Emily on the phone April 30, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : emily , 1 comment so farEmily is pretty good at having conversations on the phone now. She got confused today because Bree picked her up instead of me. Bree put her on the phone and she asked where I was and seemed relieved to hear that I wasn’t at kindy. She deduced that I was at work and asked if I could come home soon. She even asked me if I could give her a cuddle when I got home.
Playing in the park April 30, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , add a commentI took the kids to the park on the weekend. On Saturday we started out in the field near the house. We threw the ball around for a bit then we walked down a path we found. It went along beside the road (on the other side of a concrete wall). It was bushy and we saw birds and a butterfly. We walked back to the car and Emily wanted to go to the other park. There’s 2 parks nearby that we’ve gone to so I drove to one of them but it was the wrong one. Since I was a bit bored of the other one I figured I’d try to find another one. I was pretty sure we had another one not too far away from when we looked at houses around there.
I found the Alexander Clark park. It was new, big and plenty of fun for the kids. In fact, it was so good we went back on Sunday with Bree. We found that it’s not even just one park. There’s 3 sets of play equipment and the space itself is quite a bit bigger than that with something like 5 barbeque areas (could have been more, we just drove around). They even have a fenced off area there for people to go with their dogs (off leash).
On the way home we found two more parks. That’s 5 parks all within 5 minutes of driving. I guess that’ll keep the kids going for a while ;)
Isaac gets the idea of throwing a ball but he can’t really do much more than dropping it. Nevertheless, he was delighted when he picked up the ball and “threw” it to me. We did have some sharing issues but that was mostly from Emily. She didn’t seem to understand that the point wasn’t to get the ball and hold onto it.
Jesus says hi April 30, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : Uncategorized , add a commentHeh. I just got SPAM from Jesus, though I suspect he’s forged his headers because I would have expected him to be using something like jesus@heaven.com instead of some made-up or non-English name at ccamacho.com (looks like some idiot with a hacked Windows system).
Of course, I’d also expect Jesus to send his message in text and/or HTML, not just a gif file attached to the message.
MythTV finaly works April 25, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : mythtv , add a commentHooray! I finally got it to work.
It all started a short while ago. Although I was trying to get the most recent version of KnoppMyth going, the GPL bit me and despite much struggling, I was unable to get TV-out working. So I followed the instructions here. Note that the akamai link is dead. I used Google to find the install note that lives next to the rpm, modified the URL and manually and downloaded it that way (it was also an akamai link, just a bit different). Unfortunately, AMD/ATI no longer hosts that particular file so if you’ve got an older ATI card, it’s going to get hard to get the right driver.
While I’m here, I’ll take a moment to whinge about the comments on that page. It says that releases after 8.20.8 contain a crippling bug in the TV-out support (which was fixed after 8.28.8, the last release to support the 8500) but it doesn’t describe the bug at all. Short of downloading a newer release and attempting to install it, I can’t see how I’m supposed to find out what this “bug” is.
So the other missing component arrived yesterday. It’s a VisionPlus VisionDTV Ter PCI card, apparently a rebadged Twinham part. The first thing I noticed (to my dismay) was the lack of an aerial output. Splitting an aerial cable 4 ways won’t do nice things to the signal quality. Pass-through may lose some quality but at least it remains useful (I should know, I’ve got one aerial cable going through 4 devices before it hits the TV, which can still receive analogue reception fine (or as fine as you can these days). I’ll have a look around, I think I saw a signal booster device once with multiple outputs on it.
Strangely enough, tuner cards come with entirely separate USB remote dongles. I suppose you’re going to want one if you have the other but they’re not tied together at all. I found a configuration file for the dongle that came with my card. It seems to work but there’s no MythTV presets for it so I’m going to have to map the buttons to MythTV functions. Worse, MythTV doesn’t seem to understand modality so it might be hard to make all the buttons act in a useful way. Since I’m planning on getting more tuner cards, I’ll end up with more remotes so a different one may prove to be better.
