Ksénia, Jules, Gaëlle & Nicolas

Latest update: April 10, 2009 – rev.1

Current Photo Gallery

1. Features
   1. Current
   2. Future
2. Software
   1. Operating system
   2. Media Center
   3. Diagram
3. Hardware
   1. Diagram
   2. Toshiba Regza X Series 37X3030DB 37″ (94cm) Full HD LCD TV
   3. Logitech Harmony 720 universal remote control
   4. Thermaltake Mozart SX case
   5. Seasonic S12II 380 W power supply
   6. Intel DG965WH motherboard
   7. Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 microprocessor – 64 bit, 4 MB cache, 2.66 MHz, 1066 MHz FSB
   8. Zalman CNPS8700 NT CPU cooler
   9. SilenX iXtrema Pro 80mm 14 dBA 32 CFM fans
   10. A-Data memory – 1 GB (2x 512 MB) PC6400 (800 MHz) DDR2
   11. Corsair memory – 2 GB (2x 1GB) PC6400 (800 MHz) DDR2
   12. Thermaltake PCI-E and PCI riser extenter kit
   13. Western Digital Caviar GP WD10EACS 1 TB, 16 MB cache, SATA-II hard drive
   14. Sony DRU-500a DVD reader/writer
   15. Matrix Orbital VK202-24-USB Intelligent VFD
   16. Hauppauge WinTV NOVA-T-500 dual DVB-T tuners PCI Digital terresrial TV card
   17. KWORLD DVB-S 100 DVB-S tuner PCI Digital satellite TV card
   18. ASUS EN8400GS SILENT/HTP/512M – PCI Express 16x with DVI-HDMI adapter
   19. Interlink RF keyboard and mouse combo
4. DIY TV and components stand
5. Installation and setup notable details and specifics
   1. nVIDIA’s VDPAU
   2. Intel is absolutely Linux-friendly, in more ways than one
   3. Audio using the optical digital output (S/PDIF)
   4. Wrong audio stream, bad A/V sync and stuttering picture on some HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Disc dumps
   5. DVB cards order
   6. Keeping MythTV fresh and stable
   7. Not losing one of the Nova-T-500’s tuners
   8. List of files of interest
   9. MythWeb bugs encountered and fixed
   10. AAC, H.264, AC3 with ffmpeg
   11. Smoother picture motion
   12. Forcing EDID with the NVIDIA driver even when the TV is OFF
6. Technology wishlist

I have built a Home Theater PC (HTPC), in order to replace the Tivo box I was using when living in Houston, which changed the way we approached watching TV.

Features

Current

• TV
  • Full Digital Video Recorder (DVR) with advanced recording capabilities
  • Terrestrial and satellite digital TV
  • TV viewing with time shifting, pause, rewind, etc…
  • Automatic advertisement removal for recordings
  • Picture in Picture display
  • Electronic program guide
  • Export to DVD
• Videos
  • DVD playing and ripping into DivX for the movies collection
  • Playing of 1080p content via HD-DVD Blu-Ray Disk rips/dumps
  • Movies (DivX and other formats, including HD rips) collection management and playing
• Audio
  • CD playing and ripping into MP3 into the Music collection
  • Music collection (MP3 and other formats) management and playing
• Other
  • Pictures collection with slide show display
  • Weather display
  • News (RSS) display
  • Web browsing
  • Web-based remote access for information and programming, from anywhere on the Internet
• Technical
  • High definition HDTV TV outputs (through digital HDMI) for 1080p full HD
  • Terrestrial Digital TV (DVB-T, TNT, Freeview)
  • Satellite Digital TV (DVB-S)
  • Hardware accelerated decoding of the following video codecs in all resolutions: MPEG-1, MPEG-2, H.264, VC-1
  • Hardware accelerated deinterlacing
  • Optical digital output for sound to the Home Theater amplifier
  • Front VFD display for various information (titles, times, channels, program watched)
  • Any Linux-running machine on the local network will be able to act as a client and benefit from most services
  • Used through a Logitech Harmony universal remote control

Future

• Multi-format flash card slots for picture, video and audio viewing/listening

• HD-DVD and Blue-ray player and ripper

Software

Operating system

Mythbuntu, a derivative of Ubuntu Linux – Great Linux distribution with a very active team build around providing a very easy MythTV implementation, with extensive documentation. Using the 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) release at this time.

