Re: [mythtv-users] Frontend for home theater
Thanks for the info. On decibels I was mostly concerned with how loud the fans are. It is a pain to have a machine that is loud and interferes with what I'm watching. I doubt any built in audio will have high quality, but since I'm not an audiophile even built in sound cards are good enough for me. Alberto Ah, I should have realized that! :] Anyway, it really is VERY quiet. You can hear that it's on, but I think I can hear the wind outside the window more than I can anything coming from the box. It's REALLY quiet, maybe 5-10db's ? I don't have a device to measure, but it's quiet. And the question above about the video card, it's got generic onboard video, supplied from Intel, nothing fancy at all. That ATI would probably be about the same since there isn't going to be much video hardware acceleration out of either chip. Chad ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Frontend for home theater
Cool. Thanks for the answers. Here are a few questions from this thread: 1) Do I need anything for XvMC (which I gather is hardware decoding of MPEG?) besides the right video card (NVIDIA?). 2) I was thinking of ceiling mounting the projector. It seems like it would be good to have the computer in a corner somewhere. Are there any issues with running such long VGA cables? I would imagine such a cable is pretty damn expensive? The alternative would be mounting the computer from the ceiling as well somehow so it was closer to the projector (and out of the way). -- MikeOn 11/4/05, Isaac Richards [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Friday 04 November 2005 08:18 pm, Michael Tiller wrote: At work we just got a $700 computer projector that looks fantastic. I hooked my laptop up to it while watching a widescreen DVD and it even seems to support the widescreen format quite nicely. So, I'm thinking about getting one of these for my basement. My plan would be to mount it on the ceiling and project it against a wall. I'd also like to hook a very simple MythTV frontend up to it. My plan would be to have only a DVD reader, small hardrive (if necessary), network and video card in it (i.e. no tuner cards and no direct live TV feed to the projector...only live TV from a backend over the network).http://www.mythtv.org/basement/6-Projector/1-screen_mounted.jpgThat's my production mythtv setup.Panasonic PT-AE700U projector, homemade screen. Here are a few questions: 1) Any comments on why this might be a bad idea? :-) It sure looks attractive to me.The biggest negative is that it's really not the best use of bulb life to be doing stuff like listening to music for hours. 2) Any special issues with video cards? When I hooked my laptop up the projector we have at work, it seemed like my laptop was putting out a special resolution on the output port and that the projector was matching it. The widescreen version looked great. Will all video cards+X.conf be able to provide the optimal widescreen resolution or is this a special feature to look for?Most digital projectors these days have vga and hdmi/dvi input, and fairly standard resolutions.I've had no problems displaying 1280x720 on mine. 4) I've got a fairly nice 5.1 receiver plus speakers. Anything special I need to hook that up to a computer? If I play a DVD, will it send a pro-logic encoded signal over normal line out or do I need to have a sound card that can split it up locally and then send out all the signals separately? I may just skip the 5.1 for now use simulated surround sound. I don't do DVD playback on mine (still prefer to use a standalone dvdchanger), but you can pass through the audio with a digital out..Isaac___ mythtv-users mailing listmythtv-users@mythtv.orghttp://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Frontend for home theater
On 11/5/05, Chad [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Any other info you want/need from that machine, I'll be happy to post, just tell me how to get it. You inspired me so earlier today I took a loot at the Aussie eBay site for similar machines. What graphics cards does yours have? A nice one I saw was an old ATI 32MB beast of a thing. Cheers, Whytey -- -- I have GMail invites, if you want one, email me direct. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Frontend for home theater
On Fri, 2005-11-04 at 23:28 -0700, Chad wrote: Sure thing, I'll do a lspci when I get home, and a cat /proc/cpuinfo along with free. But to throw out a guess from memory until I get home: P3 866 128 MB RAM All integrated mobo, intel chipset. Audio decibels levels, really couldn't tell you. It does sound decent enough coming out of the TV speakers (set to normal volume, not cranked up), but through the simulated surround occasionally you can tell it's not quality hardware (hence the reason at looking for better soundcards). Thanks for the info. On decibels I was mostly concerned with how loud the fans are. It is a pain to have a machine that is loud and interferes with what I'm watching. I doubt any built in audio will have high quality, but since I'm not an audiophile even built in sound cards are good enough for me. Alberto ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Frontend for home theater
