XBoxes are down to £130, I'm wondering whether you could make a tivo-like device for about £200 by installing Linux and adding a USB video capture device. They are a bit noisy though - and 10Gb doesn't give you a huge amount of recording space...

As long as we are on the topic

[dsledzuiuc.edu]

http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/sigunix/projects/quuxbox/ Is designed to have a very flexible architecture and support multiple multimedia apps at once. You can rip a CD, listen to MP3s and watch your favorite MST3K.

Consider a PS2 and QCast in your Living Room.

[orichter]

I haven't actually tried it, but most of the reviews seem pretty good. It looks like for about $300, you can access all of your multimedia from a PS2. QCast

remote interfaces

[ceswiedler]

Is it possible, with any of these solutions, to control them from a separate X session (or even from a command line) than where it runs? I would like to run a controlling session remotely from my laptop, and have the output sent from the server to the TV.

My TV supports a few good resolutions over a standard VGA connector (it's one of those HD-lite jobbies, which supports the format/resolution but not the wide aspect ratio). So I should just be able to run standard X from the video card.

Re:Liberals are dieing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but at least they can spell "dying".

Incorrect initscripts info?

[Da Schmiz]

From the article:

Next, we want to execute this script on startup. To do that, we have to place a link to it in the /etc/rc5.d sub-directory, which is where scripts get executed on startup in RunLevel 5, which is a full multi-user run mode with networking and X-Windows. To create this link, bring up a window in Gnome, and go to the /etc/init.d sub-directory (or wherever you've placed the bash script). Right-click on the file, and drag it onto the desktop. You'll be asked if you want to move, copy, or link to this script. Select "link here." Now, in that same window, change to the /etc/rc5.d sub-directory, and drag the script link from the desktop into this sub-directory. Next, you need to rename the script using the following convention-- Look at all the scripts that begin with the letter 'S' (these are services scripts, which get executed after kernel scripts, which begin with the letter 'K'). Find the last script that begins with the letter 'S', which is usually S99local. Verify that this is the highest-numbered script beginning with 'S'. If yes, rename the link to your bash script to: S100lvm The script will now execute on startup, and the needed LKMs will be available to Freevo.

[Stupid /. formatting...]

OK, that doesn't jive with what I learned in RHCE class. On a RedHat system, init processes the rc?.d scripts in asciibetical order (so S100lvm would actually come before S99local), passing "start" as the first argument to those scripts that start with S and "stop" to those scripts that start with K. The idea is that your init.d script should accept start and stop arguments and perform accordingly. Once you drop this script into /etc/init.d, you should be able to use chkconfig to set up the proper symlinks in the /etc/rc?.d directories. (A simple "chkconfig lvm on" should put "K" symlinks into rc0.d, rc1.d, rc2.d, and rc6.d, and "S" symlinks in rc3.d, rc4.d, and rc5.d.) Plus, you can use "service lvm start" to avoid typing "/etc/init.d/lvm start" (if that's your thing).

Aside: Also, lvm is a bad acronym for "Load Video Modules", since LVM is the Logical Volume Manager, and RedHat includes support for LVM out-of-box.

I did my own as well.

[Sri Ramkrishna]

I built my own although it's still not quite usable. I had some mobile boards from Intel and I've built my own box using plexiglass (17 bucks approx) I used old IBM thinkpad hard drives for disks so I was able to keep the box small.

The software I've used is irmp3, (http://irmp3.sf.net) It's been working fairly well. In fact, I even got it so that if you hit the power button it does a proper shutdown instead of just dying and ultimately corrupting your hard drive. Other than installing the codecs it's pretty complete.

It only plays music however. Maybe I will do more than that but because of the limitation of the motherboard (Intel 810 EMO) I don't think thats going to happen, it only has one serial port, no parallel port, and two USB. I was lucky to have one with a tv out but it doesn't seem to work. :/

sri

MP3 Vinyl Jukebox lookalike

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is a SIMPLE MP3 jukebox program for Linux? Let me give you an example.

I'm a vinyl collector and I've been wanting to buy a vinyl jukebox so that I could load all my vinyls to it, sit back, play and enjoy, but a vinyl jukebox costs as much as $6000!

Now, alternate cool choice would be if I would convert all my vinyls to MP3:s and I would have this kind of Linux media terminal that would be attached to TV and HIFI systems. All it is lacking is a cool MP3 Jukebox program! It should be like Jukeboxes back in the old days. You could browse the titles on your TV screen and you would see scanned images of the vinyl records covers just like you would be browsing real vinyl jukebox! Is this too much asked?

This is why I come to slashdot..

[Anonymous Coward]

This article is what slashdot used to be. Some marginally cool hardware, assembled in a marginally cool manner. Lately things have been much too politically biased, and really just crap.

We have the Pro-Linux, Anti-Microsoft crowd that can't really see past technology, and just keeps touting open source as the way to solve the world's problems, feed the hungry, etc.. Nevermind that the only OSS company that's I'm aware of making any money is RedHat (marginal, based on their market cap)

Then we have the newly converted slashdotters, who are still pro-microsoft, and use their mod points to flame the anti-microsoft guys, in a big holy war over why Bill's evil, or microsoft is doomed to fail.

