Thanks Spook.

they make something like that jim, tiny little box that takes audio from usb or the 3.5 jack and injects it into the hdmi cable

yeh that wikipedia article says a couple of mobs make cables that do it too

basically just treat it like a set top box or any other appliance you buy - imo it's more reliable/stable like this

Its hard to tell what "like this" is referring to, but if you mean without X windows I don't agree. I've been running MythTV and XBMC for years through X windows

like this as in like a STB, or foxtel IQ, tivo, dvd-r or other appliance people buy for media
you don't typically log onto those ^^^ and screw around with stuff, or update them aside from very occasional and controlled vendor-push firmware - and they usually just work

I'm saying that if you get your initial setup and fine tuning done, then treat it like you would one of the above devices, it'll be more reliable and not need touching, imo

Oh right, agreed. I touched on that in the article I think

I didnt read through all the pages to see if it has been mentioned, but simply use my ps3 with a 500gb drive and run ps3media server on my pc. It has played everything i've thrown at it so far.

you couldn't read all two pages?

My gear arrived and I set it up, but hit a few problems.

1) The TV I want to use the HTPC with is not recognising the asrock when connected via HDMI.

I have connected the asrock to another TV via HDMI and it works.
I have connected an XBox360 via HDMI to the 'broken' TV and it works.

So something is causing the asrock to not work with a particular TV.

I've tried changing resolutions in Ubuntu and had no luck. The screen remains black and says 'HDMI' at the top right corner of the TV screen.

If I unplug the HDMI cable, the TV says 'No Signal' instead.

Is there anything anyone can suggest to get this working? Is there options in Ubuntu or something that I can play with? I have tried switching through multiple resolutions etc, no luck.

It seems strange that the asrock wont talk to the TV, yet the Xbox360 can.

The TV's model number is a Conia CPDP4209, pretty sure its a cheap piece of s*** :)

2) The fan on the Asrock gets a bit loud at times, perhaps its too hot/the weather? The noise sucks.

--

I also hit a problem during the article (I think this came up for someone else too):

I needed to ensure Ubuntu was up to date via update manager first before I was prompted about the nVidia driver update. I think I also had to explicitly go to System>Preferences>Hardware Drivers (?) for it to appear as well, I didn't receive a notification. Got it sorted though!

Any help appreciated.

My HTPC setup

Thermaltake SD100 - Mini ITX Case
Inno3D IN93I-330-VD M/B- MCP7A ION, Built in Atom 330 Dual-Core (1.6 Ghz), FSB 533, DDR2 800, HDMI/DVI/VGA, SATAII, RAID, GB LAN, Mini-ITX, WIFI N.
Western Digital 1.5TB SATAII HDD 32M Cache Green Power
Kingston DDR2 4(2x2G)PC6400 800Mhz - KVR800D2N5K2/4G
Logitech diNovo Cordless Mini Keyboard
Slimline Silverstone Blu ray

Everything runs amazing!!! Blu ray ftw

its connected too
Sharp 52" LCD TV
Onkyo TX-803 (only wish it did HDMI 1.3, it only does 1.1)
Speakers:
Front AAD C-880 or 660 cant remember
Centre AAD C-305
Surround C-150
Surr Back C-44
Sub AAD C-10

I saw this and I built this. Thanks Nathan. Then I thought. Would this little unit be a little bit leaner and healthier if it were running the stripped down Xubuntu instead of the full flavour release? I also started fiddling with the DVB-T part of this (the next article) already using tvheadend and a Digital Now tinytwin usb receiver. Still testing...........

I'm not really up to date on HDMI, but could using/not using a 1.3 cable have anything to do with the above problem?

I saw this and I built this. Thanks Nathan. Then I thought. Would this little unit be a little bit leaner and healthier if it were running the stripped down Xubuntu instead of the full flavour release? I also started fiddling with the DVB-T part of this (the next article) already using tvheadend and a Digital Now tinytwin usb receiver. Still testing...........