Media Center

MythTV – For the time being the most complete media center open source application. Its list of features and capabilities is quite amazing. Its configuration and use can sometime be a bit overwhelming, though. But it’s well worth it, and projects like Mythbuntu are helping a lot. Using the 0.21-fixes version at this time.

Diagram

Hardware

Diagram

Toshiba Regza X Series 37X3030DB 37″ (94cm) Full HD LCD TV

[link]

A Samsung model was planned, but its design got vetoed by my better half.
Got a great deal at the local Costco.
Full 1080p HD through HDMI.
Has a VESA mount that is used with the DIY stand (read below).

Logitech Harmony 720 universal remote control

[link]
Great web interface, easy to setup and customize, even knew about the Hauppauge remote codes.
Deals with the PC, the TV and the receiver automatically using tasks.

Thermaltake Mozart SX case

[link]
I got a nice deal on this case, as a second-hand product. It is slim, has no volume button, does not look too bad (but it is not that nice looking either…), and is fitting OK in a hi-fi environment.
It comes with a PCI Express x16 and two PCI slots riser, translating the slots form vertical to horizontal.
There is a semi-dark window in the front panel, which is nice for the VFD.

Seasonic S12II 380 W power supply

[link]
This power supply replaced an Antec model that failed after one year (as warned about in the comments) and made too much noise anyway.

This one is quite silent indeed. On the other hand, it does not have a modular cables system, and it was quite tough to fit all the extra unused cables in the small case.

Intel DG965WH motherboard

[link]
Intel quality and stability, no fans, great on-board and automatic control for the case fans, optical digital audio output, HD Audio digital header for the sDVO/ADD2 cart (good for the sound part in the HDMI link), and a more than good enough on-board video card, including hardware-accelerated OpenGL, that can have TV outputs through the sVDO/ADD2 system.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 microprocessor – 64 bit, 4 MB cache, 2.66 MHz, 1066 MHz FSB

[link]

Let’s say I had the opportunity for the best possible deal for this great processor (thanks again Steve!).
It was the current top of the line of its series at the time of acquisition, and the extra power is put to use with the MPEG-2 and other HDTV (VC-1, H.264) software decoding.

Zalman CNPS8700 NT CPU cooler

[link]

I used to have the Thermaltake Golden Orb II CPU cooler, as it was recommended to be used with the case. Unfortunately it is noisy and cannot be controlled by the motherboard as it lacks the PWM feature.

The Zalman is PWM-capable (using a 4 wires cable) and is very silent. It will spin up and make some more noise when the machine is under load, which is OK, as this happens only when watching HD content with sound.

The case is quite cramped and I needed to cut off a few fins with scissors as well as a major chunk of the holding clip with the Dremel in order to make the cooler fit next to the power supply.

SilenX iXtrema Pro 80mm 14 dBA 32 CFM fans

[link]

The case needs two case fans, one blowing in, one blowing out, and located close to the hard drives.

This is the third attempt at making the system quieter, and it works!

Those are pricey as fans go, I hope that they last at least a year before they become noisy again.

I couldn’t use the provided rubber mounts, as it was not practical withing the case configuration, I had to use regular screws. I used rubber parts to still provide some vibrations isolation between the case and the fans.

I believe that the motherboard is also capable of throttling those fans by varying the voltage supplied to them.

A-Data memory – 1 GB (2x 512 MB) PC6400 (800 MHz) DDR2

[link]

The Intel boards are known to demand very specific RAM modules, they need a specific voltage, 1.8V.
These are known to work with my motherboard, and were the cheapest with those specs.

Corsair memory – 2 GB (2x 1GB) PC6400 (800 MHz) DDR2

[link]

Well, 1 GB was a bit tight, so I had to upgrade.

I really needed an additional 300 MB, but I’m afraid that 150 MB modules are not available

The price difference between a 1 and a 2 GB kit was of about £1, so I went with 2 GB.

