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Started by DigiCorn, February 22, 2012, 09:15:39 AM

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Joe

Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

Nick Burns

Quote from: Joe on February 27, 2012, 05:05:40 PM
Quote from: Nick Burns on February 27, 2012, 04:55:26 PM
Quote from: DigiCorn on February 27, 2012, 02:09:02 PMHere's a cool site with stealth media PCs: http://xbmc.org/natethomas/2011/11/26/feature-friday-hidden-htpcs/

Did y'all see the device that's the prize in DigiCorn's link, very cool... http://www.pulse-eight.com/store/products/104-usb-hdmi-cec-adapter.aspx

OK. What can I do with that?

Ultimate control
Control your TV, Amplifier and/or Blu-ray Player from XBMC!

Consolidate
Or control XBMC from your TV remote, condense all your remote controls into 1 device!

What does it give me that I don't already have?

The USB - CEC Adapter allows XBMC to turn your TV and other attached equipment on and off (if they support HDMI CEC) adjust the volume or eject the disk from a drive. Start playback etc.

Likewise these same devices can tell XBMC what to do, for example, your TV remote can also control XBMC, or vice versa. With this device you can move that step closer to a clutter free living space while maintaining simple remote control for friends and family who may not be familiar with all of the features of a professional remote control.
Oh by the way, YOU'RE WELCOME!

Joe

I guess I am missing something then. How will this device get XBMC (from a Mac or PC computer) to display on an LCD that does not have any network connectivity which is my current dilemma at the moment. I would like to run XBMC on one server and have it available to all TV's in the house.
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

t-pat

#63
Quote from: Joe on February 27, 2012, 05:59:09 PMI guess I am missing something then. How will this device get XBMC (from a Mac or PC computer) to display on an LCD that does not have any network connectivity which is my current dilemma at the moment. I would like to run XBMC on one server and have it available to all TV's in the house.

http://www.amazon.com/HDMI-Extender-over-Cat5e-Cables/dp/B004GX0DEA

I'm thinking of this, involves running 2 cat5e/cat6 cables to wherever I need to display. I have multiple hdmi outputs on the xbmc pc

along with an IR extender it may do what you need... unless you want to watch 2 different things at the same time, in which case you need another pc or some sort of hack to get your roku to work (playon, plex, whatever)
vdp donkey
gmc inspire • sarcasm while you wait

Joe

#64
That's interesting but might be more work than it is worth.

This is interesting which will make your non-internet enabled TV internet enabled. Plex can be streamed to this device on your network.

LG Smart TV Upgrader

(Doesn't have to be an LG TV)

http://www.plexapp.com/medialink/files/index.html
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

t-pat

Quote from: Joe on February 27, 2012, 06:23:08 PMThat's interesting but might be more work than it is worth.

This is interesting which will make your non-internet enabled TV internet enabled. Plex can be streamed to this device on your network.

LG Smart TV Upgrader

(Doesn't have to be an LG TV)

http://www.plexapp.com/medialink/files/index.html


yes but it costs more than a roku and plex works with roku, so ??  it seems like it's just a roku pretender to me.
vdp donkey
gmc inspire • sarcasm while you wait

Joe

Good point...and the Roku has a lot more apps.
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

t-pat

Quote from: Joe on February 27, 2012, 06:50:12 PMGood point...and the Roku has a lot more apps.

the fact that Roku has opened their box up enough for people to write apps for it is very cool, if they'd make the thing DLNA compliant it would really simplify the whole integration thing, as plex is limited. I am not a big fan of any media server scheme though, from back in the D-Link DSM320 days - very frustrating and way more time spent configuring than actually using to watch/listen to my media.

I think the only way to get things working exactly the way I want them is to have a pc running xbmc at every tv that I want to have everything working.

Now what really sucks is even with that setup you don't get your cake and get to eat it, because as you've mentioned, netflix on xbmc is pretty piss poor. I think this is really a limitation of the netflix api and not so much the plugin itself.

vdp donkey
gmc inspire • sarcasm while you wait

Joe

The thing with Netflix though is the Netflix channel on Plex works great. The developer of the XBMCFlicks says it has to play in a web browser because it has to have Silverlight. But Plex does it in its own player instead of the web browser.

