Daniel Maclean

ER1401 and OpenElec Standby Fix

2011-09-15T20:28:00.001+01:00

Ok, so took some reading and exploring to fix this one but it's actually relatively straight forward to fix. I actually don't use the standby/suspend feature that much because I'm a bit of a hippy and would rather it was just off. However it annoyed me that it didn't work.

What was the problem?

Well after loading XBMC on OpenElec, going to Shutdown then to the submenu for Suspend, the screen would go blank but would return within seconds. I had seen this problem before on other Linux based OS's but never got around to understanding why this was happening or investigating a fix.

If you want the fix without the background, go to the bottom of this article :-)

Well for others, here it is along with some additional information that might help. These steps might also assist folk with other Linux based OS's, but of course, no guarantee's, it all comes down to playing around with settings and seeing what happens.

Log files to monitor during testing

/var/log/messages

This log file stores messages logged by all parts of the OS including applications (most commonly referred to as syslog messages). However not all messages are stored here and some applications specifically log messages elsewhere. You will see some messages during Suspend appear here, but for the most part, they won't help. But always worth checking.

/storage/.xbmc/temp/xbmc.log

This is the XBMC log file. It's normally deleted during the start of each boot but not between suspend sessions. It has more information on whats going on during an attempted suspend however still not enough to indicate what might be causing problems. It may help you if for instance something within XBMC is causing problems with the suspend.

dmesg

Most likely though it's a device which is keeping your system from going into standby, so monitoring the output of dmesg is key. It should tell you what device is requesting the suspend and which is requesting the resume.

So with some log files to monitor, I could see that my requests from my IR Remote Control via a Microsoft IR Receiver were being accepted and putting the device to sleep, however for some reason another device was waking my ER1401 straight away. Strangely enough this device appears to be USB based however is not one which is plugged into one of the external ports (I only have one and it's the remote control IR reciever)

Based on this information alone, it was time to start disabling devices abilities to resume or wake the system from Suspend (S3 Mode).

You can see what devices have this ability from the output from cat /proc/acpi/wakeup:

root ~/.xbmc/temp # cat /proc/acpi/wakeup

Device S-state Status Sysfs node

SMB0 S4 *disabled pci:0000:00:01.1

US15 S4 *disabled pci:0000:00:04.0

US12 S3 *enabled pci:0000:00:04.1

NMAC S5 *enabled pci:0000:00:0a.0

P0P1 S4 *disabled pci:0000:00:08.0

HDAC S4 *disabled pci:0000:00:07.0

MXR0 S4 *disabled pci:0000:00:10.0

BR11 S4 *disabled

BR12 S4 *disabled pci:0000:00:12.0

BR13 S4 *disabled

BR14 S4 *disabled

BR15 S4 *disabled

BR16 S4 *disabled

BR17 S4 *disabled

USB0 S3 *enabled pci:0000:00:02.0

USB2 S3 *disabled pci:0000:00:02.1

This is the output for a ER1401, please keep this in mind, if you are reading this and have a different hardware setup, this will look completely different.

You can find out which devices these are from the output of lspci:

00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Memory Controller (rev a2)

00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] LPC Bridge (rev a2)

00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] SMBus (rev a1)

00:01.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Memory Controller (rev a1)

00:01.3 Co-processor: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Co-Processor (rev a2)

00:01.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] Memory Controller (rev a1)

00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a1)

00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a1)

00:04.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] OHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev a1)

00:04.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a1)

00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] IDE (rev a1)

00:07.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP72XE/MCP72P/MCP78U/MCP78S High Definition Audio (rev a1)

00:08.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Bridge (rev a1)

00:09.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] SATA Controller (non-AHCI mode) (rev a2)

00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation MCP77 Ethernet (rev a2)

00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)

00:10.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)

00:12.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] PCI Express Bridge (rev a1)

00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor HyperTransport Configuration

00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor Address Map

00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor DRAM Controller

00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor Miscellaneous Control

00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 10h Processor Link Control

02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation C77 [GeForce 8200] (rev a2)

04:00.0 Network controller: Ralink corp. RT3090 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe

After disabling different ones I found that US12 was causing the problems:

00:04.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP78S [GeForce 8200] EHCI USB 2.0 Controller (rev a1)

To disable this specific device and fix the suspend issues, execute the following command:

echo US12 > /proc/acpi/wakeup

This will then set US12 to disabled in /proc/acpi/wakeup. Go ahead and try to suspend and this will now work as expected. If you have Wake On Lan configured or a remote control, you can now wake up the device also using these methods.

