Slashdot Mirror
Myth TV + Multiple Video Arcade = Anime for All
x-blackout-x writes "Ian C. Blenke writes "The primary goal of the video keg was to build a reliable video box that was easy to transport with enough space to store 3 days worth of Anime fan-subs.
The secondary goal of the video keg was to make a home PVR system for video playback and time-shifting, along with a video arcade and perhaps a web browser.
The tertiary goal of the video keg was to find an affordable hardware platform so that we could buy 4 of them immmediately to service the primary goal's need for 4 separate video rooms.
For a PVR, the machine neeed to be small, quiet, low-heat, and still fast enough to run the software video player and arcade games."
You can read the full scoop on this project on his blog Ians Blog "
VideoKeg Whitepaper
I wrote this little whitepaper a while back for Amy Zunk to document the function of the VideoKeg/VideoJukebox boxes. Documented here for posterity.
The primary goal of the video keg was to build a reliable video box that was easy to transport with enough space to store 3 days worth of Anime fan-subs.
The secondary goal of the video keg was to make a home PVR system for video playback and time-shifting, along with a video arcade and perhaps a web browser.
The tertiary goal of the video keg was to find an affordable hardware platform so that we could buy 4 of them immmediately to service the primary goal's need for 4 separate video rooms.
For a PVR, the machine neeed to be small, quiet, low-heat, and still fast enough to run the software video player and arcade games.
For portability, we decided to go with a smaller mini-ITX style cube box.
The primary goal suggests redundant drives, but due to the smaller form factor chassis and heat requirements, it was decided that recreating a harddrive should one encounter problems would be a minor task.
Looking at the primary goal, mplayer seemed to suit the need of playing media with a variety of codecs with a minimum of fuss. Easy to script, easy to extend, low overhead, with the ability to normalize audio and clean up dirty videos - mplayer was simply ideal. This lead to the requirement of a ~1Ghz or greater box. The secondary goals would be served as well, though MAME would like a bit more horsepower for some of the more complex emulators.
In the end, we settled on a Chyang Fun Cellbox CF-7989EPIA (1Ghz EPIA-MII 10000) turnkey system with 128M of RAM, a Samsung 160G harddrive, and a DVD-ROM drive.
Once the boxes arrived, the decision at the time was which distribution to pick. If I'm managing more than one server for a given purpose, I like to use debian for package management. If this were a lone PVR box, I would have probably used Gentoo simply for the EPIA community support toward that end.
Starting off with Debian 3.1 Sarge, it was apparent a number of things needed fixing to get it to work with the embedded hardware.
Step 1, find patches and build a kernel.
Kernel patches
After roaming the net for hours, there really seems to be one good source for the latest in EPIA patches: the EPIA wiki:
http://www.epiawiki.org
The site has more of a Gentoo bent, but the patches work on a vanilla kernel just the same under debian.
CPU Optimizations
While building all packages, it seemed important to pay attention to optimizations to squeeze every last cycle out the 1Ghz processor. To that end, the generally recommended C3 Nehemiah CFLAGS are:
If you use gcc 3.3, there is a new arch designation for C3 Nehemiah CPUs:
Some in the commmunity think that the small 64k L1 cache on the C3 processors is causing starvation, and using -Os and not -funroll-loops actually helps performance:
Many others claim the following works best for them:
John
I always thought porn drove entertainment technology improvements...
Oh, wait: hentai.
Nevermind...
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
I've been using a modded xbox plus the fantastic xbox media center to play my fansubs for well over a year. It's the only reason I own an xbox. The simplicity of setup (relative,) size, and power is really unmatched. Depending on the encoding, XBMC will even play some HD content.
Yes it's not a PVR, but it gets most of your goals done in about $100-130 and an hour or two.
This was originally a story on Newsforge.com (http://software.newsforge.com/software/05/10/28/1 625258.shtml?tid=132&tid=68&tid=5). It gives the reason why Ian created the video jukebox.
wouldn't this have been better served by modding a xbox? The Do It Yourself aspect is interesting but with the arrival of the Xbox 360 there soon should be plenty of cast offs that would require little modifaction to achieve the same result, granted a bigger hdd would be nice in an Xbox but.. that's why I have network cable :)
Looks like he's done with Video Keg what I've been planning to do with a MythTV box to manage watching my DVD collection, even the insertion of commericals (trailers) between playbacks.
