Blog address changed!

This blog has been moved to my main site. There will be no more posts here. All past and future posts can be found here:

http://www.cubicreality.com/blog/

Linux HTPC in use

So I've been using Linux in my HTPC for 2 months now. All I can say is, I love it. Some features aren't as pleasant to use as they were in GB-PVR, but overall the experience is nice. New functionality that I really like is having a separate workspace that I can access through VNC.

I ended up using Ubuntu server edition as the base. The main front-end is MMS (My Media System). TV side get's handled with VDR and Xineliboutput-plugin. All and all the system is very stable and solid. There were some issues with the video quality, mainly due to deinterlacing. That issue got solved after 2 weeks of trial and error. Now the video is perfectly smooth and fluid.

Switching to Firefox 3

So, I switched to Firefox 3 RC 1. From the tests I've done it seems stable enough. In fact, it's more stable than Firefox 2 which keeps crashing quite often. There were few add-ons that didn't work right out of the box. Some did have a working development version available, others needed manual tweaking.

1. Open Firefox add-on (.xpi file) in 7-zip (or similar).
2. Select install.rdf file.
3. Press F4 or click File-->Edit
4. Change the value in em:maxVersion to 3.0.
5. Save and Close.
6. Click OK to update the XPI file. Close 7-zip.
7. Double click to install the add-on.
8. Hope that everything works fine.

Obviously this doesn't work for all add-ons since only the maximum Firefox version number is changed. But if there isn't a working version available, it's worth a try.

Hacking Wiimote

Here's a nice presentation from Johnny Lee. You might have seen his previous video about head tracking in YouTube. I really like this type of 3D technique and look forward in trying it myself. I don't have Wii remote but I do have a cheap hacked IR webcam which can be used instead. I think this might be the only 3D technique that could hit big in the games market.

"SVN is the most pointless project ever started"

I just watched this interesting video. Linus Torvalds talks about Git. I've heard about Git before but never used it nor read about it in detail. Git is a version control system like CVS and SVN. Although I guess I shouldn't mention those two in same sentence as Git since Linus hates CVS with a passion. Currently I'm using SVN to handle versions and I've been happy with it so far. But Git did sound interesting so I'll have to try it out.

Git - Fast Version Control System
http://git.or.cz/

Switching to Linux based HTPC

What would I do without my HTPC. I have had a computer hooked to my TV for the past 10 years. At first, I mainly used it as a DVD player. Now it's the only source of video. Last year the analog TV signal stopped here in Finland. Ever since then, the HTPC has been the only way I can watch TV since I don't have a set-top box nor a TV that can receive digital signal. Because I'm really addicted to TV, starting a project like this wasn't something I was looking forward as it meant I couldn't get my daily dosage.

Anyway, last weekend I made the decision to try Linux as a base for HTPC. I'm not that experienced with Linux so there was lot to learn. At the moment I'm using Ubuntu but might switch to Debian later. First thing I did was to install SSH server and Synergy. That way I could use my work system to work with Linux.

I have Hauppauge HRV-1100  DVB-T card and it worked right out of the box in Ubuntu (7.10). My motherboard has Nvidia's SoundStorm in it which I got to work by following these instructions. I tried MythTV at first but quickly moved to VDR. I think it's really the only choice if you are looking for a serious DVR solution. It handles transponders properly which means one can watch and record many channels (from a transponder) at the same time with one card. Setting VDR up can be little tricky but once you get to know with it, it's pretty simple. At first I was using packages from e-tobi by following these directions. But since I had some troubles with few plugins, I now compile everything myself.

All was looking good and things were moving along nicely... until!

After days of tweaking I was getting nice and solid picture. However, there was some still unknown issue that made VDR (vdr-sxfe to be precise) respond slowly when used in TV. In monitor it worked fine. I tried pretty much all different combination of settings to make it work. No luck. I also tried different graphics cards which ended in disaster. Being stupid and careless I didn't shutdown the power supply when I removed one card. I've never had any problems when doing so but this time I had to turn the card in an angle which short circuited few pins and that fried the motherboard.

So, now I'm waiting for a replacement motherboard. In the meanwhile I'm using an old board with Duron 800MHz processor. On a brighter note, this gave me the opportunity to clean the case. It was filled with dust and cat hair.

CatchColor

Here's a nice little app that let's you pick color from the screen. It's very useful when creating web pages. The author also has other nice little apps.

CatchColor
http://www.dr-hoiby.com/CatchColor/index.php