Software

Checking out ORB!

eirikso21 Comments

A couple of days ago I had a true WOW-experience after installing a free piece of software on my mediaserver at home. I have been talking about SlimServer and how you can stream your music out of your house using that software.

Guess what, I have found something that is easier and more powerful.

Meet ORB:
– Free
– Stream music, video and photos
– No need for a fixed IP
– No need to open extra ports in your firewall
– Streams to your laptop, PC, PDA and mobile

This is what you do:
Continue reading “Checking out ORB!” →

Checking out ORB!

Setting up SlimServer

eirikso3 Comments

Edit: I have just tried a product called ORB. And, my first impression: truly amazing! Register at Orb, install a free application on your media server and Orb lets you access your music, video, TV-Stations and pictures from wherever you are. No hassle. No opening of extra ports in your FW. No need for a static IP. If you want access to your media through streaming then Orb is something that you should consider. Not as flexible as SlimServer, but extremely easy to set up, and it gives you access to all your media.

Edit2: You can now read more about my ORB experiments here: Checking out ORB!

I am still amazed over the power of SlimServer. It is a very stable and user friendly tool that lets you stream your music to wherever you want. It is multi platform and it is free!

It works very well together with different standalone harware players, but can be used to stream your music to any networked computer as well.

So, here is a short guide to encourage you to try it out.

My attempt on an illustration to describe how it works (click the image to enlarge):

The concept:
Continue reading “Setting up SlimServer” →

Setting up SlimServer

HTPC Frontend roundup

eirikso29 Comments

Update2
Here you find my complete list with links to all the HTPC-frontends I know of.

Update:
Tivo has recently made headlines as people have discovered a horrible functionallity that lets content providers delete shows on your box. My god, what a stupid move!

Kind of like:
You can buy this VHS tape, but you’ll hand over the keys to your apartment so that the content producers can come and take it when they decide that you shouldn’t be able to watch your recording anymore.

Open solutions like MythTV and MediaPortal suddenly became even more interesting. Still, even Microsoft haven’t implemented something like the Tivo “we’ll delete whatever we want”-functionallity. So, you’ll be better of with Windows MCE than with a Tivo.

This roundup boils down to:
For flexibility, total freedom and control: MythTV and MediaPortal
For usability: Microsoft Media Center Edition 2005 (MCE)

Original post:

I have been messing around with home theatre PCs (HTPCs) for a couple of years. This is my software roadmap:

1. Early experiments with an ATI All-in-wonder RADEON and the ATI Media Center
2. ShowShifter
3. MyHTPC + SnapStream PVS
4. Meedio + Beyond TV (+ tested Beyond Media)
5. Microsoft Media Center Edition 2005 (MCE)

Software that I have not testet seriously: SageTV, MythTV, MediaPortal

Conclusion

ShowShifter worked fine and offered a complete suite with PVR, DVD, a photo module, a very good music module and a movie archive. However, they did not provide an EPG and did not support hardware encoding cards. Unfortunately, Home Media Networks (the maker of ShowShifter) are slow on updating ShowShifter, so they lost me as a customer while I was waiting for hardware encoding support and EPG. ShowShifter now includes this, but as far as I can see, they’re still slow on updates…
If you are running ShowShifter, feel free to use my HTPC Backgrounds here. It could make the GUI look better…

Continue reading “HTPC Frontend roundup” →

HTPC Frontend roundup

Playing smooth WMV-HD in Windows Media Center Edition

eirikso8 Comments

I am running Windows Media Center edition 2005 on a box with a GeForce 6600 GT screen card. Regular DVD, TV, Xvid etc. plays smooth in MCE.

For some strange kind of reason WMV-HD did not play smooth when played back directly from a WMV-HD DVD.

I am not talking “not smooth” as in dropping frames and struggeling with CPU load. On my box WMV-HD 720p plays with 40% CPU-load and 1080p plays with 75% load. I am talking “not smooth” as in the way video plays when your mother-in-law would say “So what is the problem, this looks perfect”, but YOU can clearly see that this is not right. It is not smooth.

Could look a bit like the trouble you would have if you use the wrong methods when you convert from NTSC (30 fps) to PAL (25 fps).

It took some time before I managed to fix the problem, but it is now fixed, and this is my theory:

MCE 2005 works 100% in WMR9-mode when rendering video. On my GeForce 6600 GT this works very well. However, windows media player 10 defaults to video overlay. This is no problem, because MCE runs smooth on top, utilizing VMR9-video rendering.

But, when inserting a WMV-HD DVD MCE2005 actually quits and starts a special instance of windows media player 10. If you have left windows media player 10 the way it was installed by default, it now plays using video overlay. And, apparently – on my system overlay will not play completely smooth.

I went into the Windows Media Player 10 settings and changed the following:

Tools->Options->Performance->Advanced->
Uncheck “Use overlays” and check “Use high quality mode”

For my system, this fixed the problem and WMV-HD now plays smooooooth!

Update:
I just installed an update from Microsoft and the CPU load went from 75% to 45% when playing WMV-HD 1080p. You find the update here:
Update to enable DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA) of Windows Media Video content in Windows Media Player 10

And the thread over at AVSForum about this patch here:
WMP10 Patch for WMV Acceleration

Playing smooth WMV-HD in Windows Media Center Edition

Introducing trendmapper

eirikso4 Comments

I have made a hack that makes it possible for me to track the amount of hits for different search phrases over time. The system is open so that people from all over the world can add new phrases. It seems like it is becoming more popular than I imagined when I made it so this is starting to get interesting.

Check out trendmapper here.

Introducing trendmapper

Experimenting with automatic email notifications

eirikso1 Comment

Using a plugin called subscribe 2 I have set up a system that lets my readers subscribe to automatic email notifications.

Not everybody are using RSS yet, so for the people that want another way to get notifications this system seems good.

I have only found one bug, and that is not a bug in the plugin, but a bug in WordPress. If you post by mail or by using software like w.Bloggar people will not get a notification.

You can register for automatic updates from eirikso.com here.

Experimenting with automatic email notifications

WordPress 1.5 so far

eirikso2 Comments

I switched from MovableType 3.14 to WordPress 1.5 a couple of weeks ago. I actually paid for a license of MT, but still I was tempted to try WordPress. Both because DreamHost offer One-Click install of WP and because I never really felt like home in PERL-based MovableType. Its like a friend of mine, Trond Isaksen says “PERL is 20% programming and 80% Magic”. Well, Trond is a wizard, and masters PERL perfectly well. I am not a wizard. I am not even a programmer. I have done my share of basic, assembly, pascal and C, but I am not a programmer.

And what do I feel about the switch? I feel good! I feel that I have much more control of what is happening now by using WordPress. I have even done some modifications and can conclude that PHP is not so much about magic. It is actually possible to understand.

Plugins like BAStats, Exhibit and the rest of the stuff from Owen Winkler alone makes it very difficult to choose another publishing tool.

BAStats gives you nice and accurate trafic data right in your WordPress administration GUI.

©2005

Exhibit gives you an excellent tool to upload and manage pictures in your blog. Also directly from your WordPress administration GUI.

The fact that WordPress actually is free makes the world a better place to live. So, if we could get world peace and no hunger then we are all set. 😉

A friend of mine, Øystein has set up a good starting point for people that want to try out WordPress: Customize wordpress.

WordPress 1.5 so far