Note this fix is not permanent and has to be applied on each cold boot. If you are using OpenElec RC5 then sadly there is no automated way to apply this fix. You could like I did set button 0 on your remote (if you have one) to execute a python script which applies this. Or if you are brave enough, get the latest development build version of OpenElec and put this command into a shell script in /storage/.config/autostart.sh. It will then execute every time you boot and apply the fix.

Other sources which helped me investigate this:

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Enable_Wake-On-Device

If you have any questions I'll do my best to assist, but always best to check with the guys over at the OpenElec forum first.

OpenElec/XBMC with Airplay/Airtunes

2011-09-13T12:39:00.000+01:00

In an effort to build the most powerful HTPC system that you can have you have to consider not just the technologies which are useful to yourself, but others in the household. More often than not my explanations on DLNA, UPNP, SMB or AFS go down like the titanic and no matter what measures I put in place it never seems simple enough in reality to demonstrate.

So what am I rambling on about?

Well, in the scenario where my better half, or a friend comes round (or if i'm just lazy) and wants to share something with us, say a video, slideshow or soundtrack, yeh you could all huddle around a tiny mobile phone screen, or you could blast that content on the frigging TV! Thats right, blast it! But obviously the TV should remain intact. So maybe go easy on the blasting. On second thought, don't be blasting anything, lets instead stream it.

How do we make this happen? Well there is a number of ways. At the moment, out of the box (and after some tweaks in the Network Services screen in XBMC) you can stream music, video's or photos on to the screen via UPNP. However you need a separate app for this to make this happen from your device, at least for iOS devices, I know some Android phones come with DLNA support, but it's certainly not standard and built in across all known devices (although there is no reason why not). Having my own devices prep'd for this is easy, but again I have go through explaining another method to somebody else, wouldn't it be easier if there was just one solid protocol?

The other way, is to have your HTPC support the dark side. Not wield it with a light saber, that would be silly. But it would look cool. Maybe I'll look into this later! But instead have it support a non-open closed source proprietary network protocol, namely Airplay and Airtunes.

If you've reached this post, then most likely you already know what these are and are looking for me to explain already how this is done. Well I'll skip the explanation on what they are and point interested people to the following pages on Airplay and Airtunes if they wish to read more on what they provide.

So down to business. Some steps:

Before going ahead with these keep in mind I've only done this for my eMachine ER1401. So you may have to take extra steps or it may not work for you at all if your are using a different setup.

Acquire the Airplay/Airtunes (Airplayer Suite) from the OpenElec Forums (Ultraman has kindly done the hard work to make this happen). You can download it from here. Note that this is the 32bit version.

Extract it and copy it to the Downloads folder on your OpenElec system. OpenElec shares folders via the Windows File Sharing protocol so you should be able to locate this folder via \\openelec.local\Downloads

Once in there you need to copy the folder you extracted from the downloads directory to the addon directory. By default the addons directory isn't accessible via Windows File Sharing so you need to log into your OpenElec system via SSH (Putty or next best thing) to make this transfer happen

Once logged in via SSH goto /storage/.xbmc/addons

cd /storage/.xbmc/addons

Copy the folder you extracted earlier to the addons folder

cp -R ~/downloads/service.multimedia.Airplayer-Suite .

You then need to create two soft-links or sym-links, first change directory to the lib directory for the addon

cd /storage/.xbmc/addons/service.multimedia.Airplayer-Suite/lib

Create the links

ln -s /usr/lib/libssl.so.1.0.0 libssl.so.0.9.8
ln -s /usr/lib/libcrypto.so.1.0.0 libcrypto.so.0.9.8

Now you should be sorted. The plugin won't start automatically by itself on boot so you need to start the service manually. It turns out this is only the case if your are using RC5 build of OpenElec. If you are using a newer DEVEL build seemingly this works automatically.

