June 10, 201016 yr Pop along to the XBMC IRC channel and ask for Ninja wiki status. Then stick all the good info on it for others. Nice one
June 14, 201016 yr if you have a nvidia/nvidia ion based mb, make sure that you use the xbmcfreaks live version - it will save you time on setup. Tony
June 16, 201016 yr if you have a nvidia/nvidia ion based mb, make sure that you use the xbmcfreaks live version - it will save you time on setup. Tony Amen. Runs great on my AsRock ION 330. I over clocked mine to 2.1 with a simple Bios change. Runs great 720/1080 rips and Audio sounds great via my Optical and HDMI. If you get any shuttering or other annoyances http://www.xbmc.org has a great source of users that will point you in the right direction. I had a shuttering for some odd reason and I grabbed a text file that was a quick script and it checked my TV and made sure that the refresh rate mached my tv to the AsRock and wham fixed and I couldn't be happier.
June 16, 201016 yr Since my unraid server and my theater are far apart I invested in an Asrock ION-330 just so I could play with it. I have come to realize that my real love is puttering around! I did the live install to a partition of the Asrock's hdd. XBMClive is the default Grub choice so when I start the machine it goes to XBMC. One partition has Win XP (1 of 3) as I thought I might do XBMC on that, and another partition (2 of 3) has a full Ubuntu install; neither have XBMC. I use the full Ubuntu if I have to modify things on the XBMClive partition. I set it (Ubuntu) to allow root login and I can see the XBMC partition under "Places" and can modify it as needed with no problems from Ubuntu. I also have a Dune player. the Dune has a slight advantage over XBMC in that it plays the True HD and Master Audio bitstreams, i.e. it sends them on to the A/V Processor. I am controlling both the Dune and the XBMC completrely over TCP/IP. On the Dune I am doing some alpha testing of the TCP/IP for incorporation in their standard product, hopefully this month. Does everything I want, Dune and XBMC over HTTP. I need to look into the Overclocking the Asrock, but am a little concerned about heat as the Asrock is in a cabinet with minimal ventilation. It is only on when the system is in use; the Theater control system handles that and spinning up unRaid If I am going to watch a movie. Appreciate comments on overclocking and heat issues. I assume the bios change is fairly obvous.
June 16, 201016 yr Yeah when you hit the Bios there is a setting that says something like Clock speed or something like that. You click on it and there is a setting for 1.6Ghz or 2.1Ghz. Machine boots and your off. I have mine in a cabinet too and I've been running it easily for 6 or so months now and then and it hasn't shown any problems. My cabinet doesn't have a back on it and the front of it has a mesh looking panel across it so air does enter, but no real fans or anything of the sort other than what the AsRock has in it. I also use the old school Xbox remote and dongle along with a USB to Xbox remote adapter along with LIRC in linux setup as a generic adapter and generic remote and it works perfectly.
June 17, 201016 yr Asrock did a nice job on the bios for the clock change. In fact the entire bios is done well. I think they aimed the Asrock ION-330 xxx to be "the" platform of choice for the XBMC system. In my opinion they came pretty close. It is pretty appliance like as a piece of hardware and loading an OS based on Ubuntu (Full or XBMC live) is actually trivial. About as hard as installing unraid.
June 17, 201016 yr I immediately removed the 320GB HD and dropped in an OCZ vertex, then XBMC. Boots up very fast. Faster then any other media box I own. I absolutely love it. Once the hard drive was swapped, it was quiet enough to put in my bedroom for my nighttime music.