Before and after the upgrade:

Thermaltake PCI-E and PCI riser extenter kit

This is my luck… The Thermaltake web site says that you should only need those when using a MicroATX motherboard, and that forced me into looking into a full-size ATX model.
But my Intel motherboard still needs this kit. That is a real bummer, as I am having difficulties find anyone who stocks this kit.
Ah, Thermaltake has an on-line shop. It is well hidden, I have to say, but a phone call made sure I had the secret URL!
Oh, one last thing, quite illogical. This kit is made specifically for my case. My case has that riser, with 2x PCI slots, and 1x PCI-E 16x slot. The extender kit has only 1x PCI and 1x PCI-E 16x extenders. So either I ordered 1 kit and lost the use of 1 PCI slot, or ordered 2 kits, for twice the money, and got left with an extra PCI-E extender… I went for the more expensive solution.

Western Digital Caviar GP WD10EACS 1 TB, 16 MB cache, SATA-II hard drive

[link]
Super silent.

More than fast enough.

Tons of space.

« Payment»  for services rendered (Merci Stéphane ! )

It is probably the best range of hard drives that can be used in a Home Theater PC.

It holds:

• Operating sytem (9.2 GB, EXT3)
• Swap (2 GB)
• Content (921 GB, XFS)
  • TV recordings
  • Live TV buffer
  • Videos
  • Music
  • Pictures

Sony DRU-500a DVD reader/writer

Old stock I had. Not perfect, not perfectly fitting (I had to remove the vertical part at the front of the tray), but will have to do for the time being. Connected using a slim and round PATA cable.

Matrix Orbital VK202-24-USB Intelligent VFD

[link]
VFD, as opposed to LCD, is bright enough, and contrasty enough. This provides a good display through the semi-dark window in the front of the case. Mythlcdserver feeds it information. Connected to a spare internal USB header on the motherboard.

This thing works like a charm and really add a nice touch. It is completely unnecessary, but I had to have it!

Hauppauge WinTV NOVA-T-500 dual DVB-T tuners PCI Digital terresrial TV card

[link]

It just works out of the box now.

I had to use an option for the kernel module in order to turn on the on-board amplifier (LNA).

I have witnessed some pretty nice guys developing and polishing this driver in just a few months

I add to have a masthead amplifier installed, my signal was not good enough.

The remote is supported by LIRC and is configured in a few clicks using the mythbuntu-control-venter.

While I’m still using the infrared receiver, the remote functions were moved over to the Logitech Harmony.

KWORLD DVB-S 100 DVB-S tuner PCI Digital satellite TV card

[link]

Works out of the box, no tweak, no firmware. Just works!

I’m using a 90cm dish with a simple universal LNB, pointed at the Astra 19.2 group of satellites. The goal is to get a few free-to-air French channels, mostly TV5.

I am now receiving the following French channels:

• TV5 France, Belgique, Luxembourg
• TV5 Europe
• Direct8
• France 24
• Arte
• NRJ Hits
• LuxeTV
• Canal +
• LCP
• NT1
• a bunch of French radios
• A whole lot of other channels from other countries that I do not really care about

It’s Composite/S-Video input could be useful with the LaserDisc player I still have around.

ASUS EN8400GS SILENT/HTP/512M – PCI Express 16x with DVI-HDMI adapter

[link]

Silent by lack of a fan.

Provides hardware decoding of MPEG-1/2, H.264 and VC-1 up to full HD, full bit rate.

Beautiful!

Those fanless cards are nice on paper, however you should make sure that your case has proper airflow. It is not this way in my case, so the graphics card became quite hot, above 100°C. I have added a fan in the case. It is an additional fan, but a SilenX 80mm, not a tiny and noisy videocard fan, so the damage is not too bad. I’d like to modify my case to improve the airflow for those fans when extracting.

As you can see, the additional fan is working:

Interlink RF keyboard and mouse combo

[link]

All the system is normally used with the remote control. Sometimes, though, it is nice to have a mouse and a keyboard.

Radio Frequencies work better than Infrared, there is no need for line of sight.

I can use the keyboard and mouse from the couch.

I salvaged this equipment from the trash at work.

DIY TV and components stand

I bought a TV wall mount from Amazon.co.uk at a relatively fair price.

I have pictures of the build in progress here:

I have added an extension that supports my Bose satellite speakers. Fugly sound, but they still are practical with an installation without too much space taken.

Finally, two cable trays somehow manage the mess and prevent any spaghetti incidents.

Installation and setup notable details and specifics

nVIDIA’s VDPAU

VDPAU (Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix) provides a large subset of PureVideo HD functionality for nVIDIA Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD users. It in essence provides what PureVideo/DirectX Video Acceleration is on the Windows platform.

