Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

microft · 2006-11-12 16:51:16

Until now I used to play DIVX/XVID on my KISS DP-1000 dvd player.
But the company that makes it as stoped releasing firmwares, so new movies don't play....

So this is my idea:

Take one of the Pentium 3 computers I have around the house and make it into a Media Center (with linux).

The machine is:
Pentium 3,
384MB SDRAM
NVidia Gforce4 420
BENQ DVD recorder
20GB hardrive + 250Gb ubs Lacie HD

All the hardware I have is mounted on ATX Towers, but now I want to put it in a desktop/tabletop case. (Is it possible/compatible?)

What program should I use to play normal DVDs?

What do you think about this?

zack · 2006-11-12 18:38:51

It should work, I do something like this using an old P4 with 256 ram.
I use MPlayer for DVDs, and if you can get a cheap bt878 chipset TV tuner from ebay like I did, works fine for non-hd TV box,
mythTV is good, but if not, Just use mplayer for everything. =o

and if you're feeling adventurous, hollow out an old fat dvd player and put your parts in there~

Greycloack · 2006-11-14 14:57:07

Sound's like my system. though I have some more memory.

I have a PIII with 650MB and a geforec2. It's actually my main computer and it runs great including playing PSX games with epsxe, watching DVD's with mplayer, music MPD and regular work like OpenOffice2, firefox and running octave programs for the university....

So by using it as a jukebox/DVD player you're actually not using the whole capabilities of your computer :-)

I was very surprised of what I managed to get out of that mean machine ;-)

microft · 2006-11-14 15:53:26

At first I plan on using this machine just for Divx and DVDs.

But in the future I would like to use it for a more general usage as a PC.

My main problem at this time is that I can't seem to find a good and cheap case to put the hardware in. (I only find Media Center boxes, that cost a minimum of 100€, wich is kind of costly for me).

My main worry is: Will my nvidia output to the TV, with S-Video? I don't really know if or what I have to change in the xorg.conf to get the TV-Out capabilities to work.

ndlarsen · 2006-11-14 16:32:49

microft wrote:

My main worry is: Will my nvidia output to the TV, with S-Video? I don't really know if or what I have to change in the xorg.conf to get the TV-Out capabilities to work.

This should be doable with twinview. Read the documentation here.

microft · 2006-11-14 23:21:45

Today I made my first "test run":

Put my old Pentium III near the TV and hooked it up......

I really really love nvidia.....

I didn't have to do anything, just turn on the pc and the output goes to the tv.... even framebuffers work.

After configuring the xorg.conf as instructed in that link (thanks ndlarsen) it started almost 100%.
The only problem is that the top corners of the screen apear "slightly bent", and I don't really know why that is....
Can it be something with the VertSync and HorzSync? I haven't been able to find the official values
(TV MODEL: Sony Trinitron color tv KV-29FX11E)

Any ideas?

ndlarsen · 2006-11-14 23:40:45

Honestly, I do not know, so here is the best I can do at the moment. An unqualified guess would be that it is related to either the resolution or the sync settings.

microft · 2006-11-15 17:37:53

The current resolution is 640x480, but I've also tried 800x600.

I don't really know what VertSync and HorzSync to use.
On the back of my TV there is an indication that reads: 50Hz
but I don't know what value it refers to.

z3ppelin · 2006-11-15 18:01:15

i think it may refer to horizsync, try searching for vertsync in net

ndlarsen · 2006-11-15 18:18:54

The value from the back of your tv refers to your vertical refresh rate, VertRefresh that is. Did you use the HorizSync value from the readme I linked to? Try searching for similar tv's in order to find the correct value for HorizSync.

iphitus · 2006-11-15 23:08:28

just messed with mythtv the other day on my desktop. very cool, works really well.

James

zen_guerrilla · 2006-11-16 13:22:40

MythTV is great for watching TV, but it's not very flexible with other media -- especially with audio. Plus it's quite heavy; it makes my P4/1.8 crawl to its knees.
I use Freevo on my media center box and it works great (check my review, http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/06/19/1843205 for more info).
I've built packages for version 1.6.0 and they'd soon be in AUR. If you can't wait PM me w/ an e-mail address and I'd send you a tarball with my PKGBUILDs.

microft · 2006-12-19 16:57:11

Well, I think its time for a little update on my media center project.
The problem with the TV got solved by swapping tv's. Now I have a Thomson LCD Television with a VGA input :-D
It's been working great for a week now (since the tv came back from the store - repairs).

I was kind of proud to get a small media center working... :-) I can do anything on it.

But, because it is a Pentium III, the hardware is not very new (that means lots of fan/cooler and hard-drive noises)......

So! I'm thinking of changing the machine...... for a Xbox (not 360, plain Xbox) with linux on it of course!

What do you think about this?

ndlarsen · 2006-12-20 16:45:32

microft wrote:

So! I'm thinking of changing the machine...... for a Xbox (not 360, plain Xbox) with linux on it of course!
What do you think about this?

Actually been considering that myself lately, it is doable and not a bad idea at all. The xbox got low watage consumption and is fairly lownoise. However, depending on your location, you might want to consider the legallity of it. IIRC, the linux + xbox combo is illegal in USA (correct me if I am wrong). There are several alternatives to installing linux on an xbox, do a google and I am sure that you will find some, ...come to think about it, I think they are linux based too, might be wrong on that point, though.

microft · 2006-12-20 17:53:04

The legality of the Xbox + Linux..... I don't really care, I live in Portugal (that's in europe ) and there is no law in that area.

