First off I need a disclaimer. This will be a bit of a rant which will hopefully let me vent some frustration and maybe if I'm lucky discover some useful information.
--- Start of RANT ---
If you care about how your home theater setup looks and how hard it is to maintain then having a PC as a central part of it is an AWFUL thing.
Don't get me wrong, VDR itself is great but there's just no way to make a PC as practical as something like an XBox as the actual physical front-end. and believe me.. I've tried. I've tried so god damn hard that I'm close to losing my mind. I've sunk thousands of hard earned dollars (that I couldn't really afford but determination does awful things to your finances) into trying to make a PC integrate well into a home theater setup.
Today I nearly threw the fucking PC through the wall in frustration. I recently purchased an XBox solely for use to playback xvid's and DVD's (integrating as many functions into one capable unit as possible GREATLY simplifies things for some users such as my parents) and with a remote control it cost me less than any single component I purchased for the PC (of which there were many).
In my humble opinion maintaining a server which isn't trying to pretend to be a PVR that fits in well with home theater gear would be much, MUCH simpler and cheaper. And an XBox connected to a network with such a server on it would make for an extremely cheap and powerful front-end that doesn't require any thought to be put into hardware, just software.
Using the XBox for watching DVD's and xvids has well as listening to music has been a revelation. It starts up quickly, it turns off with the press of a button. If anything locks up you can turn it off, then on and reload the interface faster than a PC would take just to turn off. If digital TV (including recording) could be made this easy and combined with the other features great features of XBMC then it would be unstoppable and only lacking in the HDTV department (next XBox for that I guess).
This is an unplanned post and hasn't been fully thought out. It's just something I needed to get off my chest. Any pointers to things which aren't too complicated which could help me get what I'm after would also be appreciated.
Also please not that there is no suggestion as to how to make a PC more user friendly in a home theater setup would be useful. The Xbox already does everything right in that respect at a fraction of the cost.
--- End RANT ---
To sum things up I'm not asking for VDR to change into something else (unless that's necessary for this sort of thing to even be possible but I doubt that). All I really want to know is if any work on an XBMC frontend to VDR ("My TV" anyone?) is being done by anyone anywhere. Is it possible? Why or why not?
P.S. I suspect the primary problem is Microsoft and the proprietary nature of the XDK. This prevents the sort of people who would normally work on such things from even contemplating them. Is this a reasonable guess? Might this change once an open-source development environment is made available (work on such a thing is being done).
On Wednesday 23 March 2005 12:21, Michal Dobrzynski wrote:
Using the XBox for watching DVD's and xvids has well as listening to music has been a revelation. It starts up quickly, it turns off with the press of a button. If anything locks up you can turn it off, then on and reload the interface faster than a PC would take just to turn off.
AFAIK LinVDR starts in 25 seconds, shuts down in 10. Still not that fast, but I could live with that.
If digital TV (including recording) could be made this easy and combined with the other features great features of XBMC then it would be unstoppable and only lacking in the HDTV department (next XBox for that I guess).
The so called killer application. It has only one problem: its proprietary. There will always be people who will work on an open solution.
To sum things up I'm not asking for VDR to change into something else (unless that's necessary for this sort of thing to even be possible but I doubt that). All I really want to know is if any work on an XBMC frontend to VDR ("My TV" anyone?) is being done by anyone anywhere. Is it possible? Why or why not?
To sum it up: you got yourself a proprietary solution and now you are frustrated that VDR does not support it?
I do not know if any VDR to XBMC exists. You probably already asked Google for it I assume. Somewhere rings a bell, but probably because this XBMC question was asked before.
Besides that I wonder if the XBox is really that much cheaper than an epia board with small harddisk plus dvd rom.
Kind regards, Stefan
Le mercredi 23 mars 2005 à 21:21 +1000, Michal Dobrzynski a écrit :
To sum things up I'm not asking for VDR to change into something else (unless that's necessary for this sort of thing to even be possible but I doubt that). All I really want to know is if any work on an XBMC frontend to VDR ("My TV" anyone?) is being done by anyone anywhere. Is it possible? Why or why not?
Yes buy a Tivo. Xbox + Tivo cover your needs.
You have gone about making your HTPC in the wrong way. I understand your rant. I would have liked you to say "I screwed up" to make it more digestible. My HTPC rocks. Thanks to all behind VDR for that.