I assembled all the components and booted up the system. I used the instructions here to get MythTV up and fix up the guide data. I can now watch live tv via MythTV.
There’s some problems yet though:
1) TV-out isn’t running at “native” resolution (which I’d prefer) and isn’t overscanning (which is annoying).
2) TV-out doesn’t include the “widescreen” marker so while I can get X to scale the content properly, my TV thinks the signal is 4:3 and scales it again (stretching some bits to make it fill the screen without looking overly distorted). I can force the use of native widescreen but that will ruin the display of the other input sources.
3) 80% CPU overhead during playback. This is what I’d expect from the open source driver (which has no MPEG2 acceleration). The binary driver is supposed to accelerate MPEG2 but then I’ve read that Xv (the way it accelerates MPEG2) isn’t usually supported on the TV-out port. Dumb. Perhaps a better option would be to create a VGA to component/S-Video/composite cable and just use the VGA output.
Here’s some more thoughts on video cards:
1) I have a Matrox G400 which can use a binary driver to accelerate MPEG2 playback. No TV-out but a VGA to component/S-Video/composite cable can be used.
2) A cheap NVidia card (GeForce FX 5200) will work with the latest software and has working MPEG2 playback.
As to KnoppMyth… I can see myself building a distro from scratch or at least starting from something else. Unless I upgrade to more modern hardware I’m going to need lots of tweaks to ensure my system doesn’t slow down, especially if I can’t get the MPEG2 acceleration going.
When the GPL bites April 21, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : mythtv , add a commentBugger. The lack of API/binary compatibility combined with a lack of support for old hardware in ATI’s proprietary driver means that I’m stuck. I have 2 options.
1) I can go back to an older version of KnoppMyth that the ATI drivers will actually install on and then avoid upgrading the kernel (which will break the binary driver). It might be a worthwhile solution right now but I just know that sooner or later I’m going to be required to update the kernel and at that point I’ll be screwed.
2) Apply a patch to the xorg radeon driver to support TV output.
Of course, number 2 seems like a better long term solution but then it’s also the reason I’m writing this post. You see, the TV output support comes from the GATOS project, which released it’s code under the GPL. As a result, the code cannot be distributed with xorg. This also means that when the xorg folks update their driver the code gets harder and harder to patch in. Sure, it’ll never _quite_ be as bad as the situation with the proprietary driver but it’s a major hassle.
Update 22 April 2007
I tried #2 first. I’ve banged my head against the wall time and time again. The best picture I can get is whatever KnoppMyth sets up but it’s out of sync so while I can see that there’s something there, I can’t tell what it is.
I’m all set now to try #1 but it’s late.
Actually… there is another possibility and that’s going from the VGA port to the component input on my TV but I’d have to pay for a cable to get that going (and if I was going for that solution I’ve got 2 other video cards that would be possibilities too). My boss reckons that there should be no less than 10 cheap NVidia cards (fx5200 spec) between the guys at work and that someone is bound to give one to me. If I don’t get this damn video card going tomorrow, that’s what I’ll be aiming for.
MythTV progress April 19, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : mythtv , add a commentI’m currently sitting on my couch using my Myth box. It’s hooked up to the TV and thanks to a USB extension cable I had lying around, they keyboard reaches over here.
I’m not typing this on the Myth box though. It’s not quite ready for that.
Because the mirror I downloaded KnoppMyth from was waaay out of date, I installed an ancient version. I’m downloading the current version now and hopefully it’ll work a bit better than the last one did.
In the mean time I’ve installed the ATI drivers for Windows (I took a _virgin_ 98 box online!) and I’ve got it running relatively nicely through the TV.
Buy a Mac, they just work! April 19, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : computers , add a commentSo I’ve got an iMac that’s been sitting around for a few years now. It’s pretty much destined to be a kids computer.