The Xbox doesn't come with any kind of linux, i've read its a low-grade windows...

I'm considering the Xbox just because of the noise, I want to keep it in my root, and have a hard time sleeping with the computer's noise.

Do any of you own a Xbox? Does it make a lot of noise?

ndlarsen · 2006-12-20 18:15:59

microft wrote:

The Xbox doesn't come with any kind of linux, i've read its a low-grade windows...

I was refering to the alternatives, not the xbox. Anyway, the noise output from a xbox is imo lower than any running PC I have used or seen. It should be easy to swap the fan for another, thus lowering the Db level further.

bones · 2006-12-20 20:37:14

I,ve been thinking about the xbox + Linux route myself, That being possibly illegal in the US is a joke, if you own it you should be able to do what you like.To me that's like saying you own that car but you can't put better quality rubber on to improve mileage. Don't know if it's illegal in Oz but if it is I'd like to test it in court, Might go and have a chat to the bloke next door and see what he thinks, him being a big wig lawyer, and belonging to an outlaw motorcycle club, loves nothing better than sticking it to the government

ndlarsen · 2006-12-20 22:00:11

bones wrote:

...That being possibly illegal in the US is a joke, if you own it you should be able to do what you like...

I agree but that may not be the case. If you were to buy a legal copy of windows, you are not free to do with it what you wish either, ...not that two wrongs makes a right.

Purch · 2006-12-21 07:37:56

I recommend xbox(modchip) + xbmc. It is the greatest setup. Works like a charm. Clear and nice frontend. Everything works from controller. With wlan connection even apple trailers and youtube are on tv now. It can play dvd images through samba share directly.

xbox does keep slight noise, but wont matter when audio is on. hard drive on the other hand should be the most silent one to prevent noise during writing. My friend changed the fan to a more silent one (he uses water cooling in his computer) and it was pretty easy. I dont bother with that.

If you want to play 720p clips in xbox then you should get one with 1,4GHz cpu. They can be bought, but I dont remember from where. I encode all material to 540p so that xbox can play it.

^^ not a commercial, just my love for this media center.

The_Nerd · 2006-12-21 14:50:53

Xbox plus linux IS legal in the USA... the cromwell bios is a 100% legal solution via a modchip, and the softmod's are also 100% legal as they do not allow piracy. The legality of the Xbox modding comes into question when you put something other than linux on the xbox as:

A. This then allows the booting of unsigned code which has been compiled with an XDK (none of which are legally avaiable to end users)
B. This then allows xbox game disks to be copied to the harddrive/booted off of R/RW media

Xbox media center works wonderfully, I'll say that much, but for a perfectlly legal setup you're gonna have to go the linux route. While it sounds nice, the 64mb ram limit on xbox is pretty killer when you want to have a nice looking media center. That said, I never ran linux much on my xbox, so things may have gotten better, but I never found it to be all that good.

Personally, if you can put Xbox Media Center on there, awsome, thats probably the way to go. MythTV on linux on the xbox will probably be too slow for your likeing, but I would encourage you to give it a shot if you feel so inclined!!

(I've been tinkering with xboxes for years and I've modded 7 or 8 both software and hardware so i've had a lot of time to think about this one and I am in fact building a small p3 media box, NOT using my xbox for the purpose but whatever you choose, let the forums know or post a wiki on it so others can follow!)

Edit: Yes, there were for a time xboxes with 1.4ghz cpu's in them. They are no longer avaiable. That said, there are individuals who will upgrade the ram to 128mb, but it's costly. I'll throw some links here if you'd like some more information.

microft · 2006-12-27 20:13:18

New update on my (not so little) media center adventure.
Still got the Pentium 3, working great - just a bit noisy.
The new LCD-TV is living up o the expectations.

New problem: can't get the resolution in widescreen mode. It allways defaults to the closest in 4:3.

Could it be that the graphics card it just too old? (Geforce 4 MX 420)

Also I'm getting this on /var/log/Xorg.0.log

(--) NVIDIA(0):     TTE TCL THOMSON (CRT-0)
(--) NVIDIA(0): TTE TCL THOMSON (CRT-0): 350.0 MHz maximum pixel clock

Not really sure what this is telling me.... and what I should do with it.

gradgrind · 2006-12-31 17:20:22

Here's my humble offering, which has been working pretty well here for the last week playing DVDs and music. An old Fujitsu-Siemens P3 933Mhz, 128MB RAM, Arch (larch) on compact flash (pretty quiet!), IR remote controller (simple home-made IR receiver on serial port). See:

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=28209

Arch Linux

#1 2006-11-12 16:51:16

Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#2 2006-11-12 18:38:51

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#3 2006-11-14 14:57:07

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#4 2006-11-14 15:53:26

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#5 2006-11-14 16:32:49

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#6 2006-11-14 23:21:45

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#7 2006-11-14 23:40:45

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#8 2006-11-15 17:37:53

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#9 2006-11-15 18:01:15

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#10 2006-11-15 18:18:54

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#11 2006-11-15 23:08:28

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#12 2006-11-16 13:22:40

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#13 2006-12-19 16:57:11

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#14 2006-12-20 16:45:32

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#15 2006-12-20 17:53:04

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#16 2006-12-20 18:15:59

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#17 2006-12-20 20:37:14

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#18 2006-12-20 22:00:11

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#19 2006-12-21 07:37:56

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#20 2006-12-21 14:50:53

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#21 2006-12-27 20:13:18

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

#22 2006-12-31 17:20:22

Re: Pentium 3/XBox as a (small) media center

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