A few more iterations of development to bring in a few more features and this system could be used to run a 24-7 TV station.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I'm more amused that he had an idea for playing commercials while waiting for a scheduled file to play. Now, if only Real Otaku Heroes had video to go along with them; that would've been very appropriate to play in between fansubs. Or at least play some Japanese commercials, since some of those are a riot, too.
mpeg2 hardware in/out (5% processor utilization on a amd 1700)
mplayer to transcode
and setup a cron job to recode your mpeg2 files to xvid
There is no quest... it's all pretty basic...
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
I thought someone finally combined a tv with a beer dispenser, and I was like, "EUREKA!", but no.... I guess I'll just have to wait till Adam corolla starts a line of products.
Damn.
... what did you expect, something profound?
So how do you get MythTV in the subject when the article is talking about a custom bash script and perl script to play Anime?
I suspect it's actually not mod_rewrite. More likely, they used either SetHandler on the / Location to have their CGI handle every request, or MultiViews and a lot of CGI scripts.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Actually, it's not mod_rewrite at all. This is a Ruby on Rails based engine.
The routes.rb file is quite crazy though.
...that the primary reason he had three goals was to show he knew what word actually follows secondary :)
The tertiary goal of the video keg was to find an affordable hardware platform so that we could buy 4 of them immmediately to service the primary goal's need for 4 separate video rooms.
3 days of anime fansubs at bitrate 2000 kbps (normally it actually is like 1000 kbps, but let's not underestimate) makes almost 62 gigabytes of data => a laptop with 80 GB drive.
Exactly what I was thinking.
"The primary goal of the video keg was to build a reliable video box that was easy to transport with enough space to store 3 days worth of Anime fan-subs."
Buy a 12" iBook. Done.
The secondary goal of the video keg was to make a home PVR system for video playback and time-shifting, along with a video arcade and perhaps a web browser.
Buy an EyeTV 200 for analog or an EyeTV 500 for HDTV. Plug it in to the iBook. Done.
The tertiary goal of the video keg was to find an affordable hardware platform so that we could buy 4 of them immmediately to service the primary goal's need for 4 separate video rooms. For a PVR, the machine neeed to be small, quiet, low-heat, and still fast enough to run the software video player and arcade games.
Pfft!
Come to think of it, you don't even need the iBook if you are just going to be plugging it into other screens. A Mac mini covers everything you just said. Small, quiet, cheap, fast enough to play videos or simple games. Done.
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Considering that the project here is run by computer geeks who had to search the net for hours in order to get everything working, what are the odds that this will actually become a consumer device?
As a matter of fact.
Pretty good.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The Tivo can duplicate the Video Kiosk functionality they used in the Video Keg project, but no the scheduling functionality. When you run video rooms at anime conventions, you operate like a TV broadcaster, and need to schedule programs and have filler material for the unused airtime. This project is an intersting way to do this, and I'll have to take a look at it. If it does what it says, it could be a boon to video room organizers.
AnimeNEXT anime convention
Why aren't there any pics of this unit? I'm interested in not only the hardware, but the touchscreen, and just some general pics of it in action.
Considering the entirety of the anime industry is suffering from reduced sales, why is it that a method that is effectively illegal being promoted while the companies that produced this stuff, and legally license it, get the shaft?
Can anyone come up with a valid, sensical reason?
I use a set of python scripts developed to integrate XBMC with my myth backend
:)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xbmcmythtv/
These are pretty much like having a xbox optimized mythtv frontend. I was booting into linux to run mythtv for a while, but couldn't stand the 5min boot. I've been using this alternative for over a year and it has had a very high WAF.
I can't tell you the last time I used the xbox to play a game. I use it as PVR frontend on a daily basis.
Video "keg"? Please help an AC out and tell me either what a keg is in this context, or speculate on whether he built something that really belongs on mini-itx.com .
