Blu-ray for your HTPC

[NLS]

MediaPortal is open source.

I too am not an open source freak, it is really something important in (the geek part of) our planet, but sometimes (and again -unfortunately- MediaPortal comes to mind) it just SLOWS down things (yes slows down, not accelerates).

 

In MP since I gave it as example, at one time they decided to scrap the old buggy main menu setup mechanism (that DID have good functionality though) and start over. ONE YEAR LATER while the whole other project has moved greatly, I am still waiting for the ability to really configure the menus (the actual front end! what is more important in an HTPC?) at least as I did before they scrapped the old code. You'd say: Why don't you code it? (the "easy" but VERY offensive reply of the "common coder") Well I don't have the time and the last time I was involved in programming (it is how I started with computer btw), was maybe 15 years ago.

 

You see since such projects are build in the free time of most the programmers involved, sometimes you wait for parts of code for months.

Then if TOO many are involved, management and "fitting" of all those parts becomes an issue.

 

Linux is an example that worked well. I can give you many that didn't.

If directx was open source it wouldn't be directx 10.1, it would possibly be beta 0.1232.66 and you'd have to keep visiting a site to keep on top of updates. Ah and you'd never be with the "big players" (read: nVidia and AMD/ATI) that now actually MAKE their hardware to fit DX/D3D (just see how bad opengl is implemented in some of their products).

 

(To return to my previous post) To me having to choose a card (say a new hybrid card) not because it is the one I like, but because it has driver for the OS I want is a big limitation already. Also to look to the community to provide me with that driver (and not the actual company that MAKES the hardware), again is not too great in my mind.

 

Anyway. To each his own as you said.

 

 

 

 

[BLKMGK]

Well, in the case of XBMC it's not slowed things at all. The interface can be skinned, it can be customized, and they are working pretty hard at driving bugs out of it. There is one bug that I'm waiting a bit to be fixed I'll admit but it's getting attention which is more than I can say for bugs I run across in other things. I agree that the "fix it yourself" response is an irritating one and I've heard it before. Finding examples of abandoned projects is easy, I've given an example of one that is working well

 

As for a "special" video card I'm not sure what you are talking about. Both AMD\ATI and NVIDIA build binary drives for Linux, in fact I'm running the latest NVIDIA driver on an 8600GT video card. I could have used any of the 8K series cards, 7K cards, or even 6K. There's support for Intel video chipsets too but honestly they are pretty darned weak. ATI\AMD drivers could also use a little work but well who's surprised? Folks are using cards from all three manufacturers though. Who's card did you want to use I've not listed? Several of the onboard solutions from those companies work well too. Wikipedia can tell you which cards support which version of OpenGL to find one compatible but my card cost like $70 and I'm pretty happy with it. <shrug>

 

Really it comes down to personal choice. Many people liked XBMC on the XBOX hardware - it's now grown up for other OS and it's just as good an interface with HD capability. Plays most anything I throw at it and anything I download. It can act as a front end for Myth if I ran it, there are plans to support other kinds of video streams too - Shoutcast is already supported for audio. It pulls DVD\movie covers, Music covers, displays pics, it's a pretty nice multimedia front end IMO! When the Python scripts are working it will pull down Apple trailers like it does on XBOX, who knows what wil be added - much like MCE add-ons. Some of the skins are pretty wild too but I still with the default one <shrug>

 

Anyway, happy to answer questions about it. There's a USB distro coming along well, stay tuned for that!

[Equilibrium]

This is somewhat off topic and random, but I was wondering if you knew the answer to this, BLKMGK. Are the DVD covers on XBMC for linux saved onto a local disk, or is it saved on the specific networked path, or is it not saved at all/pulled from an online source every time?

 

 

[BLKMGK]

The covers are placed into a database locally to the machine running the software. Database being a loose term since I think the covers are saved as individual files and just referenced through a database. It's possible to copy data files from an XBOX and use them in the Linux version. There are XML setup files for pathing and other things that also transfer over just fine. Note that the files for the covers etc. do not retain names that make it easy to figure out which movie they are for. DVD Profiler covers can be used however with say the My Movies plug-in for MCE so probably can be used for other things too. DVD Profiler rocks!

[crankbearing]

Ok so I have been investigating LinuxMCE and it has not been without a lot of reading and working different setups. Overall I really want to get this working as it integrates full home control and way easy sharing of all AV devices. Not too mention with the addition of a GC100 you can control IR, RS232, 12V contact relays etc all from a gyro remote, universal remote, pda, blue tooth phone etc... these are all just from reading as I have not installed a quarter of the features and like the ports of XBMC they are not withour bugs etc... I think my bugs are from my lack of Linux experience, I knew I should have stuck with my slackware red_hat distro from 15 years ago, I would not be trying to cram this stuff in my brain now.