I’m posting this from it, connected wirelessly from the garage. It took me less than 5 minutes to install the Airport card, boot the machine and get online. If only I’d forgone the lure of 802.11g when I first moved out here, I might have enjoyed the same ease of setup and stability I’m enjoying now. Instead, I got a non-Apple card and spent lots of time fixing the wireless link. Of course, I thought I was getting something different than what I actually got (damn manufacturers that re-use model numbers for different hardware) but the point still remains; If I’d purchased an Airport card I would have had no problems (ok, one minor problem, not using the Mac case, I didn’t have an aerial cable but you can buy those).
I don’t have a spare Airport card, the one I’m using came from Bree’s iBook (which is dying and will soon need to be replaced). I just figure that one cord (power) is enough for the kids to watch out for. Having to also deal with network cable would be painful, especially if we wanted to move the machine around. There’s power outlets all over the house but not network points.
Anyway, it’s good to know that this machine is still so useful after all this time. Other than kiddie games, it will probably run a MythTV front end (forums indicate it’s iffy under Mac OS X but fine under PPC linux). That’ll mean they won’t have to deal with DVDs and they’ll be able to enjoy their shows without disturbing us and hogging the TV.
Counting the days until my MythTV box is done April 18, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : mythtv , add a commentIt’s official. I’m building a MythTV box. I snapped up a bargain price on a TV capture card (on eBay) so I now have (or will, once the card arrives) all the parts I need.
I doubt it’ll be hard to convince Bree that we should just spend the $500 it’ll take to turn it into a replacement for all our current TV stuff once I get it up and running.
Update 18 April 2007
Ugh.
I’ve been trying to put together the box. It had everything in it except for the Radeon (which needs to be reflashed anyway). I removed some useless PCI cards to make way for the tuners. Booted it and it was all good.
So then I realised that to flash my Radeon I’d need a PCI video card. Who has one of those anymore! Luckily, I had a Matrox Millenium card that I bought years ago to run an old SyncOnGreen monitor, originally used by seven before I made it work headless. I got it for almost nothing at a clearance auction and it was actually quite impressive compared to what I had available at the time. It was a 21″ tube that could handle 1280×1024. It’s biggest downfall? SyncOnGreen. Seven was designed to drive that particular monitor so it could handle it without a problem but PC video cards aren’t designed to run SyncOnGreen monitors. However, the Matrox Millenium was capable of driving a SyncOnGreen monitor. The driver didn’t expose this but there was a buffer overflow you could exploit somewhere to cause the support to get turned on. Rather convoluted and totally useless when not running Windows but it let me use a big monitor with good resolution.
So one of the things that the Matrox Millenium could do is dual card stuff. However, it was doing this back before PCs were designed to handle more than one video card at a time so you had to disable the VGA part of the second card with a dip switch. I _finally_ remembered that after spending ages trying to get the damn machine to boot with the Millenium as the primary card!
Update 19 April 2007
Well… that was quick. And uneventful. I went to copy files to the floppy disk that had been sitting in the machine only to realise that it was the same floppy disk I’d used when I first flashed the card! I booted from it, flashed the PAL 250/250 bios and it was all over in a matter of seconds. Time to get KnoppMyth going I think…
Update 19 April 2007
While I was burning the KnoppMyth CD I booted the Linux that happened to be on my machine. It was CenOS 4. It identified my video card as a Radeon 8500 LE (it’s an OEM one but that’s the same as the LE) and got X running without any hassles. Nice!
I’m currently installing KnoppMyth over the CentOS partition (there’s a Windows 98 partition too but it’s got some old games I still want to play, not to mention that it’s the only system that can update my PVR). The boot messages indicate that the on-board audio works (I was using a PCI card before but I need the slots). The boot messages also indicated that the card was detected (again, as a Radeon 8500 LE). I’ve got a cable to connect it to the TV (single cable, 5 pins). Before too long I really will be hanging out for the tuner card to make the box do useful things. I put the DVD RAM drive from the Mac into the Myth box, replacing the old CD drive it had (that can’t even read CD-RW). At some point I’ll probably want to put a DVD burner in there for sending recorded shows to other people. Transfer to tape will still be possible but it’s tedious. Of course, the only DVD burner I have right now is the one in my MacBook Pro.