To start the service manually execute the following command:

/storage/.xbmc/addons/service.multimedia.Airplayer-Suite/bin/Airplayer-Suite.service

Once executed you should see a message on screen on XBMC saying Airplayer Service started. Sadly because I'm using RC5 I cannot have this start automatically but I do have the command above being executed by a python script I wrote when I click the number 0 on my remote control. Maybe I'll cover this in another post if needed.

If you are seeing errors or having problems, obviously it could be any number of problems. So I recommend you review two keys logs on this:

/storage/.xbmc/userdata/addon_data/service.multimedia.Airplayer-Suite/airplayer.log
/storage/.xbmc/userdata/addon_data/service.multimedia.Airplayer-Suite/shairport.log

Hope this was helpful. Any questions, let me know in the comments. But also check out the OpenElec forum thread on this topic.

Replacing Mount on Nikon 55-200mm Lens

2011-09-09T12:41:00.001+01:00

Ok, so yep. Photographers worst nightmare next to batteries running out during a special event. Dropping the camera. If i'm honest it didn't drop as a result of slippery fingers but because the tripod I was using wasn't properly secure. Doh!

So, after getting over the initial shock, I inspected the damage. As expected it wasn't pretty. The lens specifically was a Nikon 55-200mm lens which if you are versed with Nikon or lenses in general will know that it's a zoomer for amateurs (read cheap lens), hence why Nikon put a plastic mount on the lens (so that if you do drop it, it doesn't break all the internals of the expensive camera).

Anyway, so the mount of the lens was broken but the camera was fine.

After a little research and a lucky find I contacted Nikon and ordered the spare part for the bayonet mount (part no. JAA79351-F).

Once it had arrived I got started on replacing the mount. I won't go through every step, someone over at this site here put together some instructions on how to do this, so credit goes to that author. The instructions though are for the 18-55mm lens, however the mount itself is exactly the same as the one for the 55-200mm lens.

Some pointers before you decide to go ahead with the replacement:

This is not for the faint of heart, if you enter into fixing this, make sure you are willing to buy a new one if you destroy the lens. Although in hindsight it seems easy now, I was "bricking it" while doing the replacement.
Patience is key, take your time.
If you don't have the confidence, go to a Nikon certified repair shop. They may charge more than doing it yourself but if it means that much to you then it's worth it.
Consider just buying a new one if your lens has more than just a broken mount.
Make sure you have a very small philips screwdriver, or a small flat head.
Do all the work on top of a large sheet of white paper (or smaller sheets taped together). This is so that if any parts fall out you can see them, but also because I like to draw where the screw came from so that assembly is easier.
The spare part doesn't come with instructions, this isn't Ikea people!

Additional information while doing the replacement:

The instructions provided at the address above are for the 18-55mm lens so keep that in mind that some parts of the photos provided in the instructions may look different
The 55-200mm lens has a different aperture ring compared to the 18-55mm. The 55-200mm lens has a longer zoomer limiter (the long plastic bit coming out of the aperture ring).
Make sure you dettach the zoomer limiter from the lens itself before pulling the mount and aperture ring out of the lens casing. OR you can keep the aperture ring there if it's not damaged and detach it from the plastic mount.
The bracket for the wire that secures it to the plastic mount is different than the one shown in the instructions in the site above, however it still fits the new mount.
Take a break before doing the assembly :-)

After going through all of the above, I found that the mount works perfectly now and the lens is taking great shots again.

OpenElec & Remote Control Setup

2011-08-27T16:44:00.003+01:00

Ok, so thought it would be worth noting this down for others as well. I use a One For All Smart Control to control my TV, Xbox 360, Surround System and SkyHD box. I figured that it would be a natural extension to include the new ER1401 system into this mix. So, thankfully after a rummage through my "man cupboard" I found a old Microsoft Media Center remote and IR receiver which by luck works out of the box with OpenElec. So I configured my One For All remote control to send Media Center remote control signals and bush bash bosh, I had control of my OpenElec system.

