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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.
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?
The problem, I see, with the XBox 360 is it's pre-planned low supply--you can't go out today and buy one at retail price.
:)
The problem with the original XBox is it's processor speed. From my research, an XBox, having a 733 MHz chip has just enough performance to record video but probably not enough to time-shift, i.e., record and playback simultaneously.
I'd love to be proven wrong on this
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
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
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?
"Hey baby.. wanna come back to my (parents') place? I've got a(n anime) keg!"
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.
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.
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