Cheers
Tony
Michal Dobrzynski a écrit :
First off I need a disclaimer. This will be a bit of a rant which will hopefully let me vent some frustration and maybe if I'm lucky discover some useful information.
--- Start of RANT ---
If you care about how your home theater setup looks and how hard it is to maintain then having a PC as a central part of it is an AWFUL thing.
Don't get me wrong, VDR itself is great but there's just no way to make a PC as practical as something like an XBox as the actual physical front-end. and believe me.. I've tried. I've tried so god damn hard that I'm close to losing my mind. I've sunk thousands of hard earned dollars (that I couldn't really afford but determination does awful things to your finances) into trying to make a PC integrate well into a home theater setup.
Today I nearly threw the fucking PC through the wall in frustration. I recently purchased an XBox solely for use to playback xvid's and DVD's (integrating as many functions into one capable unit as possible GREATLY simplifies things for some users such as my parents) and with a remote control it cost me less than any single component I purchased for the PC (of which there were many).
In my humble opinion maintaining a server which isn't trying to pretend to be a PVR that fits in well with home theater gear would be much, MUCH simpler and cheaper. And an XBox connected to a network with such a server on it would make for an extremely cheap and powerful front-end that doesn't require any thought to be put into hardware, just software.
Using the XBox for watching DVD's and xvids has well as listening to music has been a revelation. It starts up quickly, it turns off with the press of a button. If anything locks up you can turn it off, then on and reload the interface faster than a PC would take just to turn off. If digital TV (including recording) could be made this easy and combined with the other features great features of XBMC then it would be unstoppable and only lacking in the HDTV department (next XBox for that I guess).
This is an unplanned post and hasn't been fully thought out. It's just something I needed to get off my chest. Any pointers to things which aren't too complicated which could help me get what I'm after would also be appreciated.
Also please not that there is no suggestion as to how to make a PC more user friendly in a home theater setup would be useful. The Xbox already does everything right in that respect at a fraction of the cost.
--- End RANT ---
To sum things up I'm not asking for VDR to change into something else (unless that's necessary for this sort of thing to even be possible but I doubt that). All I really want to know is if any work on an XBMC frontend to VDR ("My TV" anyone?) is being done by anyone anywhere. Is it possible? Why or why not?
P.S. I suspect the primary problem is Microsoft and the proprietary nature of the XDK. This prevents the sort of people who would normally work on such things from even contemplating them. Is this a reasonable guess? Might this change once an open-source development environment is made available (work on such a thing is being done).
vdr mailing list vdr@linuxtv.org http://www.linuxtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vdr
Hello!
I've worked on Xbox/VDR thing ;)
And there is Two working way to watch TV from VDR with your Xbox!!
The first is to use an XBMC Python script + a modified mplayer.dll that can handle the vtp protocol from streamdev
The second is a "mini" linux distribution (based on the Xebian distrib) including VDR + streamdev-client + Lirc Support for the xbox remote unit (support already included in the Xebian distrib) that allowed you to have the full VDR function on your Xbox... The only "black point" for now is the recording! As this distrib use a loopback file as the rootfs, not to have to create an ext3 partition on your xbox harddisk and to let you use Linux as an application, there is only 10Mo of free space!
You can find and try this tools here : http://xmltv.free.fr
For the XMBC Python and mplayer dll : http://xmltv.free.fr/vdr-x/
For the Linux + VDR "mini" distrib: http://xmltv.free.fr/Xvdr/
Let me know for any bug (and I'm sure there are still some!)
Sad
Sad sad@ntica.com writes:
[a lot removed]
The first is to use an XBMC Python script + a modified mplayer.dll that can handle the vtp protocol from streamdev
Oh i'm interested by this (modified mplayer able to read vtp streams) Could give me a pointer ^U I found it: => http://xmltv.free.fr/mplayer-vtp/ cheers :)
syrius.ml@no-log.org a écrit :
Sad sad@ntica.com writes:
[a lot removed]
The first is to use an XBMC Python script + a modified mplayer.dll that can handle the vtp protocol from streamdev
Oh i'm interested by this (modified mplayer able to read vtp streams) Could give me a pointer ^U I found it: => http://xmltv.free.fr/mplayer-vtp/ cheers :)
Well in fact this link is for the Win32 Mplayer Vtp enhanced
For the xbox mplayer.dll I've made a big mistake and I apologize for that! In fact, the modified mplayer.dll doesn't handle the vtp by itself... It is just modified to be able to play the stream from an opened fd (file descriptor) The vtp process is handle in the Python Script!