However, a lot of the key functions I was used to on XBMC Constellation just didn't work. For instance, I couldn't access the Now Playing screen (also called Fullscreen mode). I also wanted to be able to refresh the video library when I needed and also adjust the audio latency on videos without having to go through lots of menus.

Thankfully though since the remote is already working all that is required is some tweaking of the mapping of the remote signals to XBMC commands. This is done via the keymap.xml file. I found a fantastic version of a customised one here so credit goes to this author. First you need to download a copy of what is found at the link above and then save it to the Userdata/keymaps directory.




    
       XBMC.ReloadSkin()
       Screenshot
    
    
 FullScreen 
 ToggleWatched  
 SendClick(25,14)
    
  


     
       XBMC.CleanLibrary(video)
       XBMC.UpdateLibrary(video)
     



    
 AudioDelayMinus
 AudioDelayPlus 
    



    
 ZoomOut
 ZoomIn 
    


  
    
      Close
    
  
  
    
      Close

This is easily done because OpenElec shares the Userdata folder over SMB (Windows File Sharing). Once done just restart OpenElec and this will work. Don't worry about the article being for Harmony remote, the keycap.xml file doesn't map the keys directly to IR signals, it maps keys to functions. The mapping of signals to keys is done here:

/usr/share/irtrans/remotes/mediacenter.rem

There is more information on how this works also in the post above.

Now I can use my One For All Smart Control remote with my Media Center IR Receiver to control XBMC running on OpenElec :-)

WOL (Wake on Lan) - eMachine ER1401

2011-08-27T14:10:00.001+01:00

Ok, so after the massive success of getting OpenElec up and running with little to no problems I faced what initially seemed like a big problem, but as always once you have a solution, it seems trivial.

Within the XBMC Constellation application there is a button on the connection menu to send a WOL (Wake on Lan) or "Magic Packet" to turn on the device which it is controlling XBMC on. Clicking this buttons straight away did nothing except change the label in the menu within XBMC to "Package...". Not informative at all.

What is WOL? Well i'm not a packet or network protocol expert but I know what it's purpose is. A WOL or Wake On Lan packet tells the system to boot. It works when a piece of software (XBMC Constellation in my case) sends out this packet on the broadcast IP of my network indicating the MAC address of the system it would like to turn on.

So a key piece of information you need to know is your ER1401's MAC address. You can find this out by logging into your OpenElec system via SSH and issuing the command ifconfig. Note down the MAC address of eth0, it looks something like this f8:0f:41:21:82:38. You can in fact do this for any system running OpenElec, but it may not be eth0.

Note: You must have your ER1401 connected via ethernet and not WIFI. WOL does not work with WIFI.

Why do I need this to work? Well as I said in my previous post, I'm storing the ER1401 behind my TV unit which means that I cannot easily get to the on/off switch. Since the machine starts and shutdown so fast, I see no need in using the standby modes so getting this to work was important to complete the experience.

Configuration

So the good news is that all the changes you need to make are in the BIOS of the ER1401. So turn on your ER1401 and hit the delete key before it shows the OpenElec logo. You will see a screen like the following:

Apologies for the quality of these photos, they were taken with my iPhone and the screen is very reflective.

Go to the Power Management Setup option and hit enter. Once in there you will see a screen like the following, the settings may be different:

So the settings you want to change are to set "Deep Power Off Mode" to Disabled. And also set "Power On by Onboard LAN" to Enabled. The "Deep Power Off Mode" when it's Enabled turns off the Ethernet card so even if "Power On by Onboard LAN" is enabled, it still won't work. So make sure you change both settings.

Once done just exit and save changes and shutdown the system safely when you get the chance.

Testing

So before I tested this with XBMC Constellation (to rule out any software specific issues) I downloaded a tool called "WakeOnLan", it can be found here. I think this is only available for Mac OS X, so if you don't have a Mac then you can test it with either one of these tools for Windows or Linux (etherwake).

Punch in your MAC address for your ER1401 system and send a WOL packet. If it's successful, then the system should start and boot into OpenElec with no issues. If the system doesn't start, then check that when the system is off that it still have a light emitting from the ethernet port, this indicates that it's listening. If this isn't happening then double check the bios settings. If it is and you still have no issues, make sure your router isn't blocking the packet.

