

Build a Linux Media Center PC - jackfoxy
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2367455,00.asp

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Cabal
I've been using Linux for 15 years and *NIX for longer, and I really wanted
MythTV to work, but the Wife Acceptance Factor was too low. Windows Media
Center won out, due to:

1.) CableCARD support. Expanded analog has left in my area, and ClearQAM
doesn't cover enough channels for our use. HD-PVR is a very unfortunate kludge
that I wasn't interested in undertaking.

2.) Netflix streaming support. We had it on the PS3 already, but wanted it
everywhere. Most of our TV watching is done in the office.

3.) Ease of use, east of setup (even with Mythbuntu and a Logitech Harmony).

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trun
They really glossed over the sound, which is one of the more painful aspects
of a Linux HTPC in my opinion. If you're planning on usual digital audio
instead of stereo sound, be prepared for a rather nasty battle.

~~~
nitrogen
It really depends on the sound chip. My emu10k1-based SBLive 5.1 used to be
really awesome for digital out (with a small hack to reset the chip every time
I switched from DD/DTS back to PCM), but it has gotten worse over the past 8
years. I eventually switched to 5.1 analog output, sacrificing Pro Logic
decoding for stereo sources.

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praeclarum
As someone who used an Ubuntu box for a media player for 6 months, I have to
say that Linux is _almost_ good enough. My major problems included:

(1) Because there was no cooperation between the decoders and video cards,
playing HD 1080p content at 60 FPS would skip a lot. Perhaps a beefier CPU
would help, but the same machine running Windows had no trouble.

(2) Samba, or at least Ubuntu's version of it, is very flaky. Some days it
would see my networked drives, other days it wouldn't.

(3) Moonlight does not handle DRM content from Netflix. If my TV or XBOX did
not already handle Netflix, then this would have been a show stopper.

All that said, I did run it that way for 6 months, so I guess it was "good
enough".

~~~
thwarted
_(2) Samba, or at least Ubuntu's version of it, is very flaky. Some days it
would see my networked drives, other days it wouldn't._

The SMB client on your Ubuntu media player would have trouble seeing network
drives?

Make sure everything is in the same broadcast subnet and ethernet segment, and
make sure that you aren't running NetBIOS ("Windows File Sharing") over
anything other than TCP/IP, not NetBeui -- this shouldn't be a problem with
more recent Windows versions, but every so often it pops up.

Also, you might have luck if you _disable_ nmbd in your samba clients and let
a Windows machine be the master browser, especially if your media player linux
machine isn't always on.

But I guess this is all moot if you've moved onto some other solution. Maybe
this will help someone else.

~~~
praeclarum
It's very helpful thanks. Honestly, I am disliking the WIndows experience more
than I disliked the Ubuntu experience, so I will probably give it another go.

To be thoroughly honest, I don't know if it was Samba acting up on me or if it
was the Ubuntu file browser (Nautilus?). Every couple days or so, I would have
to click the refresh repeatedly for about 30s in order to get it to see the
network shares. Was that Samba's fault or GNOMEs? I don't have the knowledge
to say either way.

Thank you for the information.

~~~
thwarted
_I don't know if it was Samba acting up on me or if it was the Ubuntu file
browser (Nautilus?). Every couple days or so, I would have to click the
refresh repeatedly for about 30s in order to get it to see the network shares.
Was that Samba's fault or GNOMEs? I don't have the knowledge to say either
way._

Whenever it's visibility of machines with Windows file sharing, 90% of the
time it is what I've described above -- it's neither Samba nor Gnome's fault.
The best thing you can do for the browsablity of your network (once you've
ensured that NetBuei isn't in use), if you have an always on non-Windows
machine (anything that will run Samba), is run Samba on it with nmbd enabled,
even if you don't share anything from that samba instance itself. By default,
Samba will always win network elections to become the master browser. Since it
always wins, the list of hosts that are sharing is more consistent. Obviously,
if you want to access shares on a machine that isn't always on, it takes a
while (about 30s or so) after that machine boots to show up in the browse list
reliably.

Another thing, if you have a bridged network, with both wireless and wired
segments (which might be the case with a media player PC), run samba/nmbd on
the wired segment. If a wireless machine that is the master browrser loses
connectivity, a network election might need to take place and different
machines might become the master browser, and they don't always have the full
list of machines all the time.

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mooism2
I'm trying to set up MythTV now, and am getting near the point of giving up
and trying to use Freevo instead.

They don't say how much power it draws. Anything that's on 24-7 needs to at
least try to reduce power use.

~~~
nitrogen
MythTV supposedly supports wake on lan, but I've got a file server that runs
24/7 to double as a MythTV box so I haven't tried it. Unfortunately, there's
less and less on OTA HD that I'm interested in recording.

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fudge
We've had a MythTV box running in some form or other the last 6 years, so my
kids have always had access to instant recordings and movies on demand.

It took quite a while for them to realize that not all TVs work like this, it
wasn't just daddy being an ass when they wanted to watch Dora on their
grandparents TV.

~~~
Calamitous
Heh. I've often wondered how my son (now 2 years old) is going to view media
and electronics as he grows up. "What do you _mean_ you can't watch LoTR on
your phone?" or "You have do put in a different disc for _every_ movie?"

Man. I need to get out of this rocking chair and chase those kids off my lawn.

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voidfiles
The only thing that sucks about linux media centers, is that you can't get
Netflix streaming.

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wookiehangover
My solution is to run a linux media server that broadcasts over UPnP to a PS3
using MediaTomb. Streaming is top notch, it even transcodes filetypes that the
PS3 can't handle natively.

Anyway, it's way less complicated than a MythTV setup.