Sorry again
Sad
Sad sad@ntica.com writes:
The first is to use an XBMC Python script + a modified mplayer.dll that can handle the vtp protocol from streamdev
Oh i'm interested by this (modified mplayer able to read vtp streams) Could give me a pointer ^U I found it: => http://xmltv.free.fr/mplayer-vtp/ cheers :)
Well in fact this link is for the Win32 Mplayer Vtp enhanced
For the xbox mplayer.dll I've made a big mistake and I apologize for that! In fact, the modified mplayer.dll doesn't handle the vtp by itself... It is just modified to be able to play the stream from an opened fd (file descriptor) The vtp process is handle in the Python Script!
If i'm able to do the same on a unix system I'll be happy. At the moment i can't get the modified mplayer to compile ( undefined reference to `VtpSetChannel' ) Where can I find about the python script ?
Cheers
Yes buy a Tivo. Xbox + Tivo cover your needs.
You have gone about making your HTPC in the wrong way. I understand your rant. I would have liked you to say "I screwed up" to make it more digestible. My HTPC rocks. Thanks to all behind VDR for that.
Cheers
Tony
Like I said. I have no beef with VDR or the way it works.
Tivo does not do Digital TV AFAIK. (At least not the Australian standard).
What other way could I have gone about making a HTPC? I've looked at available solutions and it seems regardless of the money I would be willing to spend nothing exists which would meet my needs unless I were to finance development of a new product.
One of the biggest problems is that the users of my HTPC don't want VDR as it's too complicated and unreliable. 99.9% of this is due to the hardware and not VDR itself though so I bear no ill-will to VDR.
I've already spent thousands on the HTPC and the Xbox could have provided the most expensive components for under $200AUS and done a much better job.
Regards, Michal
AFAIK LinVDR starts in 25 seconds, shuts down in 10. Still not that fast, but I could live with that.
I use Debian rather than the LinVDR distribution. I'm not sure what the current version of LinVDR supports but when I last looked at it it didn't support my hardware very well.
The so called killer application. It has only one problem: its proprietary. There will always be people who will work on an open solution.
What makes it proprietary? XBMC is GPL'd and available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/xbmc/
If you are referring to the XBox hardware than that is no more proprietary than any of the DVB cards supported by Linux/VDR.
If on the other hand you are referring to the development environment then you are abolsultely correct. However progress is being made to rectify this with OpenXDK (http://sourceforge.net/projects/openxdk/).
To sum it up: you got yourself a proprietary solution and now you are frustrated that VDR does not support it?
It's not as proprietary as you make it out to be and it's quite the opposite. I'm frustrated that it doesn't support VDR. I don't mention this on the XBMC forums because it is VDR users who stand to benefit the most and not XBMC users (at least that's my belief).
I do not know if any VDR to XBMC exists. You probably already asked Google for it I assume. Somewhere rings a bell, but probably because this XBMC question was asked before.
There's basically nothing but some attempts made in the past. as soon as I have the necessary software I may see if anything can be done about that. it seems to me that It should at least be possible to create a fully functional interface using python scripting and SVDRP. Live and recording replay is another story altogether.
Besides that I wonder if the XBox is really that much cheaper than an epia board with small harddisk plus dvd rom.
Wonder no more. You can get 2 XBox's for the price of an epia board with NO hard disj or DVD-Rom. You can get 2 Xbox's for the price of a single full featured DVB card. In fact you can get an XBox at about the same price as a decent Linux supported Budget DVB-T card. For the money I've spent trying to get a PC to do the job reasonably I could have had about 10 XBox's AND a VDR server with 4 budget DVB-T cards in it.
Regards, Michal
Michal Dobrzynski wrote:
Besides that I wonder if the XBox is really that much cheaper than an epia board with small harddisk plus dvd rom.
Wonder no more. You can get 2 XBox's for the price of an epia board with NO hard disj or DVD-Rom. You can get 2 Xbox's for the price of a single full featured DVB card. In fact you can get an XBox at about the same price as a decent Linux supported Budget DVB-T card. For the money I've spent trying to get a PC to do the job reasonably I could have had about 10 XBox's AND a VDR server with 4 budget DVB-T cards in it.
