The bug also affects the iPod touch
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Best case XBMC setup?
I thought I might do a post on my current media playback setup, but more than anything, highlight how far a modded XBOX1 can and can't go using one and XBOX Media Center (XBMC). Via modding the XBOX has turned into the ugly little console that can. I've had more fun on it in the years since it was discontinued than I ever did when I got it.
Despite what you may have thought, the XBOX can output HD. With the right bits you can have your setup looking beautiful in HD and outputting true 5.1 sound. You can have you favourite movies/shows processed and upscaled to HD.
It can decode up to 960x540 videos, and upscale them. XBMC can also render the whole interface in HD and numerous skins have become HD specific - No more SD for you. Some of the awesome skins that are popping up check out AEON (below) or MediaStream.
And this is where I should mention the downsides - no true HD content. It has got enough CPU/GPU power unfortunately the 64mb of RAM the XBOX sports just isn't enough to store all the decompressed frames to keep fluid playback. Solutions are numerous but all pretty much involve throwing away the XBOX1 and running XBMC on a more powerful machine.
History
So how did this happen, you ask? In a slightly advanced move, Microsoft added the then new buzzword 'HD' support. Some games actually were released that support them. They enabled the ability to output resolutions of 576i, 576p, 720p & 1080i - keep in mind they only added this to the XBOX360 last year!
For a full list of games supporting HD resolutions theres a good list here. Only a few games truely supported 1080I though but a solid handful featured 720 support - for me the best being Amped 2 which supported up to 720P with 5.1. The only downside is that once they had announced the XBOX360, there was no real need to develop the XBOX's support for HD in other Territories.
NTSC only folks. Pooo to you PAL regions.
Or not if you have a modded XBOX and can run a simple app (Enigmah-x v2) to switch your XBOX from PAL to NTSC, and thus enabling the HD resolutions in the original green dashboard. Once you've enabled them, you can also enable it in XBMC.
My Setup
I'm running a soft modded XBOX V1.1, with 80gb drive installed and a no name 3rd party component/optical breakout box ($NZ35 Delivered from USA). There are other no-names, but not all boxes are created equal. I've brought a couple of others from elsewhere and found them to have fuzzy images and slight colour sync issues.The XBOX is running into my 37" Samsung Series 5 1080P 60hz LCD and a Pioneer VSX-915 Receiver. Media wise I have a D-Link DNS-323 NAS with 1tb storage, it's running via a 10/100 connection under the house to the lounge. I'm running XBOX and XBMC in 720P.
I've noticed some slowdown at 1080i in transitions.
My XBOX is softmodded with Auto Installer V4 for 007:AUF. I use a Mega-X Key 32mb USB key to copy hacked saves around. You can make your own controller port -> USB adaptor quite easily. With this system I can have a modded XBOX running XBMC in HD in about 20 minutes.
Problems
Obviously the biggest ones (for me at least) is the inabilty to play and HD content. But as I cover below, there are ports of XBMC popping up all over the show. Rule of thumb for downloads is look for the HR in releases eg - ***.HR.HDTV.AC3.5.1.XvID.avi. The HR stands for High Resolution (wiki) and is encoded at the max dimensions of 960x540 - which is the limit to the XBOX to decode easily.
I also don't really recommend upgrading the harddrive in your XBOX as it involves a PC with 2 IDE ports and a bunch of faffing around, and the chance you mess
up and the XBOX becomes a parts machine. If you must, maybe try this tutorial. It's a annoying as the default drive is usually only 8gb, although some shipped with 20gb drives inside. You can access the extra space but it requires formating the F drive in EVOX via RAW ftp commands (or a script).
Finally, the FAT-X Partition system only supports 8.3 DOS file names which is one of the reasons I don't really think the internal drive is really the way to store media. It's great for ROMs and other Apps but not large collections of media.
Also the depending on which XBOX revision you get, the DVD drive can change brands/models - some were really picky as far as playback of burnt media goes.