Some highlights of VDPAU:

• Defines an API for GPU-accelerated decode of MPEG-1, MPEG-2, H.264, and VC-1 bit streams.
• Defines an API for post-processing of decoded video, including temporal and spatial deinterlacing, inverse telecine, and noise reduction.
• Defines an API for time stamp-based presentation of final video frames.
• Defines an API for compositing sub-picture, on-screen display, and other UI elements

VDPAU is being developed for support in the next version of MythTV (0.22). Running that version for for the adventurous person not minding regular unuasable systems, so it’s not for me.

Jean-Yves Avenard is doing a great service to the community by taking the development code for VDPAU and applying it to the stable version of MythTV (0.21-fixes). That, in itself, is already great. But the guy goes further and is providing ready-built Ubuntu packages with vdpau and other fixes support based on the Mythbuntu 0.21 weekly fixes. This ensure a particularly smooth and clean transition.

I have created a new playback profile called « vdpau»  with the following settings:

if rez > W:0 H:0 -> vdpau & vdpau , Advanced (2X, HW)

I have no 1080i signal to deinterlace yet.

For Mplayer, I have this customization in place:

# Default to try VDPAU output and codecs
vo=vdpau,xv,
vc=ffh264vdpau,ffmpeg12vdpau,ffvc1vdpau,ffwmv3vdpau,

This places VDPAU use in the first place. If VDPAU does not support the file’s codec for any reason, it will fall back to more traditional methods.

Here is a sample of whar CPU usage is when playing a full bit rate 1080p VC-1 dump of the BBC’s Planet Earth HD-DVD:

Intel is absolutely Linux-friendly, in more ways than one

What a nice surprise! We all knew Intel’s stance towards Open Source: friendly and active. It has been proven again when I upgraded the BIOS of my motherboard using the CD ISO images provided on their web site. I was expecting a good old floppy emulation starting up a DOS session. Nope! I saw a Linux kernel boot before the flash upgrade! So, not only does Intel participate with drivers, but they do use the penguin as well in their own processes.

Audio using the optical digital output (S/PDIF)

I’m using a Yamaha Home Theater Receiver for all sound output. I use it to play everything and decode Stereo, Dolby Surround, AC-3 (Dolby Digital) and DTS through the optical digital input.

There are a few configuration tricks.

• MythTV internal player

That was rather easy, in the General Frontend setup, I set the outputs to « ALSA:spdif» , and ticked the AC-3 and DTS pass-through options.

• MPlayer

That was a tiny bit more involved, I had to edit the system-wide /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf file.

First, I had to tell it to use S/PDIF for everything:
# Specify default audio driver (see -ao help for a list).
ao=alsa:device=spdif

Just to make sure, I forced the other pass-throughs:

# Specify default audio codec (see -ac help for a list).afm=hwac3
ac=hwac3,hwdts,mad,

Wrong audio stream, bad A/V sync and stuttering picture on some HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Disc dumps

I had endless issues with playing properly those type of files, generally TS (MPEG transport streams) including VC-1 video, TrueHD or other advanced multi-channel soundtrack, and a more classic AC-3 (Dolby digital) soundtrack.

You may want to select the proper audio stream if your decoder does not support the latest and greatest stuff.

The bad audio sync and image stutturing was solved by using two settings:

• MPlayer gets the frame-rate wrong too, so you have to manually force it to the correct value
• I use aggressive audio/video syncing

To make that work, I am making specific configuration files for each movie, automatically selected by MPlayer, and overriding the system-wide options, by using files in the same directory as the movie, following the <movie file name>.conf convention:

# don't hog the logs too much
quiet=yes
# This usually is the stream ID for the English Dolby Digital audio, my amp does not do the latedt HD stuff (yet)
aid=4133
# Play full screen by default
fs=yes
# You may want that if the movie is not at the same resolution as your TV
# zoom=yes
# Make sure the audio goes through the digital s/pdif output
afm=hwac3
ac=hwac3,hwdts,mad,
# Aggressively re-sync audio and video
autosync=30
# Force the proper frame-rate
fps=23.976

DVB cards order

The DVB-T card with both its tuners was intalled inside the system a long time before the DVB-S card.

