MediaBox Blog

Automatic provisioning for Grandstream phones from FreePBX.

ceri — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:17:31 +0000

I have been in the process of implementing Asterisk into my home entertainment system so that caller id can be seen when watching TV, the ability to answer incoming calls and even make outgoing calls via MediaBox.

But before doing all that I had never come across asterisk in my various undertakings in the past so I thought it would be a good idea to get used to how it works and how to setup a VoIP system. Since this was something that had been on the cards for a while at work, I volunteered to do it.

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

The latest developments in HTPC

ceri — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 10:49:15 +0000

Introduction

HTPC, or "Home Theatre Personal Computer", describes a personal computer that is, as the name suggests, integrated with a home theatre, or entertainment, system. Essentially, an HTPC can allow access to video content, TV, music and the Internet from a single, centralised location and replace your CD player, DVD player, Freeview box, etc. with a single device. You can buy an HTPC, ready built, from a manufacturer or retailer, or, if you have sufficient expertise, you can build one yourself, from scratch. Do bear in mind, however, that an HTPC is unlike a typical desktop PC in many ways and a typical desktop PC lacks the hardware and software necessary for it to operate successfully as an HTPC.

HTPC Requirements

Basically, a typical HTPC requires a decent processor, such as Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, with a clock speed of 2.4GHz, or faster, 1GB or 2GB of RAM and a hard drive, preferably SATA ("Serial Advanced Technology Attachment"), with a capacity of at least 500 GB. Above and beyond that, however, it also requires a video card and sound card capable of playing back video and audio of the required quality and a capture card, such as a TV tuner card.

Connectivity is also an important issue. A typical desktop PC is designed to direct video and audio output to a monitor and speakers, via VGA, or DVI, for example, but an HTPC is designed to integrate directly with home entertainment components, such as HDTV and digital surround sound systems.. As such, an HTPC typically features the latest, all-digital, HDMI ("High Definition Multimedia Interface") which is capable of transmitting uncompressed digital video and audio, including up to 8 channel digital surround sound, in a single cable.

A TV tuner card is a card that is installed internally in an HTPC, or connected externally, via a USB port and allows television signals to be received. There are several different types of TV tuner cards available, depending on the type of television programming that you want to watch. Analogue TV tuner cards, for example, support connection to an RF aerial for terrestrial programming, while digital TV tuner cards allow Freeview channels to be received additionally and satellite TV tuner cards do away with a set-top box altogether, allowing a viewing card to be inserted into the TV tuner card, itself.

Aside from TV, an HTPC can, of course, function as a Blu-ray and/or divx dvd player, DVR and media server.

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

NVIDIA VDPAU now working under MythTV

ceri — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:56:12 +0000

For those of you out there with PureVideo enabled Nvidia video cards, you will be happy to know that MythTV now has direct support for the new VDPAU API supplied with the Nvidia binary drivers. Well what does this mean you may ask. Well a great deal, you should now be able to watch 1080p HD content with ease since most of the decoding work will be done by the GPU.

Lets all just hope that AMD will supply details of their AMDXvBA library shortly so the same thing can be achieved for us AMD users out there.

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

HOWTO: Compiling and running radeonhd with HDMI audio support

ceri — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:17:58 +0000

If you read my previous article, MediaBox has switched to the radeonhd driver you would realise that MediaBox is now running using the radeonhd driver instead of the AMD Catalyst fglrx driver. In this article I will explain how to get the radeonhd master source code, apply the HDMI Audio patch from Christian König, build and install the driver and finally edit the xorg.conf to enable HDMI audio. Before I start though I would like to give a big thanks to Christian for his hard work in creating the patch for the open source community.

Edit:

Since writing this article, the HDMI audio patch from Christian has now been merged to master. I have now edited the article so that there is no need to apply any patches.

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

MediaBox has switched to the radeonhd driver

ceri — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:22:53 +0000

As some of you may already know AMD/ATI are releasing documentation for their GPU's to the public. What this means to you and me is that the open source community can now write a fully functional open source driver. We no longer have to rely on the buggy Catalyst drivers, even though AMD have gone to great lengths to improve the fglrx driver in past months.

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

AMD Catalyst 8.9 Released

ceri — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:39:32 +0000

For those of you who are having HDMI audio issues with the RS780, you will be happy to know that AMD have released the Catalyst 8.9 drivers which has a fix HDMI audio (among many others).

You can find the x86 version here http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/linux/linux-radeon.html

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

Controlling MediaBox / PC with your PSP

admin — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:19:40 +0000

I had been playing with the idea of controlling the MediaBox using my PSP for some time now. So I sat down and decided to take the plunge and give it a go. And this is what I have so far

Download PSP Remote v0.1

Original post blogged on b2evolution.

HOWTO: Audio over HDMI with the HD3200 \ RS780 in Ubuntu

admin — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:05:00 +0000

For sometime I had trouble trying to get audio working over the HDMI port. I finally managed to get it working. I'm not sure if this is because of the latest ATI Catalyst 8.7 drivers or if it was something I had missed in the past.

Original post blogged on b2evolution.