2010-06-01, 06:35
I am fairly new to this world, but I am very old in the digital world (I am 70+ years; started in the digital Hardware/Software game in 1960)
I am very impressed with XBMC and this community from several standpoints. Not being vary familiar with Linux I was a little nervous but all is working out well and my slightly arthritic fingers are getting a reasonable workout from typing.
I run a high end Home Theater which has been my hobby for several years now. The theater has a 10 TB raid system with a maximum capcity of 20 TB. It is the unRaid system from limetech, but I did the build as a custom rack mount as I enjoy doing that. The main A/V processor is an Anthem AVM 50v feeding a JVC RS2 projector for a stunning 10 foot wide screen in a dedicated theater room. The sound array is a full 7.1 system at 200 watts per channel and much more for the sub.
The Theater is controlled by a dedicated PC with the user interface being a Pronto 9800. If I get the urge I will do the work to replace the Pronto with an iPAD. The control system has a complete movie librarian spanning over 500 titles (BR and DVD) based on the DVD Profiler system. I have two Players, a Dune unit which is very good, the only disk that gave it an issue is Avatar and that should be resolved this month. It properly handles True HD and Master Audio feeding them out over HDMI along with the video. The Dune player is as close to a appliance movie player I have seen. The Theater now has the XBMC as a second player and I can set which player I want to use just prior to selecting the movie to play.
Bluray rips are to the same format as a BR disk with the trailers and dire warnings removed. Same for the DVD's. All music is ripped to FLAC.
Currently my only issues on the XBMC are the inability to play True HD and Master Audio on the Video side, and Multichannel (Greater than 2) FLAC on the music side. It handles two channel CD's transcoded to FLAC with no issues but will not handle multichannel (DTS) CD's ripped to FLAC. I suspect this has to do with the volume system as proper decoding of multistream FLAC requires the system to leave the volume at maximum prior to feeding PCM into the decoders. I know the audio rips are fine as they play perfectly via a logitech Transporter.
Support on this forum has been exemplary with one small caveat. The myriad threads need to be pruned. Once I start searching, and I generally do search before asking, I find things dated from 2007, 2008, 2009 that are out of date due to advances in the development of XBMC. It is very confusing to the newcomer as things in older thread section are often no longer applicable as they have been fixed. Pruning it might be a nigh impossible job!
I am starting to develop the control system for the XBMC using the HTTP API. Right now I am using the theaters integrated librarian and telling XBMC what movie I want played and that is working fine. I need to figure out how I can hide the XBMC GUI in this mode. Eventually I may go over to the XBMC GUI as it has some excellent features. My librarian is text based and shows the collection as a 2 up list on the main screen in a font size that can be read across the room. Select a title and all the info about that title is graphically presented; cover art, overview, cast, crew, A/V data etc.
The one bug I have found is that if I suspend the player and then wake it up the HTTP API is no longer operating. If I shut it down completely and then wake it up the HTTP interface is fine.
If anyone has True HD and or DD Master Audio operating I would appreciate hearing from them. If anyone knows of a solution for the multichannel music audio issue I would like to hear from them. If anyone has a solution for the failure of the HTTP interface after a suspend/WOL I would like to hear from them.
If these are all known issues, then if anyone has some idea as to when they will be fixed I would like to hear from them.
No I am not lonely, just interested.
I am very impressed with XBMC and this community from several standpoints. Not being vary familiar with Linux I was a little nervous but all is working out well and my slightly arthritic fingers are getting a reasonable workout from typing.
I run a high end Home Theater which has been my hobby for several years now. The theater has a 10 TB raid system with a maximum capcity of 20 TB. It is the unRaid system from limetech, but I did the build as a custom rack mount as I enjoy doing that. The main A/V processor is an Anthem AVM 50v feeding a JVC RS2 projector for a stunning 10 foot wide screen in a dedicated theater room. The sound array is a full 7.1 system at 200 watts per channel and much more for the sub.
The Theater is controlled by a dedicated PC with the user interface being a Pronto 9800. If I get the urge I will do the work to replace the Pronto with an iPAD. The control system has a complete movie librarian spanning over 500 titles (BR and DVD) based on the DVD Profiler system. I have two Players, a Dune unit which is very good, the only disk that gave it an issue is Avatar and that should be resolved this month. It properly handles True HD and Master Audio feeding them out over HDMI along with the video. The Dune player is as close to a appliance movie player I have seen. The Theater now has the XBMC as a second player and I can set which player I want to use just prior to selecting the movie to play.
Bluray rips are to the same format as a BR disk with the trailers and dire warnings removed. Same for the DVD's. All music is ripped to FLAC.
Currently my only issues on the XBMC are the inability to play True HD and Master Audio on the Video side, and Multichannel (Greater than 2) FLAC on the music side. It handles two channel CD's transcoded to FLAC with no issues but will not handle multichannel (DTS) CD's ripped to FLAC. I suspect this has to do with the volume system as proper decoding of multistream FLAC requires the system to leave the volume at maximum prior to feeding PCM into the decoders. I know the audio rips are fine as they play perfectly via a logitech Transporter.
Support on this forum has been exemplary with one small caveat. The myriad threads need to be pruned. Once I start searching, and I generally do search before asking, I find things dated from 2007, 2008, 2009 that are out of date due to advances in the development of XBMC. It is very confusing to the newcomer as things in older thread section are often no longer applicable as they have been fixed. Pruning it might be a nigh impossible job!
I am starting to develop the control system for the XBMC using the HTTP API. Right now I am using the theaters integrated librarian and telling XBMC what movie I want played and that is working fine. I need to figure out how I can hide the XBMC GUI in this mode. Eventually I may go over to the XBMC GUI as it has some excellent features. My librarian is text based and shows the collection as a 2 up list on the main screen in a font size that can be read across the room. Select a title and all the info about that title is graphically presented; cover art, overview, cast, crew, A/V data etc.
The one bug I have found is that if I suspend the player and then wake it up the HTTP API is no longer operating. If I shut it down completely and then wake it up the HTTP interface is fine.
If anyone has True HD and or DD Master Audio operating I would appreciate hearing from them. If anyone knows of a solution for the multichannel music audio issue I would like to hear from them. If anyone has a solution for the failure of the HTTP interface after a suspend/WOL I would like to hear from them.
If these are all known issues, then if anyone has some idea as to when they will be fixed I would like to hear from them.
No I am not lonely, just interested.