The system was configured knowing that id 0 and id 1 were DVB-T.

Unfortunately, when the DVB-S card was added, it took first place, becoming id 0, the DVB-T stuff becoming id 1 and id 2. That messed-up MythTV, obviously.

There is a simple trick that forces the kernel to first install the DVB-T driver, then the DVB-S driver. Edit the /etc/modprobe.d/options files, and add:

# Load DVB-T before DVB-S
install cx88-dvb /sbin/modprobe dvb-usb-dib0700; /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install cx88-dvb

It plain English, this means: In order to load the DVB-S driver (cx88-dvb), load first the DVB-T driver (dvb-usb-dib0700), then simply load the DVB-S driver (cx88-dvb), ignoring this condition.

Of course, if you are installing from scratch with both cards from the get-go, this is not necessary.

Keeping MythTV fresh and stable

I have added the Mythbuntu repository for the weekly builds based on MythTV 0.21-fixes.

This brings me regular fixes without compromising the stability of my system.

Not losing one of the Nova-T-500’s tuners

This is not needed anymore.

There is a bug somewhere. Probably in the driver or the card’s firmware. The result is that a tuner stops. The main issue is that it stops silently, and MythTV continues to use it as if it was fine. You end up with recorded programs of zero length.

I stabilized the system and went around this by doing three things:

• I told MythTV to be less aggressive when tuning a channel and take more time to do it
• I told MythTV to release the tuners when it does not use them
• I told MythTV to gather EPG data using EIT only on the first tuner

Here is how to do this:

1. Go to the MythTV backend setup and edit the capture cards:



2. Select the first tuner:



3. Then edit the Recording Options:



4. Make sure that:
   • Open DVB card on demand is selected
   • Use DVB card for active EIT scan is selected
   • you have increased the DVB tuning delay (I used 150 ms)



5. Finish, then edit the second tuner:



6. Then edit the Recording Options:



7. Make sure that:
   • Open DVB card on demand is selected
   • Use DVB card for active EIT scan is not selected
   • you have increased the DVB tuning delay (I used 150 ms)



8. Finish. Escape, Escape, etc… to get out of the setup.

I have not been losing any tuner or any recording since I’ve done that.

List of files of interest

I have various files in this directory, xorg config and logs, dmesg, lspci, lsusb, as well as various v4l-dvb patches for my NOVA-T-500, MPlayer config, etc…

MythWeb bugs encountered and fixed

• MythWeb creates zero byte thumbnail images – fixed by following this Forum post
• Mythtv suddenly broken after daylight time savings – fixed by following this Forum post

AAC, H.264, AC3 with ffmpeg

Ffmpeg and its supporting libraries for non-free codecs is now removed from Medibuntu. This is because Ubuntu now ships alternative supporting libraries with the -unstripped appended to the packages names.

Smoother picture motion

You have to change the internal clock’s resolution by adding the following line to /etc/sysctl.conf
dev.rtc.max-user-freq=1024

Forcing EDID with the NVIDIA driver even when the TV is OFF

TVs are not really like normal computer monitors. The will not transmit the EDID data, the information about their capabilities, like resolutions and refresh rates, when they are turned OFF or put in stand-by. This is unfortunate because you may want to reboot the MythTV front-end or retart X Window remotely while the TV is not fully turned ON.  If you do that with the default settings, you will end up with no picture once the TV is turned back ON, as X Window could not determine what signal to send to the TV.

The trick, found when reading the MythTV Users mailing list, is to acquire the EDID information and force feed it to X Window when it starts, wether the TV is ON or not. For this you need to use the nvidia-settings tool, select your TV screen and save the EDID information as a raw binary file:

Place that file in /etc/X11/ and make sure that your /etc/X11/xorg.conf has the follofing information:

Section "Device"
Identifier      "Generic Video Card"
Driver          "nvidia"
Option          "NoLogo"                "True"
Option          "UseEvents"             "True"
Option          "CustomEDID"            "DFP-0:/etc/X11/toshiba-edid.bin"
Option          "ConnectedMonitor"      "DFP-0"
Option          "UseDisplayDevice"      "DFP-0"
EndSection

Technology wishlist

My keyboard is OK, but big and bulky. A smaller, bluetooth-driven model would be nice.

I guess that the next step will be to build a NAS running OpenFiler on a few TB of RAID disks.