Hi All,
I now have a standard PC running arch linux and VDR. This works ok, but it uses between 80-150W of power. Much heat and noise, and cost :-). Therefore I was looking for a more power-eficient system.
Is it possible to run archlinux and vdr on a system like this? Mele A1000: http://www.elbay.net/nl/content/mele-a1000-allwinner-a10-cortex-a8
I'm wondering if the following works: -HD playback using close source mali driver -Driver for dib07000 based USB DVB receivers -ACPI wake-up and shutdown (does the RTC code work?) -Does VDR and the following plugins compile and run? vdr-addon-acpiwakeup 0.0.10-1 vdr-plugin-epgsearch-git 20120311-1 vdr-plugin-live-git 0.2.0.git-16 vdr-plugin-sc-hg 574-3 vdr-plugin-xineliboutput-git 20120911-1 oscam
Best regards, Cedric
You probably should ask this also in the linux-sunxi mailling list. While I cannot answer all questions for you, I can tell you that video decoding could be problematic for now. The A10 has a proprietary video decoder for HD stuff. There is support for XBMC from empat0 and someone is working on vlc +libcedarx support, but that's it. VDR can use xine amongst other softpipes and that is not supported yet to my knowledge. VDR backend with XBMC frontend however could work. Your DVB device has kernel support and should be compilable.
On 03-12-12 10:10, cedric.dewijs@telfort.nl wrote:
Hi All,
I now have a standard PC running arch linux and VDR. This works ok, but it uses between 80-150W of power. Much heat and noise, and cost :-). Therefore I was looking for a more power-eficient system.
Is it possible to run archlinux and vdr on a system like this? Mele A1000: http://www.elbay.net/nl/content/mele-a1000-allwinner-a10-cortex-a8
I'm wondering if the following works: -HD playback using close source mali driver -Driver for dib07000 based USB DVB receivers -ACPI wake-up and shutdown (does the RTC code work?) -Does VDR and the following plugins compile and run? vdr-addon-acpiwakeup 0.0.10-1 vdr-plugin-epgsearch-git 20120311-1 vdr-plugin-live-git 0.2.0.git-16 vdr-plugin-sc-hg 574-3 vdr-plugin-xineliboutput-git 20120911-1 oscam
Best regards, Cedric
vdr mailing list vdr@linuxtv.org http://www.linuxtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vdr
Hi,
i'm using the following setup: MeleA2000 as headless vdr-server: - debian/unstable/armhf - vdr-1.7.32 with streamdev, vnsiserver, xvdr, dummydevice - Opera DVB-S1 and TeVii S650 USB
MeleA100 as client: - debian/unstable/armhf - xbmc (a10-version) - pvr-output via vnsi-plugin
Works not that bad, though i have some issues with pixelformat atm.
Allwinners A10 is imho a great SoC, the Mele HTPCs have many ports to use. Development is growing rapidly the last months. The ultimate goal would be implementation in a native vdr output plugin, e.g. softhddevice, or implementation of a10's gpu and vpu in libva/xine ... Unfortunately, i don't have the skills to help coding...
Regards.
Am 03.12.2012 10:10, schrieb cedric.dewijs@telfort.nl:
Hi All,
I now have a standard PC running arch linux and VDR. This works ok, but it uses between 80-150W of power. Much heat and noise, and cost :-). Therefore I was looking for a more power-eficient system.
Is it possible to run archlinux and vdr on a system like this? Mele A1000: http://www.elbay.net/nl/content/mele-a1000-allwinner-a10-cortex-a8
I'm wondering if the following works: -HD playback using close source mali driver -Driver for dib07000 based USB DVB receivers -ACPI wake-up and shutdown (does the RTC code work?) -Does VDR and the following plugins compile and run? vdr-addon-acpiwakeup 0.0.10-1 vdr-plugin-epgsearch-git 20120311-1 vdr-plugin-live-git 0.2.0.git-16 vdr-plugin-sc-hg 574-3 vdr-plugin-xineliboutput-git 20120911-1 oscam
Best regards, Cedric
vdr mailing list vdr@linuxtv.org http://www.linuxtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vdr
On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 1:55 AM, Andreas Baierl list@imkreisrum.de wrote:
Allwinners A10 is imho a great SoC, the Mele HTPCs have many ports to use. Development is growing rapidly the last months. The ultimate goal would be implementation in a native vdr output plugin, e.g. softhddevice, or implementation of a10's gpu and vpu in libva/xine ... Unfortunately, i don't have the skills to help coding...