On 11/4/2005 5:18 PM Michael Tiller wrote: Here are a few questions: [snip] 5) I'd like this to be as cheap as possible (WAF). If I'm just using the frontend to playback DVDs and programs recorded on a backend, I assume I can get by with some pretty low end specs. Since I only need to do playback, I suppose a PIII could probably fit the bill although I suspect that might actually be hard to find. I have this thought in my head that someday I'll have HD quality recordings on my backend. What does it take to get HDTV playback (only) for a frontend. The MythTV site mentions some kind of NVIDIA acceleration? I probably can't afford to protect for this capability but it doesn' t hurt to at least understand the tradeoff. From what I've gathered reading this list for the past 9 months, it's the frontend that needs the horsepower unless the backend is encoding real time. Then they both need horsepower. However with the PVR-x50 cards and their built-in hardware encoders, very few boxes are encoding real-time using their CPU. And then with ATSC signal, it is already digital and is just streamed to disk. The only time a backend uses much horse power is during commercial flagging or transcoding. But since neither is real time, it just becomes a matter of how long you want to wait. :) On the other hand, the frontend needs to be fairly powerful to decode ATSC signals and display them real time. It seems the estimates I've seen are for a minimum of 2ghz with 2.5 being more acceptable. Cheers, Drew -- Visit The Alchemist's Warehouse Magic Tricks, DVDs, Videos, Books, More! http://www.alchemistswarehouse.com ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
[mythtv-users] Frontend for home theater
At work we just got a $700 computer projector that looks fantastic. I hooked my laptop up to it while watching a widescreen DVD and it even seems to support the widescreen format quite nicely. So, I'm thinking about getting one of these for my basement. My plan would be to mount it on the ceiling and project it against a wall. I'd also like to hook a very simple MythTV frontend up to it. My plan would be to have only a DVD reader, small hardrive (if necessary), network and video card in it (i.e. no tuner cards and no direct live TV feed to the projector...only live TV from a backend over the network). Here are a few questions: 1) Any comments on why this might be a bad idea? :-) It sure looks attractive to me. 2) Any special issues with video cards? When I hooked my laptop up the projector we have at work, it seemed like my laptop was putting out a special resolution on the output port and that the projector was matching it. The widescreen version looked great. Will all video cards+X.conf be able to provide the optimal widescreen resolution or is this a special feature to look for? 3) The projector we have at work is a 1600 lumens Panasonic. It also seems fairly cheap. I get the impression it can support some pretty high resolutions (HDTV?) 4) I've got a fairly nice 5.1 receiver plus speakers. Anything special I need to hook that up to a computer? If I play a DVD, will it send a pro-logic encoded signal over normal line out or do I need to have a sound card that can split it up locally and then send out all the signals separately? I may just skip the 5.1 for now use simulated surround sound. 5) I'd like this to be as cheap as possible (WAF). If I'm just using the frontend to playback DVDs and programs recorded on a backend, I assume I can get by with some pretty low end specs. Since I only need to do playback, I suppose a PIII could probably fit the bill although I suspect that might actually be hard to find. I have this thought in my head that someday I'll have HD quality recordings on my backend. What does it take to get HDTV playback (only) for a frontend. The MythTV site mentions some kind of NVIDIA acceleration? I probably can't afford to protect for this capability but it doesn' t hurt to at least understand the tradeoff. 6) I considered a diskless configuration (probably save me money), but it seems SO COMPLICATED to setup. Could I boot KnoppMyth and then take the DVD out? Would that work?!? Then I could save on the disk and just boot the thing with a DVD and leave it running all the time. Comments? Any other suggestions would be very much appreciated. Unfortunately, I don't have much time or money so any suggestions along the lines of quick and cheap would be very useful. -- Mike ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Frontend for home theater