I used to spend hours on slashdot reading articles like this, following the discussion, and all the friggin cool links that people would post. I am usually more interested in what other people post than the stories themselves, but cool stories like this get us on a cool topic.

Yes I am concerned with things like privacy, government, and free speech. But sometimes, I want to digress to PURE GEEKNESS, and think about building my own PVR, or X10 in my house. That is why I'm here...

Check out Martian

[Johann]

It's a wireless file server which runs Linux:
Martian.com

The Martian NetDrive Wireless gives you all the convenience of a local file server without any of the hassles of cables (except for power, of course, but we're working on that).

Martian NetDrives are completely silent appliances that you can place next to your stereo or even under your bed, and they're small enough to fit on a bookshelf. Hide one in your closet or garage!

If your house hasn't been invaded by wireless technology yet, the NetDrive Wireless includes a standard 10/100Mbps ethernet port for the same silent, simple operation on your wired network.

DirectTV - APG

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody know how to use the APG (Guide) data via the serial port on my DTV box?

You're trolling right?!?

[TheConfusedOne]

How about people do something different, innovative even instead of trying to make Linux do what XP (or fill in your favorite blank) already does?

Heh, TiVo was out long before XP's Media Center PC was even an idea. (Heck, before XP itself.)

Guess what TiVo was running on? That's right. Linux!

The point is that the first commercial company showed that it can be done on Linux and done well. The problem is that the companies that make PVR's are struggling and their terms and licenses are getting progressively worse.

So, I guess the idea is that the product no longer meets the consumers' needs so it's time to make a new product.

I have the same concern...

[FatSean]

I've seen 2 sites that claim to have a device that can be used to control the cablebox via IR, but neither had a price and neither responded when I asked about them. As far as I've been able to determine, my cablebox a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 2000 does not have or does not publish the ability to control it via the USB port.

I suppose I could build my own device that can be used to record and playback IR signals...but I'm too lazy to figure it all out.

Free Software versus ReplayTV

[jdavidb]

I'm a free software guy, myself, but wouldn't be adverse to buying a ReplayTV or Tivo or whatever proprietary system if it had the one killer feature I need. Your goals are a little different than mine; you want 500 hours of recording time; I want a VCD factory. I want to just tell my machine this fall, "Make me a season set of Smallville," and then in May 2004 play disk swap while my system burns the entirety of Smallville season 3 for me.

I don't think proprietary solutions will ever support that, which is why I'm waiting for the free solutions to catch up to the point I can modify them to do what I want.

Re:Liberals are dieing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... it was offtopic but it was at least more "Insightful" than the original post. Hrmph! "Liberals are dying", indeed!! As the situation worsens here in the United States, you will see gathering interest in "lefty" movements. So far, unemployment is skyrocketting. The cost of living is growing considerably faster than the average salary. And... most people are VERY disenchanted with our two party system. All we need is one charismatic leader to step up to the plate and start promising that people will be able to put food on the table again and have decent housing again, and that person will clean up in the next election. Thus far, the current stolen administration has only managed to make a bad situation worse. And by funneling the money into flush defense interests, they are guaranteeing their demise. Just yesterday another poll stated that 60% of the population is thinking that all these tax cuts in a defense spending happy administration are a bad idea. The tide is getting ready to turn...

With the amount that the current administration spends on "defense" you'd think that as individuals, they probably spend at lest 75% of their salaries on burglar alarms, guns and mace. If they do, that's a good indication that they suffer from some kind of paranoia. Don't catch that disease from them. It's very dangerous, and fairly contagious.

Re:Consider a PS2 and QCast in your Living Room.

[jshare]

That's the whole reason I bought a PS/2.

It works, but it can't handle the size of AVI that one usually comes across. 512x384 is about as good as it can do. Same thing with MPGs.

Still, if you don't mind re-encoding to a smaller size, it's not too bad.

Re:Liberals are dieing!

[Anonymous Coward]

w00t! Liberals are using dies? What are they pressing? Hopefully they are getting ready to make conservative juice during the next election.

dumb page title

[iamhassi]

Anyone else notice the page title is "ExtremeTech - Print Article"? Couldn't they call it something useful like "ExtremeTech - DIY Linux Media Jukebox"

It's just common little mistakes like that that make finding bookmarked pages extremely frustrating.

The best media center casemod EVER

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is the case mod I use for my mythtv box. It gets almost more attention than the functionality.

http://www.modthebox.com/atc600p3.html

Cost me $200 and worth every penny. It is the centerpiece of my mediacenter.

Re:The best media center casemod EVER

[msimm]

Looks great!

My problem is our entertainment center is near the front window (in a ground floor apartment) and I have to try to hide the box because I'm worried it'll get lifted. :-)

Now here's what would really be great....

[ludeyork]

Basically, I'd like an audio jukebox that I could access (with queue) from any of the three macs in my house, and allow songs to play through the main stereo... Anyone have experience with that?

How about some decent music jukebox software?