VMWare Boot Camp April 17, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : computers, eve, mythtv , add a commentI finally bit the bullet, ignored the unsettling warning dialog and booted my Boot Camp partition on VMWare today. So far, all seems well. I did notice that VMWare is emulating the RTC in “local time” which of course breaks the time sync feature (since Windows is expecting it to be in UTC). Sigh. At least I can get the NTP client I setup to connect over VMWare’s NAT without any hassles.
So what (I hear you ask) prompted me to finally do this? I’m preparing to build a MythTV box. I was chatting to someone who’s got one and it turns out that I already have most of the hardware I’ll need. In some cases, older hardware works better (eg. more PCI slots on older motherboards). So I’m going to use Asteria as the base with the Radeon 8500 card that’s currently in Luksusdyret. Of course, I didn’t bother to save the original 8500 BIOS before I flashed the Mac one on there (I never thought I’d need that card in a PC again) so I’ve been scouring the web to find a suitable 8500 BIOS. It turns out that nobody wants to intentionally flash a 250/250 (slow) BIOS to their cards :) Luckily I found what appears to be a good BIOS and an BIOS editor that let me set it to PAL 250/250. So with Boot Camp running in a window, I can get files between Windows and Mac really easily and prepare stuff for the flash. All I need to do now is grab Asteria, put in a PCI card (I think I’ve still got one of those) and flash away.
Of course that doesn’t quite get me a working system. That gets me a TV capable output card and a box to hold everything but I’m going to need some TV capture cards and a big hard disk. It looks like TV capture cards can be found for under $100 while a 320GB disk is about $100. Best of all, this is Linux so it won’t matter that such a huge disk is being used in such an old machine. I should have enough disk space for a test build and I’ve just downloaded KnoppMyth so the only thing I need to do now is get the hardware sorted out and get a capture card. That’s less than $100 for a system that should be pretty comparable to my current PVR for basic operation (whoa!). I’m guessing another $400 will get me a system with 320GB storage and 4 tuners. When I go for that I’ll probably also spend a bit more on case/fan/psu so that the box is quiet (how much depends on just how loud it is and how much of a problem proves to be).
A spot of gardening April 14, 2007
Posted by a1291762 in : house , add a commentJordan turned up today. He was up to help us get rid of some plants. We had these big green plants (not sure what they’re called) with really evil roots. They were so big Bree didn’t realise they were in a garden bed. Getting the leaves off was easy but the roots were thick and plentiful. They were even wrapped around the fence palings. It was slow work cutting them all off the stump then trying to rip them up before cutting them off. We didn’t get them all out but them apparently the roots will shrivel up as they dry out so cleaning them all out will be easier later.
We also did around the garage. Bree has been after me for a while to do it but it’s so scary with bugs and spiders so I’ve just left it. We cleared everything out so the space around the garage is a barren wasteland again.
Next on the list was the palms. We’ve got them in our front yard and I reckon they’re a pest. They provide a good screen but they also produce heaps of waste mass that has to be removed. When we went to the tip most of the green waste we could see was palm fronds. So the ones in my yard had started getting all clumpy. We attacked them and thinned them out a bit leaving only stumps coming out of the ground. There’s still enough palms there to keep up the screen but the bushiness that had developed is gone. We didn’t end up doing all of them though because time ran out. Jordan will be back to drop off Isaac’s bed (he’s getting Adam’s old one) so we’ll do some more in a week or two.
Eventually we’re going to just get rid of the palms but we’d rather wait until we’re not in severe drought before doing it so that the hedging plants we buy will be able to grow at bit.