On Friday 04 November 2005 08:18 pm, Michael Tiller wrote: At work we just got a $700 computer projector that looks fantastic. I hooked my laptop up to it while watching a widescreen DVD and it even seems to support the widescreen format quite nicely. So, I'm thinking about getting one of these for my basement. My plan would be to mount it on the ceiling and project it against a wall. I'd also like to hook a very simple MythTV frontend up to it. My plan would be to have only a DVD reader, small hardrive (if necessary), network and video card in it (i.e. no tuner cards and no direct live TV feed to the projector...only live TV from a backend over the network). http://www.mythtv.org/basement/6-Projector/1-screen_mounted.jpg That's my production mythtv setup. Panasonic PT-AE700U projector, homemade screen. Here are a few questions: 1) Any comments on why this might be a bad idea? :-) It sure looks attractive to me. The biggest negative is that it's really not the best use of bulb life to be doing stuff like listening to music for hours. 2) Any special issues with video cards? When I hooked my laptop up the projector we have at work, it seemed like my laptop was putting out a special resolution on the output port and that the projector was matching it. The widescreen version looked great. Will all video cards+X.conf be able to provide the optimal widescreen resolution or is this a special feature to look for? Most digital projectors these days have vga and hdmi/dvi input, and fairly standard resolutions. I've had no problems displaying 1280x720 on mine. 4) I've got a fairly nice 5.1 receiver plus speakers. Anything special I need to hook that up to a computer? If I play a DVD, will it send a pro-logic encoded signal over normal line out or do I need to have a sound card that can split it up locally and then send out all the signals separately? I may just skip the 5.1 for now use simulated surround sound. I don't do DVD playback on mine (still prefer to use a standalone dvd changer), but you can pass through the audio with a digital out.. Isaac ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Frontend for home theater
On 11/4/05, Michael Tiller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At work we just got a $700 computer projector that looks fantastic. I hooked my laptop up to it while watching a widescreen DVD and it even seems to support the widescreen format quite nicely. At work I play with needles and medicine, I wish we also had a beautiful new projector to help the day pass ;) So, I'm thinking about getting one of these for my basement. My plan would be to mount it on the ceiling and project it against a wall. I'd also like to hook a very simple MythTV frontend up to it. My plan would be to have only a DVD reader, small hardrive (if necessary), network and video card in it (i.e. no tuner cards and no direct live TV feed to the projector...only live TV from a backend over the network). That does sound nice and cheap. I've heard that cheap and Lumens=x is not always what to look for in a projector. Bulb life and cost for replacement is also equally important. Sounds cool though. Here are a few questions: 1) Any comments on why this might be a bad idea? :-) It sure looks attractive to me. Just the notes above, and below ;) 2) Any special issues with video cards? When I hooked my laptop up the projector we have at work, it seemed like my laptop was putting out a special resolution on the output port and that the projector was matching it. The widescreen version looked great. Will all video cards+X.conf be able to provide the optimal widescreen resolution or is this a special feature to look for? Nvidia is really nice. I don't know if I'd stray too far at this point in time from Nvidia cards. Until something major changes, I believe this is generally considered what Myth users suggest. 3) The projector we have at work is a 1600 lumens Panasonic. It also seems fairly cheap. I get the impression it can support some pretty high resolutions (HDTV?) Sweet. I have no idea if this is the case, but check out sites like projectorcentral.com (which has a group of very intelligent folks on their lists) for info on what projectors to look for and look OUT for. 4) I've got a fairly nice 5.1 receiver plus speakers. Anything special I need to hook that up to a computer? If I play a DVD, will it send a pro-logic encoded signal over normal line out or do I need to have a sound card that can split it up locally and then send out all the signals separately? I may just skip the 5.1 for now use simulated surround sound. I do too, well 6.1 but close enough ;) I have recently been looking at the ( http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Turtle-Beach-Riviera-Six-Channel-PCI-Sound-Card-RIVERA-/sem/rpsm/oid/118099/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do ) which I understand has an optical (toslink) connector for digital out to your reciever. Supposedly works great with Linux. Otherwise, for now I just use analog out and simulate surround, sounds good enough for now... 5) I'd like this to be as cheap as possible (WAF). If I'm just using the frontend to playback DVDs and programs recorded on a backend, I assume I can get by with some pretty low end specs. Since I only need to do playback, I suppose a PIII could probably fit the bill although I suspect that might actually be hard to find. I have this thought in my head that someday I'll have HD quality recordings on my backend. What does it take to get