I would have thought/guessed that there wouldn't be a lot of difference running ubuntu or xubuntu given the specs of the machine, but interested to hear if you find any material differences for sure

any word on how this setup works with the new build of XBMC (camelot)?

I saw this and I built this. Thanks Nathan. Then I thought. Would this little unit be a little bit leaner and healthier if it were running the stripped down Xubuntu instead of the full flavour release?

Certainly. However since the main target group for this article was Windows users, I didnt want to scare people off getting into discussions about window managers.

My 2c, I have found it unnecessary - 1GB is fine for XBMC and Gnome to run happily together.

I also started fiddling with the DVB-T part of this (the next article) already using tvheadend and a Digital Now tinytwin usb receiver. Still testing...........

Funny coincidence. I am writing the article about TVHeadend and had bought a TinyTwin to test out. I found that my TinyTwin doesnt work at all (see the notes I left on http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/DigitalNow_Tiny_Twin_Dual_Tuner )

After that I've gone for 2x AverTV Volar X , which is working well. I hope to get my article written up in the next week.

any word on how this setup works with the new build of XBMC (camelot)?

When I was writing the article, XBMC 9.11 (camelot) was in beta. A PPA was available at https://launchpad.net/~team-xbmc-svn/+archive/ppa containing the beta, which is what the article originally specified.

Since then, 9.11 final was released and is available at https://launchpad.net/~team-xbmc/+archive/ppa

I updated the article sometime over the holidays to include the correct PPA URL - other than the URL change, all the steps in the article are still correct.

"Funny coincidence. I am writing the article about TVHeadend and had bought a TinyTwin to test out. I found that my TinyTwin doesnt work at all (see the notes I left on http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/DigitalNow_Tiny_Twin_Dual_Tuner ) "

Took me days to figure out. It does work though. There is compiling involved. It may have worked out of the box on Karmic betas - but certainly not in the release version. The process to get it going is probably way too heavy for many people. If there's an interest though - I can write something up....

I dont consider 'hack some C source files and compile module' as working :)

While we're digging this thread up, any suggestions on what sort of receiver I can get to use with one of the XBox 360 media remotes? I had a MCE receiver lined up to use with it, but my mate couldn't find it..

Since this thread is back, XBMC has been updated with some nice new features and a f***ing awesome new skin Rapier which has finally replaced my beloved Aeon!

woah! something beats aeon ????

sorry to revive, how do i go about mounting windows shares to stream over network?
and can ubuntu see or access windows administrative shares?

attempting to get my head around the linux part with vmware before buying the hardware.

sorry to revive, how do i go about mounting windows shares to stream over network?

pretty sure you can just explore the network like you do normally in Windows, but failing that you can always drop to a command prompt and mount it explicitly using the command line tools. it's pretty easy.

and can ubuntu see or access windows administrative shares?

I am not 100% sure but I thiiinkkkkk so

ta, any other hints?

linux makes my brain hurt...

edit: omg it worked!@^%&!^@%&

last edited by DecayingCorpse at 22:11:26 09/Feb/10

xbmc supports various network share protocols without even needing to touch linux, right in it's own interface
my entire library runs right off a samba share from my thecus

linux makes my brain hurt...

freenas.org - Zed it up dude

my entire library runs right off a samba share from my thecus

well there you go.. get an old why the f*** did I originally say 486? pc and load her up.

the OS installs in less than 30 seconds, and makes the Thecus look like a machine for slack c***s

good luck restoring that Thecus array when that POS fails guys.. I'm glad I'm not paid to do it anymore. f*** me - why do people buy this s***?


last edited by koopz at 00:46:07 10/Feb/10

why would I want an old pc? it's big, noisy, power hungry, has comparably poorer i/o and consumes my time building/maintaining it

and why will I need luck restoring the array? it's a simple linux software raid with lvm over the top

I'm kind of glad you're not paid to do it anymore too

hahaha jim.