I'd love to see support for it in softhddevice. It's worth msg'ing the author on vdr-portal and asking about it. He seems pretty willing to add support for devices and in this case it's even possible to send him one because the cost is so low.
I have several dedicated vdr boxes which run 24/7 so I too am interested in low noise/heat/cost. My requirements are it must have hdmi w/1080p, 7.1+ surround sound over hdmi, mpeg4 decoding (preferably mpeg2 also), 100mbit+ ethernet, at least a few usb ports.
On 03.12.2012 10:10, cedric.dewijs@telfort.nl wrote:
Hi All,
I now have a standard PC running arch linux and VDR. This works ok, but it uses between 80-150W of power. Much heat and noise, and cost :-). Therefore I was looking for a more power-eficient system.
You can buy Celeron G540 or similair on 1150 platform cheaply. It is energy efficient and run everything. Other platforms are cool but I'm afraid you can have problems with drivers Marx
Am 04.12.2012 10:34, schrieb Marx:
On 03.12.2012 10:10, cedric.dewijs@telfort.nl wrote:
Hi All,
I now have a standard PC running arch linux and VDR. This works ok, but it uses between 80-150W of power. Much heat and noise, and cost :-). Therefore I was looking for a more power-eficient system.
You can buy Celeron G540 or similair on 1150 platform cheaply. It is energy efficient and run everything.
Imho you cannot compare cost with SoCs. G540 is ~ 40€, +Board+RAM+Case+ .... a A10-HTPC is ~ 50-90€.
Other platforms are cool but I'm afraid you can have problems with drivers
driver-problems <- fullack, unfortunately
Regards
On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 1:34 AM, Marx acc.for.news@gmail.com wrote:
uses between 80-150W of power. Much heat and noise, and cost :-). Therefore I was looking for a more power-eficient system.
You can buy Celeron G540 or similair on 1150 platform cheaply. It is energy efficient and run everything.
Sorry, but that isn't good enough. SoC will easily beat your suggestion in energy efficiency, low cost, footprint, etc.
Other platforms are cool but I'm afraid you can have problems with drivers
You can have problems with drivers in general, but everything can work fine too. The possibility of a driver problem, that may be fixed, is no excuse to run away from alternatives. For example, the Raspberry Pi is crippled in many ways and has all kinds of bugs that need to be worked out.. yet people are still successfully using it as a fairly stable XBMC/media player.
I don't want to force my vision. I carefully read all news about such devices and I still feel they aren't ready to use it daily. Let's take your arguments calm: - energy efficiency - true, but computer with Celeron i'm talking about takes <50W. SoC takes probably 10W or less but difference is unimportant in term of cost even in long run - low cost - I can buy mainboard, CPU and RAM under 100€. SoC needs PSU and case too so costs are similair - footprint - if I understand correctly you means size. I agree SoC will be smaller, but ITX is also small - you need just a correct case.
Taking Raspberry Pi as an example isn't quite good - under XBMC it's laggy, his weak CPU doesn't allow to decode less known file formats in software. You can't connect SATA, LAN is 100Mb only and so on. It runs XBMC but for me it's rather proof of concept, not for daily usage.
So while it's possible to play x264 format via hardware decoding even on very cheap devices (<50$ tablets, Rasberry etc), I don't think they are capable to be full featured HTPCs. As your needs and your HTPC grows, you will be crippled by your hardware.