Finale

So after configuration and testing, I punched the MAC address into XBMC Constellation on my iPad and hit the Wake On Lan button. It still showed "Package...", however the system turned on as I had hoped.

Let me know if you have any questions in the comments section.

Building my First HTPC - The Result

2011-08-25T11:23:00.005+01:00

Ok, so spent a couple of days playing around with my newly built eMachines ER1401 and i'm really in amazement at how powerful the setup has become. Let me try and share some useful information so that others may benefit.

First of all here is the specifications of the system itself, i pulled this from the site I purchased the system from. Here is a link, they still have the deal on for this system:

http://www.ebuyer.com/267867-emachine-er1401-desktop-pt-nbzec-004

The Hardware

Processor

AMD Athlon™ II Dual Core K325
NVIDIA® nForce® 9200 Chipset,

Memory

2GB DDR3 RAM
Expandable to 4GB
2 x SODIMM slot

Hard Drive

250GB SATA

Optical Drive

None

Software

Operating System:Linpus 9.5 Linux

Display

Monitor Not Included

Graphics

NVIDIA® GeForce® 9200 Graphics

Input Devices

Keyboard and Mouse Not Included

Networking

WLAN: 802.11 B/G/N

Dimensions

Height 210 mm
Depth 210 mm
Width 39.5 mm

Interfaces Front

Two USB 2.0 ports
Headphone and microphone-in jack

Back

Two USB 2.0 ports
DC-in jack
Audio - S/PDIF out port (S/PDIF digital audio output port)
HDMI™ port with HDCP support
External display (VGA) port
Ethernet (RJ-45) port (this is actually a 10/100/1000 port)

Ok, so a couple of things to note about the hardware. First it is a nice piece of kit, it's small, quiet (quieter than my SkyHD box) and the power adapter is external (this is good, AC/DC conversion outside the system means it's cooler). It comes with a VESA mounting kit, however it wouldn't mount on my Samsung HD TV. Careful on this point when using the VESA mounting kit, it seems the manufacturer has assumed that if you use the VESA kit that you don't need the VGA port. Thats right, the VESA mounting bracket covers the VGA port, so only the HDMI port can be used. Thankfully though I was planning on using the HDMI port anyway. The system itself also comes with a stand for keeping it vertical if you don't wish to mount it to the back of a monitor or TV, I've opted to use this so I can hide it down the back of my TV unit so that it's out of site and also off the floor.

The Software

So as I previously mentioned I was pondering over which OS would be suit my needs for this HTPC system. After much reading I settled on OpenElec because it seemed logical that if I could get all I needed from a OS which was specifically designed to be small then I wouldn't need a full OS underneath like what XBMC Live provides (XBMC operates on top of Ubuntu for XBMC Live).

For the ER1401, I just selected the Generic Build of OpenElec, it works perfectly.

So I put OpenElec on to a USB Stick (8GB one, but you could do with as little as 1GB I believe). This is actually very easy to do since as part of the download of the OS comes two files, create_installstick.sh (for UNIX and Linux based systems) and create_installstick.bat (for Windows based systems). Just make sure you have a free USB Stick attached to your system before executing either of these files and make sure it doesn't contain any data that you don't want to lose. During the execution of these programs they will ask you a number of questions, all of them straight forward.

The Installation

So first boot. I attached a keyboard and mouse just to get me through these steps.

Well I was curious about Linpus so I decided to boot it and see what it's like. Honestly, it seems like a good effort, however not my cup of tea. I've used Linux (RHEL and Ubuntu) in many of it's flavours, however this one just seemed to be lacking in any design or effort. I wouldn't bother keeping this however you may want to for other reasons.

After plugging in the USB stick and hitting the delete key before Linpus booted I got into the BIOS. Here you need to set the first boot device to be the USB Stick. Once done save and reboot. If you find it still doesn't work then you can always hit F12 instead of Delete and you will get the Boot Selector screen. Just select the USB stick and continue.