I like the look of kegs. That would make a cool project to put a mini-itx PC or cluster in.
Also, somebody humorously speculate on what the pump is for. I don't got much. Actual drinks? Circulating the coolant? Charging the battery? Reset button? Ctrl+Alt+Del button? Charging the fizzler? Fizzling the charger?
Why spend years learning woodworking and buying tools and selecting wood and then spending weekends building cabinets and bookcases, when you could be sitting on your butt drinking beer and playing FPS games?
Buy 'em at IKEA or Home Depot. Done.
Golias, for the hacker, it is ALWAYS more about the journey, than the destination.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
"Hey baby.. wanna come back to my (parents') place? I've got a(n anime) keg!"
I'm actually working on a very similar project, right now.
I'm trying to finish up the software end of things before I go out and purchase hardware, but I've got a sourceforge project up (AFX), although currently, I'm working on local versions of the source and not checking into CVS due to a major rewrite and complete lack of planning.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
From a post on Anime News Network forums:
Having attended several UK conventions over the years, I've seen AEGIS in action and it's pretty polished and reliable. The Mac port is, I'm told, a fairly recent development, and consequently has a few issues... audio starts slightly before video, so there is about a one second delay before you actually start seeing a picture on the screen - it's not out of sync, but it does mean the first second of video gets kind of cut off.
I don't appear to be able to find a website for it though; Googling it only brings up websites related to Gatekeepers or Gundam and even after eliminating those the only related site I could find is the ANN forum post I quoted above.
Golias, for the hacker, it is ALWAYS more about the journey, than the destination.
Then why follow their cookie cutter recipie? What are you in it for? The journey or the destination?
My way is faster, cheaper, and works better, with almost none of their sweat and toil. I guess it depends on what your goal is: To tinker with computers or to have some anime viewing boxen for an upcoming convention.
We're not talking about beautiful hand-crafted oak vs. chairs from Ikea. We're talking about cobbled together mini-ATX systems with a homebrew UI trying to do the work of a smaller, quieter, cheaper machine which does it better.
It makes about as much sense as insisting on building your own motorcycle using parts tooled in your own metal shop, vs. simply buying a Harley and getting out on the highway. It's only the best way to go if you think building a bike is more fun than riding one.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
They do it because it's COOL. You just built your own custom setup that works seemlessly with your existing hardware! DIY is huge.
I doubt anyone with this project in their heart would follow the instructions exactly...customization is half the fun! They post the exact instructions because they are geeks and we are geeks and we all like to know how things work.
Blar.
Perhaps they were showing some of the "adult" anime, making the pump useful for... uh... I suppose it would depend on whether the viewer was male or female....
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
Plenty of bad anime made it to the states long before fan-subs, and virtually all of the good stuff. This argument is both impossible to confirm and rather silly.
Well, that $5 per hour is tax and deduction free, so it really ends up being like $10 per hour (more than Wal-Mart). And if you find this kind of thing at all fun, then you just got 8 hours of entertainment *and* a working DVR.
Do you have a job that pays overtime? I don't; I'm salaried. So my company is not willing to pay me anything extra if I give them those 8 hours. And Wal-Mart doesn't want to hire me for a one-time 8-hour stint (damn), or let me pick exactly which hours I want to work. And even if they did agree to the above conditions, they would probably want more than 5 minutes notice as to which 8 hours I wanted to work. It looks like hobby-DVR time!
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
The largest part of the slump in anime sales can be attributed to one very legal use: Netflix rentals. My own anime consumption (ie: buying) has dropped precipitously, while I'm watching more shows than ever. $19 a month for 7 discs of anime is a far better deal than $25/3 episodes. Though Netflix does buy a large number of discs, it is still fewer than the same group of fans who all rent them.
However, this is all a bit off-topic; the machine itself sounds like it is well-suited to a unique set of needs, using open-source technology. I just want to see screen shots of the unit in action.
sig: I'm not at home, or busy. please leave new sig after the tone.
sales decline, too. Also, you are the first person I have ever heard claim that they used netflix substantially for anime. More than half of the hardcore anime fans that I know are substantial pirates, however. They buy almost none but download tons. Fan-subbing has eliminated nearly half of the market by my estimation.