June 29, 201016 yr I also have a Dune player. the Dune has a slight advantage over XBMC in that it plays the True HD and Master Audio bitstreams, i.e. it sends them on to the A/V Processor. Even though I have never heard of XBMC bitstreaming HD audio (maybe can on Windows version with new ATI card), but I will admit that I enjoy the full sound of Blu Rays using my ION XBMCbuntu setup. I use AnyDVD HD to unlock the Blu Rays, then I use eac3to to rip the Blu Ray to a mkv. During this process DTS HD tracks are turned into 8 channel FLAC because XBMC can't decode those tracks. LPCM and Dolby True HD tracks are left alone (in a .ts container) because they are decoded perfectly by XBMC. The combined effect is when I play my Blu Ray rips from my Unraid box through XBMC I get the full sound, full picture, and even 24hz support. If only I could automate ripping disks I would be in heaven. Guides I use to achieve all this: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=74778 http://www.curtpalme.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17002 http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=70068 I immediately removed the 320GB HD and dropped in an OCZ vertex, then XBMC. Boots up very fast. Faster then any other media box I own. I absolutely love it. Once the hard drive was swapped, it was quiet enough to put in my bedroom for my nighttime music. Amen. I love a Vertex in my HTPC. it boot so fast it feels like an appliance! The best tech investment I have made in years was adding OCZ Vertexs to my most used machines. My netbook feels like a real notebook!
June 29, 201016 yr This is not my area of XBMC expertise but I can say for sure that XBMC on linux can play an HD mkv tagged with DTS-HD. Now I cannot say if it played this actual stream or if there were other in in the container it could use, so just some info.
June 30, 201016 yr This is not my area of XBMC expertise but I can say for sure that XBMC on linux can play an HD mkv tagged with DTS-HD. Now I cannot say if it played this actual stream or if there were other in in the container it could use, so just some info. It just plays the DTS Core, not the DTS-HD track. At the moment, there is no (opensource) library available that will decode DTS-HD (MA) to LPCM. You can only bitstream it to your receiver, if it is supported. Edit: Bitstreaming HD audio requires a "Protected Audio Path", that is only available under Windows Vista/7 and standalone mediaplayers. Secondly, it requires compatible hardware, like the Clarkdale i3/i5/i6 iGPU, the new Radeon HD5xxx or specialized audio cards from Auzentech/Asus. Dolby TrueHD is the exception here, where there's an excellent open source decoder available that will "unpack" the lossless compressed audio stream into lossless LPCM. This is available under Linux and Windows, and can be had on more systems (ION, Radeon HD 4xxx). These systems can, of course, also play LPCM soundtracks, which would be the same as unpacking the compressed lossless stream, but requires much more space. I stepped away from XBMC Live with an ION system, to a Clarkdale i3 + Windows 7 + XBMC DSPlayer, to be able to bitstream audio to my very capable audio system
June 30, 201016 yr Good to know. I have long since bowed out of the "this format and number of channels" is better rat race.
June 30, 201016 yr Good to know. I have long since bowed out of the "this format and number of channels" is better rat race. ha! I'm still SD with two channel audio. I do not care all that much.
June 30, 201016 yr Yeah last OT comment on the matter... I can tell the difference on my mates reference system but only in a side by side comparison. Until DTS-HD-Uber comes out with a free ear upgrade or that ever crucial forehead and rear ear addition Im happy with anything DolbyD or above
August 19, 201015 yr Has anyone followed up on the Linux True -HD Audio bit? I got rid of all windows os in the house. I would hate to go back. I wonder if MAC can play it? Come here little imac....I mean hackinTosh.
August 19, 201015 yr Has anyone followed up on the Linux True -HD Audio bit? I got rid of all windows os in the house. I would hate to go back. I wonder if MAC can play it? Come here little imac....I mean hackinTosh. I'm not sure, but I think that that there's a Linux library shipped with XBMC that decodes Dolby True HD to LPCM (7.1), so it's not bitstreaming, but lossless nonetheless. However, such library is not available for DTS-HD (MA) and it seems unlikely that'll happen anytime soon. You could, of course, convert those tracks to LPCM yourself. Looking at my current bluray library, only 25-30% is Dolby True HD, while only 1-2% is LCPM (originally), and the rest is DTS-HD. I don't know if the Dolby TrueHD decode library is available for Mac, but with the recent Mac Mini's with HDMI, LPCM over HDMI is certainly possible.
August 20, 201015 yr However, such library is not available for DTS-HD (MA) and it seems unlikely that'll happen anytime soon. You could, of course, convert those tracks to LPCM yourself. That is what I do. I convert every Blu Ray to a large mkv with 8 channel FLAC.
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