The installation process of OpenElec is crazy fast. Just select the built in hard drive and it automatically formats and copies the required files over. Note that the automated installation will remove Linpus. Once done it will return you to the initial screen where you just click reboot. Make sure you remove the USB stick before the computer reboots otherwise you'll just boot into the installation screen again.

Ok, so the booting time is really fast. Really fast. I recorded around 13 seconds, however this was after I did all my tweaks, library updates and after adding several additional services so it may boot faster for you.

Update: I've since writing this post disabled some of the features I thought I would need and the boot time has reduced to around 10 seconds.

Required Tweaks

Ok, so after getting into XBMC after the first boot some things didn't work right. First of all the sound didn't work, however this is easily fixed, just follow the instructions on this page. These instructions are for the REVO however work just fine with the eMachine ER1401. Note that I was using audio over HDMI.

The boot screen also reports some errors on boot and as a result the nice OpenElec logo does not display on boot. To fix this follow the instructions for the Nvidia configuration on this page.

Update: So after checking out /var/log/messages it seems there is still errors during boot, however they are not visible now.

Additional Tweaks

The key point on a HTPC system is that you shouldn't treat it like a normal PC. It shouldn't have a mouse, it shouldn't have a keyboard, it should have some form of remote control device.

I have opted to have two separate ones.

I had previously bought years ago a Microsoft Media Center remote with the USB IR receiver. I plugged this in and it worked with no issues, no drivers to install and no LIRC configuration files to tweak, excellent! I wanted this option for when my second option was not available. Also I have a All-In-One remote control device which I had configured to control my Xbox 360, it works with the same signals as the Media Centre remote so it worked as well on the HTPC. This means I can control my SkyHD+ box, TV, sound system, Xbox and HTPC with one remote. Yeh, thats awesome, just to be clear.

The second option is the more advanced one. Using my iPad 2 as a remote with the app XBMC Constellation. By far this is the best app for XBMC remote control it simply has more features than you can imagine. You can browse your entire library of movies, tv shows and music and select which ones you want XBMC to play. You can find videos on youtube and blast them on to the TV. More importantly though you can do operations like shutdown, reboot, library updates, control menus and volume. There is a good video here of how to set this up.

Whats Next?

Well now that the system is built I want to setup some more advanced features. At the moment I have to turn on the device by pressing the button. Not a big deal however would like to utilise the Wake On Lan functionality that i've used with other systems. As of yet, I've not got this working so will post an update if I do. For reference, i've already activated this in the BIOS and i'm using an ethernet cable and not wireless.

Post any questions in the comments section. Happy to help.

Update: So I got the Wake On Lan functionality working, you can check out the steps I had to take here.

Building my First HTPC - Update

2011-08-22T20:09:00.002+01:00

So after an evening of downloading distros and more reading I've now got OpenElec and XBMC on two separate USB sticks ready for usage on the new hardware when it arrives tomorrow. Interesting experiences getting them on sticks though, OpenElec was a breeze as it came with the software to do this as part of the distro download however with XBMC I had to use a third party tool called Unetbootin. Tested both of them on my normal desktop, so far so good.

Will post a blow by blow entry of my experience with the installations soon.

XBMC Live or OpenElec?

2011-08-22T09:01:00.004+01:00

I'm all for experimenting with OS's and discovering this for myself. However I was a bit disappointed to see that there wasn't a blow by blow comparison on the internet. I found the following pages for other peoples reference, they don't have pretty tables, but make for interesting reading, really to gauge other peoples experiences:

http://htpcbuild.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/xbmclive-v-s-openelec/

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12376.0

http://xbmcmediacenter.com/openelec-htpc/

What i've discovered just from reading so this may not be entirely true (I don't yet have the hardware, but its on its way so will be able to say for sure soon):

OpenElec

Pro's

Fast boot time
Small size
OS Tweaked for XBMC usage

Con's

Not easily extensible
Doesn't have extensive hardware support
Wireless support will vary considerably

XBMC Live

Pro's

More OS, more flexibility
Better hardware support (but of course depends on what you have)

Con's

Larger in size
Slower to boot, simply more to boot (but this can be tweaked)

Hopefully the hardware will come tomorrow and I can bash through some OS installations and see what the reality is.