HDTV playback (only) for a frontend. The MythTV site mentions some kind of NVIDIA acceleration? I probably can't afford to protect for this capability but it doesn' t hurt to at least understand the tradeoff. Oh yeah, don't we all want it cheap and cool ;) If you assume that, you must also be assuming you'll be using xvmc on all high def recordings. With most other recordings and DVD's I've encountered, not using xvmc on a P3 866, it works fine but is slightly sluggish. I trade sluggish for (nearly) silent and cheap, so it works for me. So, to re-word that: For standard recordings using something like a PVR250 or a generic bt87x card generating mpeg4 files, a p3 866 *should* work, same with DVD's. For anything high def, you'll either need a lot more cpu (it's been noted several times that a p4 3.0Ghz is minimum though I have had luck with an AMD64 3200) or off load the work to xvmc (an nvidia card using the proprietary drivers). 6) I considered a diskless configuration (probably save me money), but it seems SO COMPLICATED to setup. Could I boot KnoppMyth and then take the DVD out? I have yet to actually be able to do this, even with enough RAM to offload the DVD image, so I don't know how much luck others have had with this, so YMMV. I'd say if you *really* want something like diskless, look at finding a mobo that boots USB and use a thumb drive or something, it really simplifies life to just have linux installed to your 1GB USB drive if you want to free your DVD drive. At least that's the route I would go if I were definitely going diskless. Would that work?!? Then I could save on the disk
Re: [mythtv-users] Frontend for home theater
On Fri, 2005-11-04 at 22:02 -0700, Chad wrote: On 11/4/05, Michael Tiller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At work we just got a $700 computer projector that looks fantastic. I It helps to specify model numbers so that the rest of us can actually see the full specs :-) to hook a very simple MythTV frontend up to it. My plan would be to have only a DVD reader, small hardrive (if necessary), network and video card in it (i.e. no tuner cards and no direct live TV feed to the projector...only live TV from a backend over the network). I'm upset at Via for the way they marketed the Epia. But I've been working hard on getting the M6000 working diskless and all you have to buy is memory and a dvd-rom, the rest is built into the MB. With no moving parts, it makes a totally quiet solution. 2) Any special issues with video cards? When I hooked my laptop up the projector we have at work, it seemed like my laptop was putting out a special resolution on the output port and that the projector was matching it. The widescreen version looked great. Will all video cards+X.conf be able to provide the optimal widescreen resolution or is this a special feature to look for? Nvidia is really nice. I don't know if I'd stray too far at this point in time from Nvidia cards. Until something major changes, I believe this is generally considered what Myth users suggest. As always I am upset at ALL video card vendors and their lack of real Linux support. They tend to show and promote hints that they work under Linux just to drive you nuts when you actually try to get everything working. So, no matter what the choice is expect problems. 3) The projector we have at work is a 1600 lumens Panasonic. It also seems fairly cheap. I get the impression it can support some pretty high resolutions (HDTV?) Sweet. I have no idea if this is the case, but check out sites like projectorcentral.com (which has a group of very intelligent folks on their lists) for info on what projectors to look for and look OUT for. As properly mentioned before me, look at the lamp replacement and duration costs. It may surpass the projector price really quick. 6) I considered a diskless configuration (probably save me money), but it seems SO COMPLICATED to setup. Could I boot KnoppMyth and then take the DVD out? I'll eventually have a document describing how to get KnoppMyth R5A16 working on a diskless environment with the Epia. This doesn't have to deal with booting from the DVD drive, but rather uses the PXE booting. If you don't use a MB with PXE, you can buy Intel Gbit cards with PXE for less than $50 (but its cheaper to get the MB with PXE) :D Check ebay for some old P3 Dell Optiplex G110's. I think that's Chad, as I mentioned to Michael it helps to have specific details. I've always been interested in finding the real lower-end hardware able to be a front end. There are a lot of reports about what should be a working solution, but few objective results are posted. If you don't mind please let us know memory, CPU, idle, Decibels leve, etc. info on playing TV, DVD, etc. Obviously for a frontend only I don't think capturing, encoding and commercial flagging info is needed. Alberto ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Frontend for home theater
