[Sussex] laptop as a media center

Tue Jan 23 01:18:16 UTC 2007

Paul

On Mon, Jan 22, 2007 at 01:15:25PM +0000, Paul Howard wrote:
> I have a project I want to get set up but not sure if its viable or not.

This reply might just help then.

> I have a Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop that has an S-video output. I have
> currently got XP on the laptop and it hooks up via an s-video to composite
> convertor (which you get with the laptop)

I am currently writing this reply on a Dell Inspiron 8200 with a "nVidia Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 Go] (rev b2)" on PCI bus ID 1:0:0 (as reported by
lspci).

> I want to run this laptop as a media center so I can copy video files over
> the network to the laptop and then play them on my TV. The problem is that
> under XP to get the s-video out to work you need to install the ATI drivers.
> I also needa remote that will work with the laptop.

I have installed the nVidia Linux driver (The legacy CPU version 1.0-7184
from http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html) and it works just fine.
You will need to have enough of the kernel source (just headers I think)
available and the gcc compiler installed as this script had to build me
a new driver from source.

For you I configured the xorg (7.1) as follows to get it to driver to 
drive the SVIDEO output rather than the LCD screen.

I added the following monitor section that drives a UK PAL TV.

  Section "Monitor"
    Identifier      "TV Monitor"
    HorizSync       31.5 - 68
    VertRefresh     50 - 120
    Mode "720x576"
      DotClock        42.6
      HTimings        720 760 832 944
      VTimings        576 577 580 602
      Flags           "-HSync" "-VSync"
    EndMode
  EndSection

I created a device section to configure the graphics card

  Section "Device"
    Identifier      "nVidia Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 Go] TV"
    Driver          "nvidia"
    BusID           "PCI:1:0:0"
  EndSection

And a screen section to bind the two settings above together

  Section "Screen"
    Identifier      "TV Screen"
    Device          "nVidia Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 Go] TV"
    Monitor         "TV Monitor"
    Option          "TVStandard" "PAL-I"
    Option          "ConnectedMonitor" "TV"
    Option          "TVOutFormat" "SVIDEO"
    #Option         "TVOutFormat" "COMPOSITE"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection "Display"
      Depth           24
      Modes           "720x576"
    EndSubSection
  EndSection

Then all I had to do was change the screen reference in the server layout
section to the new screen for Xorg to drive my TV.

  Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier      "Default Layout"
    Screen          "Laptop Screen"       <--- New version of line
    #Screen         "TV Screen"           <--- Old version of line
    InputDevice     "Generic Keyboard"
    InputDevice     "Configured Mouse"
    InputDevice     "Synaptics Touchpad"
  EndSection

> Now, is there a linux distor like knopmyth or somesuch that will a) work on
> that laptop and let it use the s-video port

I had no joy with knopmyth when I tried to use it on a desktop PC to build
a MythTV system.  But the packages are available for Debian and that's how
my current MythTV system is running.

You'll need to install the development version of Debian (sid) and then
add these extra lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

  # Mythtv
  deb http://debian.netcologne.de/debian-multimedia.org sid main
  deb-src http://debian.netcologne.de/debian-multimedia.org sid main

  # IvTV
  deb     http://www.hellion.org.uk/debian sid main
  deb-src http://www.hellion.org.uk/debian sid main

I think I got the install instructions from the MythTV WiKi itself for
the debian install.

>                                             and b) is there a USB IR remote
> that works under Linux?

My MythTV system is using the Hauppauge PVR250 which has it's own IR built
in (which I have yet to configure - so I just use a keyboard and a keyboard
extension cable) so I can't help there.

> Or should I just forget it and get a copy of windows media center - which I
> REALLY dont want to have to do.

Well if you like DRM then that would be the way to go.

Steve

P.S.

MythTV can drive your NTL/Telewest Digital Cable and Sky set-top boxes using
the Red-Eye serial.  There is a simple driver for the RS232 that you can down
load for them and then a simple script allows MythTV to change the channel on
the set top box.

See http://www.redremote.co.uk/serial/

Of course you will need a capture device but I believe that Hauppauge do a
USB capture device.  But I don't know how well they work.

P.P.S
MythTV make a big thing about the time taken to delete files.  I use XFS
as the filesystem as the delete time for that (and for JFS I've read) is
very quick.

My PVR250 generates about 1GByte of data per half hour, so I need lots of
disk space for my media centre.  You might want to think about external
storage.

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : http://mailman.lug.org.uk/pipermail/sussex/attachments/20070123/a304a3a8/attachment.pgp 