User:Metcarob

Who Am I and why am I here?

I am from London in the UK. I currently have a Windows MCE media centre computer and I am trying to set up a linuxMCE system to escape the evil clutches of microsoft. There are a number of reasons for the conversion:

• Less reliance on Microsoft. I am worried about DRM and Vista.
• More features (Ability to rip DVD's)
• Using all my devices (Make my media collection directly accessable from more than one PC)
• Force me to learn more about LINUX

I am also keen to get involved in open source and see if I can contribute to a project.

I currently have my Windows MCE machine running along side my LinuxMCE machnie and I have made a comparison between the two.

My current Set up

I currently use an Eversham ebox with as my current media centre machine. It has the following hardware:

• Realtek: RTL8169/8110 Family Gigabit Ethernet NIC
• Half Hight Digital TV Tuner card
• Half Hight Digital TV Tuner card
• Grpahics Card
• DVD Drive (Currently giving me some trouble)
• MCE Infrared interface
• MCE remote control
• Microsoft Infrared keyboard

it runs the following software:

• Microsoft Windows XP Media Centre Eddition
• AVG Anti virus
• Microsoft Media Player
• Internet Explorer (for downloading Securit now and TWIT podcasts)
• VNC Remote control software, to allow me to control the PC from other machines on my network. (Despite using large fonts it's practally impossible to read any of the dialogs via the TV)

I have a scart adapter that takes the TV out from the GFX card and the sound from the onboard sound card to an old TV.

My LinuxMCE set up

I am trying to set up my CORE as a Dedicated Core. The core has two network cards, a happuage dual digital tuner. The External Network card is plugged into my Netgear Broadband router. My Internal network card is plugged into the internal hub. I have set up a monitor and keyboard on the CORE for testing pueposes but won't keep these there once the setup is finished. Adventually the CORE will also act as a print server for my network using CUPS.

CORE

• Setup using LinuxMCE DVD
• <a href="http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Hauppauge_WinTV-NOVA-T-500">Hauppauge WinTV Nova-T 500 PCI</a> (I managed to get the origional version not the diversity model)
  • Dual Digital Tuners
• External Network interface (Onboard)
• Internal Network interface (PCI Card)
• 500Gb SATA disk drives (I have more disk drives but will try and install them once I have the main system working)

I have setup MYTH TV to use the EIT program guide as I could not get radio times to work. (Channels appeared but no programs were listed on each channel)

Controling MCE Notes

I went through a process of trying lots of diffrent ways of controling LinuxMCE before I finally settled on the method I use.

Failed: Wii REmote

I followed the Wiki instructions for this but although I did get it working (not the pointer) it didn't work after reboot until I messed around with the bluetooth scanning bit. I decided to stick to using my Wii controllers to control my Wii

Failed: Built my own IR Reciever

Next I tried to build my own IR reciever. I trooped down to maplins and got all the stuff required using the LIRC home page. I read around the wiki site it wasn't clear if I had to rebuild the linux Kernel with LIRC drivers in or not. There wasn't a way to test what I had built. In the end I gave up and ordered a USB UIRT. This came in a couple of days and worked instantly.

Kinda working: Laptop as orbiter

I got my laptop configured as an orbiter. This works fine but isn't a very easy solution.

XDA Orbit 2

The first thing I tried was the JavaMO orbiter software. This won't work on Pocket PC machines since the Java VM's don't have bluetooth support. In the end someone on the chat room pointed me to the Pocket PC version of the orbiter which worked fine.

Windows MCE controler

This worked fine with USB UIRT. After a while I learnt what the buttons did.

Setting up points

My windows MCE computer ran on PAL-I 1026x768 60Hz. LinuxMCE dosn't have this as an option in the setup. When you select S-Video you can select PAL-I but it won't let you select a resolution and it defaults to 640x480. Once I had it set up I found that I could go into both the Media Director and the Orbitor and change it to 1024.768. That seemed to work fine.