Hovewer if you want to make only media player you can do this on ARM, or better you can buy ready-made cheaply (having SMART on TV you even doesn't need to buy one - you just have it builtin).
But I see HTPC as something more. My HTPC have five different tuners (DVB-T, DVB-S2, analog). It acts as video recorder using VDR and connects to TV via XBMC. But it also makes many other things like file sharing, file conversion, file downloading from net. It acts as network server, so for example I can use network interfaces of VDR or XBMC remotely from my phone.
Marx
- energy efficiency - true, but computer with Celeron i'm talking about
takes <50W. SoC takes probably 10W or less but difference is unimportant in term of cost even in long run
Maybe saving 80% power doesn't matter to you but it does matter to a lot of people. I'll happily take 10W over 50W. You should realize that that 40W difference does add up when it's running 24/7. For example, I have at least 4 boxes on 24/7. 40W * 4 is 160W of waste running 24/7.
- low cost - I can buy mainboard, CPU and RAM under 100€. SoC needs PSU and
case too so costs are similair
In my experience, cost is about half when using SoC. For people who don't have much money or use several boxes, saving (or expense) adds up fast.
- footprint - if I understand correctly you means size. I agree SoC will be
smaller, but ITX is also small - you need just a correct case.
Yes, mini-itx can be small. Some of my boxes are about the size of a Nintendo Wii. As long as it's at least that small, I don't care. But, it's still no comparison to my Raspberry Pi.
Taking Raspberry Pi as an example isn't quite good - under XBMC it's laggy, his weak CPU doesn't allow to decode less known file formats in software. You can't connect SATA, LAN is 100Mb only and so on. It runs XBMC but for me it's rather proof of concept, not for daily usage.
The osd is a little slow but that's it. All the media playback I did was no problem. I couldn't care less if Raspberry Pi can/can't handle obscure file formats. As long as it plays what I need, that's all that matters. No SATA, no biggie. Half my boxes are installed on SDHC cards so I'm no stranger to that. All my media is stored on my lan fileserver. 100Mbit LAN, no biggie. That's plenty for streaming 1080p. Maybe Raspberry Pi + XBMC isn't your first choice but there are tons of people who _are_ using it as their daily media box and are happy doing so.
So while it's possible to play x264 format via hardware decoding even on very cheap devices (<50$ tablets, Rasberry etc), I don't think they are capable to be full featured HTPCs. As your needs and your HTPC grows, you will be crippled by your hardware.
What do you mean by "full featured" exactly? The ability to decode streams that are in some obscure or mostly unused format? Even the cheap and non-impressive (by hardware specs) Raspberry Pi is capable of doing live tv, pvr/dvr, movies, music, pictures, remote control, file share, etc. I don't know what more you expect an htpc to do..?
Hovewer if you want to make only media player you can do this on ARM, or better you can buy ready-made cheaply (having SMART on TV you even doesn't need to buy one - you just have it builtin).
Some people like that option. I don't personally but I also like to install everything myself and have full control over the box. Some guys like plug-and-play, other guys like to wrestle linux. :)
But I see HTPC as something more. My HTPC have five different tuners (DVB-T, DVB-S2, analog). It acts as video recorder using VDR and connects to TV via XBMC. But it also makes many other things like file sharing, file conversion, file downloading from net. It acts as network server, so for example I can use network interfaces of VDR or XBMC remotely from my phone.
The Raspberry Pi does have a hardware encoder but I don't know if any software is using it (yet), or anything else. I don't care/bother with transcoding anything so if my htpc's can do that or not is completely irrelevant. But, we all have different needs/wants. In your case, maybe SoC's aren't a good choice but for many of us maybe they are. The only "best" option there is, is the one that suits your needs at a price you like. In my opinion there is absolutely zero downside having VDR work with SoC's. The more systems that can run VDR, the better (as far as I'm concerned).
-
Andreas Baierl -
cedric.dewijs＠telfort.nl -
Marx -
Oliver Schinagl -
VDR User