Btw, don't complain about prices - anime is actually cheaper in the states than it is here in Japan. I am not kidding. DVDs are $35/disk for normal movies and can be even higher for anime. CD's are usually $25 as well.
from the "can't let this pass unchallenged" dept
so lesse, tivo's don't come with anime kiosk sw by default? I am SHOCKED!!!
.
.
.
seriously, google is your friend here
it's as easy to add scheduled playback (+filler) to a tivo as a standard linux distro - MUCH less effort than that guy invested
but to know that you might have to actually know something about TiVos, much easier to just spout halfbaked opinions as fact...
About a year ago I created a system which accomplishes the same thing. We use it to run the television station for BayCon. It's called Video::PlaybackMachine, and it's available on CPAN:
h ine-0.03/PlaybackMachine.pm
http://search.cpan.org/~stephen/Video-PlaybackMac
I haven't examined the code, so I'm basing this post on a quick read of the white paper.
The (known) differences are:
1. PlaybackMachine is based on Xine, while VideoKeg is based on MPlayer.
2. PlaybackMachine uses a postgres backend database, so it's impossible to schedule overlapping programs. (I'm not sure what VideoKeg uses.) It's also possible to reschedule programs while PlaybackMachine is running.
3. In addition to being able to play video short commercials, PlaybackMachine can play slides with accompanying background music.
4. There's a web interface to PlaybackMachine's scheduling system.
There are probably things that VideoKeg can do that PlaybackMachine can't, but I don't know about them yet. I'm very glad that VideoKeg is out there-- just having the hardware specs for the VIA EPIA box is a wonderful thing, and in this space the more the merrier.
From my research, Xbox (the original) only has USB 1.1 and no PCI, thus making it suboptimal for video recording. And the 733MHz CPU can't even handle HDTV resolutions for MPEG4/DivX type movies. Its performance with H.264 (AVC) would be even more limited.
And the GP didn't suggest 360, he suggested 360 would create cast-offs of original Xboxes. 360 is pretty unavailable right now, but I don't agree it is on purpose, and I don't think it will last long.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I'm kind of confused by your comment, since I argued that a Tivo would work as a Kiosk out of the box. It's the video scheduling that it doesn't do... I've done a bit of searching for playback scheduling on Tivo, but have come up empty. Pointers would be welcome.
AnimeNEXT anime convention
I hate to be the grinch but how do you plan to play that HDTV content if all you have is an iBook or Mac mini? I suppose you could use FireWire out to a display that can handle HD input over FireWire (not a big part of the market). The reality is that you need a dual G5 tower if you hope to deal with uncompressed HD on a Mac and it's just cruel to imply otherwise.
Some people like to make life a little tougher than it is
That would be you then.
Why the anger ?
You proposed the iBook for the primary goal, but your choice was destroyed by the 3rd goal, that must be why.
You proposed an EyeTV for second goal, which is already one hardware too much compared to the solution the guy came with. It's also a lot more expensive solution overall (especially since you must buy 4 of each hardware), destroying the 3rd goal again.
What's worse, is that the EyeTV sure enough can't play everything MPlayer does (we're talking fansubs here). Still worse, with all your expensive hardware, you still can not provide all the functionality the guy had, like touchscreen. The Mac Mini is not a solution either, and sure enough is harder to configure with the software needed. And it's more expensive too.
I did not see anything better in what you proposed, and did not see anything easier too.
http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum - a tivo development forum
has everything needed to schedule playback or develop a custom kiosk interface (tivo's have a tcl interpreter that interfaces with the recording database, easy enough to port perl or php if that's your preference though)
The quality is not particularly different (a random error every twenty videos means squat). And I am willing to wager that a significant fraction, probably the majority, of downloading is of videos already released overseas.
I presume that, on your honor, you immediately buy every video that you downloaded in advance when it is eventually released?
If not, it isn't speed or quality, but theft that is your motivation.
If you watch it or listen to it, pay what the authors ask. All else is theft. Simple.
oh wait, like anyone does that.
"I can't wait" is not an excuse to steal.