snocrash Posted October 17, 2015 Posted October 17, 2015 Here's a few little tips I discovered about using the OpenELEC VMs. In short, the built-in templates CAN work flawlessly, but you have to be very careful how you connect everything up and how you boot up. I now have three simultaneous OE VMs running, with a centralized MySQL DB for the library, which is hosted on a Debian VM. It all finally works. I've had a TON of very frustrating inconsistencies with my OpenElec VMs not starting up properly, and I have been chasing my tail trying to figure out what was wrong. I could start one, but not another. After reboot, one that used to work no longer worked. I ASSumed the issue was the video card passthrough, and I even went on a wild tangent resetting all my storage devices to see if that was the problem. It wasn't. Point #1 - All your home theater gear has to be on first! In my initial setup and testing, I created three OpenElec VMs, with their own video cards. I wanted to start them all up, do my configurations, then deploy them to the TVs in my house. But I don't have all three TVs set up yet, and my test bench was set up with one screen only. I just ASSumed I could start each one up, switch the HDMI cable between the three, and test/configure. This created chaos, because only the active/plugged in VM would launch - the others would fail. Or more precisely - they are waiting. OpenELEC will pause the boot up if all the HDMI handshaking doesn't work from the beginning. If your receiver is off, OpenELEC will "start", but will not actually finish booting, or load up Kodi. I discovered this when I started my VM from the web console, and waited for the Kodi Remote app to pick up the IP for that VM. The VM never appeared, never got an IP, and appeared to be stuck. I went to the TV is was connected to, turned ON my receiver, and suddenly that VM finished its boot and worked perfectly. I've had all these issues because I never tested the full setup at once, with all the TVs and receivers connected and running until now. Point #2 - Not all connections will work! Here's another ugly discovery I made. If I connect my video card direct to a receiver, and even direct to a TV with an HDMI cable, things work just fine. However, I am not having much luck using HDMI splitters and switches. In one of my setups, I have an HDMI cable running from the video card direct to an HDMI switch (the other port is my cable box). The switch only shows a blank screen on the OpenELEC input. I hate, hate, hate HDMI for this and I wish I understood more about why these kinds of things dont work. HDCP and EDID are soooo frustrating. Point #3 - HDBASET works just fine I can confirm that HDBASET works great. I am using the Monoprice sender unit, and the Monoprice wall mount receiver unit (at the TV). I have connected the video card to a receiver with HDMI-out (and audio diverted to TV instead of speakers). The receiver HDMI-out pipes in to the HDBASET transmitter, and is sent along its way via CAT6. The CAT6 run is about 60-70' in-wall and connects to the receiver unit (wall mounted behind the TV). That HDMI out can go direct to the TV, or instead, I've run it through a splitter which passes the HDMI out, and splits off a TOSLINK connection for a sound bar. The result is 5.1 audio to the soundbar, and HDMI picture to the TV.
goober07 Posted October 17, 2015 Posted October 17, 2015 Thanks for sharing. I've scratched my head and postponed openelec entirely... Looking back, I might have run into this
killeriq Posted November 30, 2016 Posted November 30, 2016 Would like to get some advise I have Zyxel NAS + Android TV (Minix x8), but wanted to have AIO device so ive got ASROCK-J4205 mainboard 16GB ram. Will do such setup but only with 1x OpenElec / LibreElec I also have reciever + projector via HDMI cable. Just want to clarify that if i have unRAID installed on baremetal then using one of the "Pre-Packed VMs" OpenElec / LibreElec. Does it start automatically (via some setting) and show the picture on the Projector via HDMI cable also with full HD sound support ? Like when i would boot directly from OpenElec / LibreElec installation? Or are there some issues with display/sound which could i face? I assume that unRAID will run 24/7 only with some HDD spindown or maybe a standby mode of whole unraid. Will be a small PC in living room with no monitor connected, just in evenings Projector (via HDMI/reciever). Still in a state when in deciding about: - OpenMediaVault (seems fine for NAS but probably i need other hypervisor to run OpenElec somehow, then passthrough HDDs and such issues) - FreeNAS (its free but more HW intense - but seems it has Docker and VMs options as unRAID) - unRAID (not free, but seems very responsive, tons of good plugins and so far i like it ) Thanks
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