[Hatta]

I've been looking, but unable to find jukebox software with good metadata support. What I would like to do is have a gigantic vorbis partition, and then a simple command line interface to search and play. So, I could select random jazz songs from 1950-55, or anything by Bach performed on the piano, or Scarlet Begonias that did not segue into Fire on the Mountain. Now this will take a lot of work to enter all this info, so it had better have a good interface, and minimize repeated data entry (like having to retype the disc title for each track on a cd) It must also be flexible, since appropriate tags are likely to be very different between, say a CD of Chopin etudes, a live Grateful Dead show, and a bunch of DJ sets I got with streamripper. Sooo, I throw myself on the superior knowledge of /., does such a thing exist?

Re:How about some decent music jukebox software?

[BlackListedCard]

Try Netjuke. Has random playlists The best metadata support. Support all audio formats Recursive searching with internet title searching. web based interface. Sorry no command line Mysql, apache and php. It's on Sourceforge.net. Do a search for Netjuke.

Re:What I want from a media PC - I have one

[Anonymous Coward]

I already do ALL of the above with mythtv and a lil linux shell magic.

1/2.I use a flex atx mobile athlon board which is low heat and silent if you know anything about heatsink/fans.

3. Mythmusic rips like the shredder - ogg is fine.

4. Ogle rules you - you can make an icon for it in myth if you really want to, i dont bother.

5. Myth is way better than anything else for pvr

6. Check, i watch 1 stream while recording another, can't figure out how to match tv and a dvd on the same tv at the same time though - maybe you need to rethink this request. Can't figure out how to play oggs and a dvd over same speaker and have it sound good - perhaps you need a box with a new set of ears.
7. I do this via a shell scrpts - works fine
8. Apt-get update and cvs update

Re:Liberals are dieing!

[Anonymous Coward]

"think for me, not for thee"

Uk Sky Digital Control

[niai]

Do any linux based pvrs have support for recording sky digital in the UK and have the ability to select the channel to record?

I presume it would require either be using a standard tv decoder pci card with some form of link to change the channel on the sky set-top box OR some kinda sky decoder on the tv pci card.

Re:Uk Sky Digital Control

[Anonymous Coward]

Try VDR

You will need a DVB-S card and then you can record the exact digital stream to your hard-disk

Simulcasting

[Zipster]

One thing I've been after for a while is an elegant solution to the problems radio simulcasts have.

Where I live we get our radio via a single satellite bounce but our TV is bounced twice (smetimes 3 times depending on what channel) and as a result if something is a radio simulcast (some sporting events here are as are music events) then you end up with a delay between the sound and the video.

One nice little tweak for most of the pvrs I have seen would be the ability to slow down either the video or the sound.

Just my 3.3c (depending on exchange rates)

Re:Sad news ... Stephen King dead at 55

[Stephen King]

Sad news... Stephen King Troll modded down again. And wrong, again. I'm Still Not Dead(tm)!

Yeong Yang A201-X03?

[VivianC]

For anyone wondering what the heck this is, you can look here.

Never seen one of these before...

Mini-itx as dumb terminal

[huxrules]

What I have been thinking of is using one of the higher end mini-itx motherboards as a kina of dumb terminal for these types of systems. The noisy computer with its gigantic harddrives sits in the closet while the mini-itx just controls it from the living room (and plays all the media). I don't know whay it wouldn't be possible. I'd be willing to guess that the first person that can do it for under 1,500 dollars will become a ten thousandare. Also it would be nice to be able to rip your dvd's into the storage computer....

Re:Liberals are dieing!

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck is that supposed to mean asshead? If anything, it should be "Think for everyone" because 80% of the population is too stupid to be able to figure a lot of stuff out on their own. That's what we pay professionals for. The sad truth is that most of the "professionals" these days are a large part of that 80% figure above. Your average CIO is pretty brain dead when it comes to just about anything. You don't honestly expect them to handle themselves properly in a position of responsibility, do you? What we really need is to move to a system of the perfect law. The law as governed by machines. There are no gray areas. Just hard black and white. You killed someone with malicious intent? You die. You stole from your company by keeping two sets of books and skimming some off the top? You die. You won't let your best friend have a crack at your husband or wife? You are imprisoned. I'm telling you... it's simple. All we have to do is build an open source governing system that will only make the logical choices.

Netjuke for web mp3, etc music LAN streaming

[BlackListedCard]

I use apache with php on my mp3 server. It has wireless lan and I can stream music to any computer in my house with a web interface. Searches for an new mp3 files and automatically setups the title information with artist and genre. It runs with mysql as the backend database. Everyone should check it out. It's amazing. I would not suggest it, if it sucked. It's on sourceforge.net and the name of it is Netjuke.

Last Post!

[alpg]

Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something I
saw at the airport ... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles of computer
magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airport store. Does
it bother anyone else that half the world is being told all of our hard-won
secrets of computer technology? Remember how all the lawyers cried foul
when "How to Avoid Probate" was published? Are they taking no-fault
insurance lying down? No way! But at the current rate it won't be long
before there are stacks of the "Transactions on Information Theory" at the
A&P checkout counters. Who's going to be impressed with us electrical
engineers then? Are we, as the saying goes, giving away the store?
-- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President

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