Next Step
PLEX - This my dream. Either a AppleTV or MacMini running OS-X and with Plex, the OS-X Port of XBMC. Unfortunately neither the ATV or Mini have the power to deal with HD - the ATV doesn't have the CPU/RAM for OS-X and the Mini is still stuck back in the world of Intels GMA-950 graphics chipset. Of course if Apple release an updated Mini on the X1300 chipset or better - we'd have the best XBMC machine around - and with support for the iTunes movie store.
Of course theres other options - specifically MythTV or Vista MC. I just don't need a PC in my lounge. I need a basic (yet complete) end playback unit.
Theres also the Playstation3 which I must say looks quite promising, add the forthcoming PlayTV Freeview tuner and that it can serve via uPnP to my NAS. Also support for HD file playback, albiet picky on formats. No MKV files, no FLV. I like the openness of XBMC. Oh and the Bluetooth remote - not good for anyone who tries to stick to a Universal remote.
And of course the XBOX360, which I already own, but as anyone who has one knows, it's horribly noisy. It also doesn't support the uPnP DLNA standard. Instead it has some 'not quite standard' implementation of uPnP. Good job Microsoft - its IE all over again. I also have no faith that Microsoft will ever improve beyond the basic support its added for formats now.
phew.... I'm tired. Time to go watch some media and not type about it.
PC Fun - that's Politically Correct...
Lets see, time for a bit of a challenge - with a minutiae of assistance from bored dot com's list of politically correct terms.
A fable of gargantuan proportions. Not. (Or should that read 'Un'?)
Back in the Chronologically gifted days, lived a displaced home owner. Now this non-discretionally scented individual could hold his/her/it's posessions (sorry, I couldn't find one for this) in a processed tree carcass. The local youth group from the barrio-ethnically homogenous area more than several times attempted to reverse-love (that's mine, folks, but you can borrow it) the above-mentioned non-specifically destinated individual.
The local law enforcement officer/s, being uniquely proficient in their own area of expertise (which means nothing, basically) held that this non-random earth child was actually a member of the mental explorers club. In other words he/she/it was one of the selectively perceptive. Or just non-adorned motivationally dispossed. A uniquley fortuned individual on an alternative career path. Kinesthetically challenged, the size ten clod-hoppers would treat the unaffiliated applicant for private sector funding to a time of leisure-seeking within the fenced-in boundaries of the non-global correctional institution.
There was less than something but I mean Far Less that the client didn't hate than a good prescription's worth of constructive feminist (non-masculine) psychtherapy, where he would have a conjoined meeting nasally with persons of the difficult-to-meet needs variety, cost of living adjustment speciallists and other least-best men of differing unclean-lucre gathering skills. PIndividuals of the non-doubtful trickster persuasion.
After more than one of these hourly or more appointments our in-vain-man-with-his-underwear-on-the-outside-of-his-tights was led to a non-planned re-examination of previously digested food choices. This being the learning outcome of the economically marginalised human, the powers that exist in an ongoing time continuum were manipulated in a hand-tied-behind-the-back manner perspicuous to the event in hand (but not-tied before the retro spinal-osteo-varietal [variety]) to open the door of opportunity and rotate an un-seeing optic to the outwoard travelling of the victim of society.
Have I lost you completely yet? I will finish on a positive sounding musical-verbosity...
He/she/it veered off the chosen path to find himself the nearest rapid-nutrition outlet and bought himself a non metric measurement of seared mutilated animal flesh. Transitionlising his non-counter ego into a petroleum transfer technician, with over the top designs of one sunshine-filled twelve hours of becoming a garbologist in the university of non-deadness, our inept exterior-undie wearer existed in a basically existential existance neither sadly nor tearfully in what is known as an any-number-divided-by zero time zone.
Now wasn't that uniquely proficient of the person who environmentally non-correctly behind this dermis?
Spring is sprung!
Well, it's been a while Dear Reader.
No reason I can think of - just other stuff to do. Spring is creeping up on us. Our orchard is full of blossom and new leaves on the apples, pears, peaches and almonds. Always a joyous sight.
Sadly, the weather is still wet and windy - although we had three dry days last week! Yay! Managed to get out on the tractor and mow a bit without making too much mess.