Chad, as I mentioned to Michael it helps to have specific details. I've always been interested in finding the real lower-end hardware able to be a front end. There are a lot of reports about what should be a working solution, but few objective results are posted. If you don't mind please let us know memory, CPU, idle, Decibels leve, etc. info on playing TV, DVD, etc. Obviously for a frontend only I don't think capturing, encoding and commercial flagging info is needed. Alberto Sure thing, I'll do a lspci when I get home, and a cat /proc/cpuinfo along with free. But to throw out a guess from memory until I get home: P3 866 128 MB RAM All integrated mobo, intel chipset. Audio decibels levels, really couldn't tell you. It does sound decent enough coming out of the TV speakers (set to normal volume, not cranked up), but through the simulated surround occasionally you can tell it's not quality hardware (hence the reason at looking for better soundcards). It's only got a CD-ROM drive in there, but playback of ripped DVD's via mythvideo seems to work decent enough. As I mentioned above, there is some... slowing. The best way to describe it is hesitation once a button is pressed, but I attribute this to the fact that these systems are older hardware and were cheap, so I feel it was a worthwhile trade (price for speed). It's not unbearable by any means, I can simply tell a difference when I was using an AMD64 3200 to this P3 866. I'll post the specs when I get home in an hour or so. Chad ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Frontend for home theater
4) I've got a fairly nice 5.1 receiver plus speakers. Anything special I need to hook that up to a computer? If I play a DVD, will it send a pro-logic encoded signal over normal line out or do I need to have a sound card that can split it up locally and then send out all the signals separately? I may just skip the 5.1 for now use simulated surround sound. I do too, well 6.1 but close enough ;) I have recently been looking at the ( http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Turtle-Beach-Riviera-Six-Channel-PCI-Sound-Card-RIVERA-/sem/rpsm/oid/118099/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do ) which I understand has an optical (toslink) connector for digital out to your reciever. Supposedly works great with Linux. Otherwise, for now I just use analog out and simulate surround, sounds good enough for now... I only want to add that I've got a Riviera -- the sound is a heck of a lot better than the AC97 sound was. I have it running on 4 of the six channels (front and rear through separate amps -- front through a stereo, rear through my TV's amp with rear-mounted speakers). I don't have a center speaker or a subwoofer, and have never tested the SPD/IF, but I can testify that at $30, the Riviera is a good deal. I bought it (exchanged it) after being unable to get a SB Audigy 24-bit working consistently under Linux. The Riviera is a good, cheap solution for 5.1 in Linux. ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
Re: [mythtv-users] Frontend for home theater
As noted above, here's the output: lspci: mythfrontend1 ~ # lspci 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82810E DC-133 GMCH [Graphics Memory Controller Hub] (rev 03) 00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82810E DC-133 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller] (rev 03) 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801AA PCI Bridge (rev 02) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801AA ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02) 00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801AA IDE (rev 02) 00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801AA USB (rev 02) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801AA SMBus (rev 02) 01:07.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq ES1371 [AudioPCI-97] (rev 09) 01:0c.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905C-TX/TX-M [Tornado] (rev 78) cpuinfo: mythfrontend1 ~ # cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 8 model name : Pentium III (Coppermine) stepping: 6 cpu MHz : 864.021 cache size : 256 KB fdiv_bug: no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug: no coma_bug: no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 2 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse bogomips: 1730.24 And free: mythfrontend1 ~ # free total used free sharedbuffers cached Mem:124832 121932 2900 0 0 19244 -/+ buffers/cache: 102688 22144 Swap: 489972 33600 456372 I just tested HDTV again to make sure I didn't do something wrong, it defintely won't do HDTV playback, but standard def works great. :) Here's a link to one on ebay (not my auction, just so you can see what it looks like too, actually, the fastest link I found was for a PSU in one :D ): http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-Optiplex-Gx110-GX150-SFF-PC-POWER-SUPPLY-1728P_W0QQitemZ6818093126QQcategoryZ80172QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Any other info you want/need from that machine, I'll be happy to post, just tell me how to get it. Chad ___ mythtv-users mailing list mythtv-users@mythtv.org http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