Building My First HTPC

2011-08-21T22:25:00.000+01:00

Just bought a emachine er1401 from ebuyer at a bargain price. Waiting for it to be delivered.

http://www.ebuyer.com/267867-emachine-er1401-desktop-pt-nbzec-004

Planning on building a HTPC with this and xbmc. Will write an update once I get it.

For reference I have a Buffalo LS-XHL sharing my content via smb, dlna and daap.

Mystery Flower… Any Ideas?

2011-08-09T20:13:00.001+01:00

Mystery Flower… Any Ideas?, originally uploaded by Daniel Maclean.

Wedding Planning Books

2011-08-09T08:17:00.001+01:00

Wedding Planning, originally uploaded by Daniel Maclean.

Lazing on a Sunny Afternoon

2011-08-08T18:34:00.001+01:00

Lazing on a Sunny Afternoon, originally uploaded by Daniel Maclean.

The All Encompassing Darkness

2011-06-13T21:12:00.001+01:00

The All Encompassing Darkness, originally uploaded by Daniel Maclean.

Grasshoper Pie - Chocolate Key Lime

2011-06-11T23:08:00.001+01:00

Grasshoper Pie - Chocolate Key Lime, originally uploaded by Daniel Maclean.

Made by my fantastic fiance

Flying Japanese Ball with Top Gun Music... Great Combination

2011-06-11T00:01:00.000+01:00

No English subtitles but who needs them with a great sound track.

Summer Sunset - Softer

2011-06-09T21:15:00.001+01:00

Summer Sunset - Softer, originally uploaded by Daniel Maclean.

Summer Sunset

2011-06-09T21:07:00.001+01:00

Summer Sunset, originally uploaded by Daniel Maclean.

Wii controlled HTC Android Robot Jousting :-)... Oh and 100 Posts today

2011-06-04T10:44:00.000+01:00

This is awesome, clearly the guy in this video has far too much time, but still a great idea.

New Rock Sign in Camden Town

2011-05-24T19:14:00.003+01:00

New Rock Sign in Camden Town, originally uploaded by Daniel Maclean.

Found this sign for New Rock boots in Camden Town in London. Really brings your attention to the shop which appears to sell every kind of new rock boots you have ever seen.

As seen on:

http://www.wikio.co.uk/more/uk/england/greater_london/camden/camden_town?start=15&count=15&sort=0

Tunnel of Colour

2011-05-16T22:45:00.001+01:00

Tunnel of Colour, originally uploaded by Daniel Maclean.

Essentially hairbands aligned in a row in a market stall, fantastic effect, creating a tunnel of colour. Taken in Camden Market in North London

Memmingen - Daniel Maclean

2011-05-14T08:02:00.000+01:00

Now that blogger is back up! I can post this. A track by Ritchie Blackmore of Blackmore's Night called Memmingen. First introduced to me by my Uncle years ago, this band have a great old/medieval sound, with a few albums now, this by far though was my favourite tune. So in the spirit of share and share alike i've recorded myself playing this on the SoundCloud, enjoy!

Daniel Maclean - Memmingen

Jedi Robots

2011-05-11T20:24:00.000+01:00

One step closer to having your own General Grievous attack the next door neighbour's cat with light sabers:

http://www.shortlist.com/cool-stuff/gadgets/jedi-robots#image-rotator-1

MC Escher Impossible Waterfall Made Possible

2011-04-30T11:53:00.000+01:00

This is very cool, illusion is of course made clear during the video:

Puppy Kiri

2011-04-29T17:17:00.001+01:00

Puppy Kiri, originally uploaded by Daniel Maclean.

Taking photos of animals is difficult at the best of times, but a young puppy is near impossible. Even if conditions are just right and you have the shot all it takes is for a needle to drop and it's gone...

Thankfully she sat still just long enough so I could capture this shot. You can actually see me if you look closely enough at her eyes :-)

Leaves & Soft Light

2011-04-25T12:25:00.001+01:00

Leaves & Soft Light, originally uploaded by Daniel Maclean.