I agree the best option would be to have a PC next to each TV. You could load Plex, XBMC, Boxee, and others and then just run the one you want at any given time. But that many PC's can get a tad expensive.

Take a look at this on newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856173029

From the description I don't think it comes with an HD or memory installed but does have the CPU. So to add a hard drive and ram it would still be under $300.
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

Nick Burns

Quote from: Joe on February 27, 2012, 05:59:09 PMI guess I am missing something then. How will this device get XBMC (from a Mac or PC computer) to display on an LCD that does not have any network connectivity which is my current dilemma at the moment. I would like to run XBMC on one server and have it available to all TV's in the house.

Sorry Joe, not missing anything, I haven't read this whole thread, I was just commenting on the remote control posts. Your quest is mine also, but you're already one step ahead of me, you've got moca running which is my next goal. So you can easily achieve the bandwidth to push blu-ray quality everywhere, we just need economical and efficient receivers for each tv.
Oh by the way, YOU'RE WELCOME!

Joe

t-pat, what kind of remote/receiver are you using on your htpc?
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

Joe

Quote from: t-pat on February 27, 2012, 04:29:13 PM
Quote from: Joe on February 27, 2012, 04:12:33 PM
Quote from: Farabomb on February 27, 2012, 04:06:08 PMPersonally, I'm OCD with my files so I unrar and organize everything so that wouldn't bother me. The fact that they removed it and answer with comments like that is just dickish. If you changed code and it's a bitch to go back, say that. No need to be a dick.

I do that too. Plus it causes additional overhead for the media server to have to unrar them.

I just want to watch tv, I uncompress and organize files all day, and doing that with a remote control or even the wireless keyboard/touchpad deal is tedious, I have to pull up a chair closer to the tv so I can actually read what is going on. Ruins my 15' experience. The wife is the primary downloader and she's damn sure not going to take the time to unrar and organize files to watch once and delete.

As far as overhead, it's running a Core Quad 2.9xxghz processor and that's been able to handle just about everything rared, even ginormous .mkv bluray rips, with the occasional need to unrar something, but most of what we watch is tv shows so they aren't usually huge.

It seems XBMC will play RAR files...maybe. I saw this on their forum: "Xbmc can play from rar archives if they are not compressed or corrupt in any way. Not while they are downloading either the whole set has to be complete."

Of course the whole point of rar files are to compress them so probably any RAR you download will be compressed...
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

DigiCorn

Wow! Holy fast shipping, Batman. I just signed up for lifetime license with PlayOn and got my Roku LT yesterday. The Roku 2 is not compatible with PlayOn, but tested PlayOn on the LT last night and it worked! The one disadvantage is that the LT maxes out at 720p while the XS outputs at 1080p. Another nice thing about the Roku was when I hooked up the second one, it immediately populated with all my apps from the first Roku I set up so I didn't have to set it up with all the apps I liked and are using again.

I did look at the Roku USB media share app, but as I am not connected via USB, it doesn't suit my needs. I do need a third party app like Roksbox to run media files off my network, since Roku has no DLNA.

With my new NAS drive, I have to format correctly into a format Roksbox understands, but I can then play any media file from my network. I can also sync PlayOn and my NAS with my Android, since there are apps for both.
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t-pat

Quote from: Joe on February 28, 2012, 11:21:06 AMt-pat, what kind of remote/receiver are you using on your htpc?

I'm using a RF wireless keyboard/touchpad combo, looks like the bottom half of  a laptop. -- that or the android remote for xbmc or boxee, both work fine.

I've also used the MCE remote and receiver I had left over from a HP mediacenter pc that's been retired.

I gave up on xbmc last night, I can't deal with the mandatory manual tv/movie sorting. Boxee does this automatically.


That Zotac box is probably not up to the task of 1080p due to the slower processor and lack of a decent video chipset, but newegg sells other Zotac boxes either with the Atom d525 with Nvidia Ion graphics, or either of the AMD e-350 or e-450 based boards with iirc ATI graphics that will be up to the task. Foxconn, Shuttle, Acer, and others also offer similar form factor barebones boxes -- all for around the same price if you shop
vdp donkey
gmc inspire • sarcasm while you wait

Farabomb

Yea, you need a decent video chipset. My netbook with an Atom and Ion graphics has issues driving HD on my TV.
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