 

Anyhow, has ANYONE played with this at all. I have it the hybrid up and running - you have a basically two subnets. One being your DHCPd existing to the LinuxMCE box being server from a router for internet access etc... and then on the other nic card in the hybrid you have linuxMCE core as a firewall and a dhcp server for all the devices you plug into the core side of the server and they are on a separate sub-net and ip stack of course.

 

I have been mucking about with this all day trying to get the core to access the NAS (Unraid) on my external lan which would be the lan group server by the router or my existing lan and having no luck. I know this is way off topic for this group but I was hopeing that someone may have played aroung with this as well.

 

Thanks,

 

Dave

[BLKMGK]

VOB/IFO playback is WORKING!!!

 

Menus don't seem to be, at least on this movie, and neither is chapter skipping, but it WORKS for playback. This was like one of the LAST things I needed for XBMC to have fixed on Linux to become fully functional - this rox!

[RockDawg]

OK you got me hooked BLKMGK!  I've got the XBMC linux port up and running on my desktop PC to check it out.  Do you happen to know where I can download a small BluRay rip sample?  I'm not looking to pirate a full movie or anything.  I just want to see what a sample BR rip looks like and what the file sturcture is.  I'm talking about a straight BR rip not H264 or some other kind of re-encode because if I go this route I will only do full uncompressed rips (like I do with DVDs). 

[BLKMGK]

No, not sure where to find that and if it maintains the structure of a standard BD it won't play anyway, nothing other than a couple of BD software players for Windows can play BD disks in their native format. Now, you CAN rip a BD and not recompress it. You do lose menus and extras but the movie will be unchanged - eac3to can do this into a MKV container. Frankly, you will not see a diff in quality if you use a high enough bitrate and don't have a 20ft tall screen I sit somewhat close to a 47inch LCD and they look damned good compressed to about 50% of original size. Do realize that BD movies can be pretty danged big uncompressed - but sometimes they are fairly small. People making these things do some pretty screwy stuff! there's no one DVDShrink process to do this either, you get used to it though. Doing an HD-DVD tonight actually...

[RockDawg]

So you mean I can't just "rip" a BR the same way I can "rip" a DVD?  I mean exactly as it is on the disc.  No menus are fine by me as I've always ripped my DVDs "movie only".  I don't need any of the menus or extras, but I want full video and, especially, audio quality to be retained.

[BLKMGK]

Nope not quite the same way. you CAN retain all of the audio and if you want retain the same encoding movie only though. eac3to will pull the vid into a MKV container and the audio into a seperate file - just use MKVmerge to put the audio into the MKV file and you're done. VC1 doesn't always encode perfectly on XBMC supposedly but I recode everything to H.264 so I don't ever see issues - H.264 and MPEG are damned good. I usually keep 5.1 sound in AC3 format but you can do true-HD and others - depends on what your receiver can handle. Oh and some CODECS have too high a bitrate for SPID/f and must be done via HDMI (raw uncompresed) but Linux doesn't support audio over HDMI just yet. 5.1 AC3 rox IMO, many movies have this natively... The eac3to thread on Doom9 will have LOTS of information for you  if you want more on audio formats etc.

[RockDawg]

What is the file structure of an "mkv"?  Can they be scanned into XBMC's video library?

[BLKMGK]

MKV is a container format - Matroska. Yes, scans just fine into the XBMC library as does AVI and MPEG and MP4 etc. - no problem

[RockDawg]

So it's a single file like an avi?

 

[BLKMGK]

Yup, single file - is how many shows are distributed via Torrent actually. It can handle subtitles, multiple sound tracks, and chapters - the Anime guys love it.

[RockDawg]

Cool! I wish could download a sample.

[BLKMGK]

Sample MKV? Hit up most any Torrent site! There's a link to a sample on the XBMC forums called the Bird Clip but it's insanely demanding to play and is a test clip. To play that without dropping frames requires a pretty beefy box! You'll never really see one that crazy in "the wild" or likely encode one like that. VERY demanding scene and that clip was done with a super high bitrate....

[jimwhite]

can you point us to the Bird Clip, I couldn't find it....

 

[BLKMGK]

http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=32656&highlight=killasample

 

Ought to help :-)

[jimwhite]

thanks 

 

[smino]

What are the better PC Blue rayplayers ? Firmware version?

Fastest for ripping Blu-Ray to HD?

Fastest for burning dvd,cd's?

Any drives to avoid?

 

 

[jdubs]

What are the better PC Blue rayplayers ? Firmware version?

Fastest for ripping Blu-Ray to HD?

Fastest for burning dvd,cd's?

Any drives to avoid?

 

 

 

smino, I use the LG H20L with great success.  It's read everything I've thrown at it and it's priced well ($100 or so). 

 

Jim

[smino]

Does it burn well as well?

[jdubs]

smino, its burned everything I've thrown at it (dvds and cds) very well. 

 

-Jim