Given the X-Box is basically a PC with a digitally restricted BIOS and has four USB sockets at the front then the cheapest HTPC (and in an only marginally ugly case) is an X-Box with a budget USB DVB-T adapter. For real hack value it might even be possible to cram the DVB-T main board inside the X-Box!
Using X-Box Linux you can run VDR directly on the X-Box *without* a second PC.
Le jeudi 24 mars 2005 à 08:46 +1000, Michal Dobrzynski a écrit :
Wonder no more. You can get 2 XBox's for the price of an epia board with NO hard disj or DVD-Rom. You can get 2 Xbox's for the price of a single full featured DVB card. In fact you can get an XBox at about the same price as a decent Linux supported Budget DVB-T card. For the money I've spent trying to get a PC to do the job reasonably I could have had about 10 XBox's AND a VDR server with 4 budget DVB-T cards in it.
Cheapest Xbox in France is 149€
Epia MB = 141€
Skystar2 = 53€ (the Epia does the hardware mpeg2 acceleration)
WIN TV Nova CI-S = 142€
DVB-T is just starting in France so cards are expensive. USB 119€ and PCI 99€ - these prices will go down in a month or two after the "must have it first" guys have bought theirs.
So fact not quite right.
Tony
Le jeudi 24 mars 2005 à 08:32 +1000, Michal Dobrzynski a écrit :
One of the biggest problems is that the users of my HTPC don't want VDR as it's too complicated and unreliable. 99.9% of this is due to the hardware and not VDR itself though so I bear no ill-will to VDR.
??? I'm using vdr-xine so running the tv is:
- in the Applications menu choose sound and video:xine - on the xine control bar click on the vdr button = live TV - once xine is running either use onscreen menu or just zap around...
From any PC on the LAN vdradmin lets you see about two weeks TV
schedule, administer recordings, schedule recordings...
I've already spent thousands on the HTPC and the Xbox could have provided the most expensive components for under $200AUS and done a much better job.
I have specs for a new HTPC and all the bits cost around 650€ (with DVD- RW and a 200Gb HD). Secondary HTPC for just watching are around 490€ with DVD reader. Too expensive I know but aluminium HTPC cases are way over priced and this uses a slim DVD which is twice as expensive as ordinary 5.25".
Cheers Tony
On 24/03/2005, at 6:43 PM, Daniel THOMPSON wrote:
Given the X-Box is basically a PC with a digitally restricted BIOS and has four USB sockets at the front then the cheapest HTPC (and in an only marginally ugly case) is an X-Box with a budget USB DVB-T adapter. For real hack value it might even be possible to cram the DVB-T main board inside the X-Box!
Using X-Box Linux you can run VDR directly on the X-Box *without* a second PC.
I'd considered that but it wouldn't be practical. DVB-T USB adapters really need USB 2.0 not 1.1 and I also have 2 DVB-T PCI adapters and plan on getting a 3rd (for the occasions where 2 channels are being recorded and I want to watch/record a 3rd. Rare but it does happen when the networks decide to compete for a timeslot)
Apart from that it would prevent me from running XBMC on the XBox and that would vastly reduce it's usefulness as a multimedia frontend.
Regards, Michal
On 24/03/2005, at 7:51 PM, tony wrote:
Cheapest Xbox in France is 149€
Epia MB = 141€
Skystar2 = 53€ (the Epia does the hardware mpeg2 acceleration)
WIN TV Nova CI-S = 142€
DVB-T is just starting in France so cards are expensive. USB 119€ and PCI 99€ - these prices will go down in a month or two after the "must have it first" guys have bought theirs.
So fact not quite right.
Well what I said is true for Australia. Here you can get an Xbox for $150AUS second hand or $240AUS new. I just got a another second hand one with a few accessories for $180AUS yesterday for a friend.
Currently for VDR to be of any use I need at least 3 PCI slots (2 x Budget DVB-T + 1 x Full Featured DVB-S card for TV output) and I plan on adding a 3rd Budget DVB-T PCI card bringing the total to 4 required PCI slots.
I empathize with the high initial cost of DVB-T cards. I impatiently waited for YEARS for the first DVB-T card to come out and then I purchased it straight away. Within a few months identical cards were available for half the price. In my opinion the best Linux supported cards are the Hauppage Nova and clones. An AverMedia card I bought was so much trouble I ended up giving it away.
Regards, Michal
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Daniel THOMPSON -
Michal Dobrzynski -
Sad -
Stefan Taferner -
syrius.ml＠no-log.org -
tony