WebDTs and LinuxMCE (Re: [ukha_d] Viglen MPC-L - Tiny £99 Linux PC)

[Peer Oliver Schmidt <posde@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jamie Bennett wrote:

> The WebDT's look very interesting.

They are very interesting, especially as they have the perfect size
for a LinuxMCE orbiters.

> Do you have details of your LinuxMCE setup somewhere Oliver? I've been
> meaning to set up a system for some time but it always seemed a little
> daunting/time consuming to me.

LinuxMCE can at first, be very time consuming. Especially if you come
into it from the M*C*E route, i.e. looking for a media center. There
are very specific hardware requirements, which make it hard to just
testdrive it on existing equipment.

I have setup a friends apartment with LinuxMCE. At the beginning he
only wanted the media part of it, no lighting, no phone etc. After
using it for a couple of weeks, he came to me and said, how about
setting up the phone, how about lighting, how about security :-)
He has a silent PC as a media director connected to a Pioneer 5080
(via an nVidia 6200) and a Meridian Soundsystem (via coax S/P-DIF),
plus the core with RAID5 and a USB-UIRT controlling a DVB-C settop
box from Premiere (Pay-TV), plus a DVB-C PCI card in the core for
non-PayTV recording and time shifting. The settop box is routed to a
different input of the Pioneer to provide the best possible picture
to the TV. All controlling is done via a Nokia n800 at the moment. In
the future he will have one of those WebDTs as well.

Phone is coming now, with a HorstBox as a VoIP to analog gateway (and
as the DSL router). A Siemens C450 is used as the VoIP phone
connected to the LinuxMCE system. He can call out using the handset,
or by initiating calls from his n800 orbiter. Right now he uses the
handset, but only because the media director in the living room has
no mic attached to it (right now LinuxMCE does not support USB mics
for the Media Director based phone application, but only analog [this
will change for 0810 though]).

The lighting control will be done via Z-Wave, as that is the most
cost effective, and best performing solution available, imho. Better
and cheaper than KNX/EIB (again imho), and better and more functional
than X10. We will keep all his existing switches and momentary
switches, and just put some sensors behind them, and some actors near
the lights.

My own setup is fairly small and in a flux, just the phonesystem with
a couple of Cisco's, my home theater controlled via X.10 and USB-UIRT
and the media part of it. What really impressed me, was the PnP of
network devices. I plugged a Cisco 7970 phone into the network, it
got detected by LinuxMCE, received an extension, and I was ready to
dial out and receive calls, without ANY manual intervention. Very cool.

Plans include door opener, and some security stuff, and, when we do
the renovation next year, putting Z-Wave everywhere is on the list as
well. I still use an external VDR system together with a Hauppauge
MediaMVP as my PVR system, mainly because SWMBO likes the MediaMVP ;-)

So far, LinuxMCE has been a very interesting road.

And I am looking forward to 0810. It will be the first community
based release, and will focus, apart from moving to Kubuntu 0810 as
the base, on polishing the feature set. For example the support for
USB microphones, an even better Z-Wave implementation, etc. We have
released a first alpha yesterday, (VERY alpha), and all our energy is
now focussed on getting each and every feature nailed down.
--
Best regards

Peer Oliver Schmidt
PGP Key ID: 0x83E1C2EA


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