Apple finally fixed Mobile Me - I bet they won't try that again in a hurry. Now they have given away 3 months of free service to subscribers as an apple-ology. Hurrah!
I am off up to Hamiltron and Raglan tomorrow to photograph the WRC New Zealand stages. Sadly no press access - the FIA control that and you almost have to be related to Max "BDSM" Mosley to get a press pass! Weather looks reasonable, so light should be good - if the images are worth it I will post them on my website.
TTFN
Microsoft's SQL Server 08 goes geospatial
New built-in functionalities open up spatial opportunities for companies, says e-spatial CIO
Red network here we come!
Got a letter today from Vodafone:
I'm in Howick, so I'm thinking that us Howick exchange Vodafone customers are being migrated from the 29th of September (quite a long way for me - gosh, sending out a letter a month in advance)
Particularly happy about the $20 credit for doing nothing (other than suffer through a few hours - hopefully in the early hours in the morning).
The letter also hints:
You can even look forward to making voice calls over the internet soon too.... that could mean that VoIP or Naked DSL could be introduced probably by the end of year - I hope.
All I need to do now is wait for that inevitable confirmation email...
Update on MythTV Freeview HD testing
Over this weekend I have had a chance to properly try out MythTV with Freeview so here is an update on where I am at for now.
Firstly I did a major hardware swap, moving my Antec PSU, 3800 and Nvidia 8600GT to my main box in return for a cheap X-Power PSU and 5200 X2. The X2 provides more grunt for software decoding H.264, enough to work in Windows but not myth as will be seen.
So with Mythubuntu 8.04.1 + latest upgrades, including from Paul Kendall's repository, I monitered the CPU usage over SSH whilst testing out the channels. I got around 40%-70% CPU overall, obviously the SD channels where lighter on the CPU than HD with TV3 causing the max load.
However despite not maxing out the CPU TV3 was unwatchable, freezing for half a second every 1-2 secs. This is a problem a few others with similar CPU's on the mythnz mailing list have and the solution is changing the 'skiploopfilter' settings, I think forcing myth to drop frames rather than lag. However what is required to make this change is beyond my current Linux/GNU abilities so I am putting this project aside for the moment. What also contributed to that decision is reports from others about frequent frontend crashes, something I don't want on a HTPC that gets regular use.
So now I am re-installing Mediaportal (the change in graphics cards did something weird to the Windows install) and will work on getting Mythbuntu installed onto my old IDE drive so I can have my USB drive back.
When I am prepared to figure out rebuilding patches etc, or Paul sets up a GUI to make these changes (as he indicated he may) I will revisit this. Until, MP it is. It may not be perfectly stable, or make every recording I schedule (NCIS 2 weeks ago came back with just the xml file, no .ts at all!), but the codecs work better for obvious reasons.
I am glad just to have something that works, support is very limited for these MPEG 4 codecs and will be for a while yet.
Infrastructure is ripe for voice-recognition, claims VeCommerce
A voice-print can identify an incoming caller more securely than a fingerprint, says voice specialist vendor
Wireless Power shown at Intel Developer Forum 2008
I am sitting through Day 3 keynotes and now it's the Research and Development keynote session with Justin Rattner. Lots of pictures to load later, but I wanted to post this one because I think it's the big thing out here: wireless power transmission.
Unlike those "wireless power" gimmicks shown at CES, which require special connectors and devices actually touch the power source, this one transmits power over the air - we are talking about 60 watts power over two feet, at 75% power efficiency.
Based on principles proposed by MIT physicists, Intel researchers have been working on a Wireless Resonant Energy Link (WREL).
WREL promises to deliver wireless power safely and efficiently. The technology relies on strongly coupled resonators. Intel says that with this technology enabled in a laptop, for example, batteries could be recharged when the laptop gets within several feet of the transmit resonator. Many engineering challenges remain, but the company's researchers hope to find a way to cut the last cord in mobile devices and someday enable wireless power in Intel-based platforms.
Here are some pictures:
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