Tom Fotherby's Blog

We have quite a good Freeview box which does scheduled recordings including series-record but it could be better because it is missing a HD output, DVD playback and Video streaming.

We decided to build our own HTPC in order to take control of our viewing options once and for all.

Hardware List:

• Case: Lian Li PC-C37B Muse HTPC Chassis – Black. This case didn’t come with a PSU so we bought a Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK).
• Motherboard: ASUS P5N7A-VM – micro ATX – GF 9300 / nForce 730i – LGA775 Socket – UDMA133, Serial ATA-300 (RAID), eSATA – Gigabit Ethernet – video – High Definition Audio (8-channel)
• CPU: Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo Processor – 3.00 GHz, 6MB L2 Cache, 1333MHz FSB, Socket LGA775, 45 nm
• RAM: 2GB (2 x 1GB) CORSAIR PC2-6400 PC RAM Memory
• Hard Disk: Samsung SpinPoint HD103UJ F1 Series – 1 TB – 32 MB – SATA
• DVD burner: Samsung SH-S223QBEBN 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black)
• TV-Tuner card: Hauppauge Nova-T 500 twin TV-tuner card.

This list was based on the suggestions from page 56 of issue 117 of Linux Format Magazine. One thing to note is that the Nova-T 500 comes with a full-height backing plate so it wouldn’t fit into the case until Hauppauge, apon request, mailed us a half-height backing plate. The case fits in our Ikea Besta Burs TV Bench (albeit with a little jigsaw butchery to the thin plywood back panel). The case is missing a IR port but the TV-Card comes with a external IR receiver which is perhaps more useful because it means the PC can be out of site with only the little IR receiver poking out.

Software

Install and configure Arch using “The Beginners Guide”: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide. Then install MythTV using the great Arch wiki: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MythTV_HOWTO

Amazing HDMI video worked out of the box. However, HDMI sound didn’t – To get sound through HDMI to the TV: Upgrade your version of ALSA, then in alsamixer, unmute all IEC958 channels (i.e. IEC958, IEC958-D, IEC958-1). Then:

• For Xine – Go to the audio tab and change the “audio-driver to use” to “alsa” and the “device used for stereo-output” to “pcm.hw:0,3″.
• For Mplayer – Right click->Preferences->Audio. Select alsa from the Available drivers. Then click “Configure driver” and enter “hw=0,3″
• For MythTV – Go to Utilities/Setup->Setup->General->”Next” until you get to the Audio section. In “Audio output device:” enter “ALSA:hw:0,3″. For MythTV DVD playback – Go to “Utilites/Setup”->Setup->”Media Settings”->”Video Settings”->”Player Settings”-> and add “-ao alsa:device=hw=0.3″ to the mplayer options in the the “Default Video Player” field.

PeoplePerHour.com (and 1s of my head) were on the six o’clock news last night:

Unfortunately, the traffic spike generated from the mention on TV and the associated BBC web page brought our server down – so I’m feeling pretty bad about my abilities as a web developer at the moment Hopefully, I’ll be ready for it next time around…

PeoplePerHour on the BBC news website

I’m doing a walk next month with some friends – we want to go up and down the 3 highest mountains in the UK within 24 hours – a serious challenge for someone who’s primary exercise for the last 5 years has been computer programming!

We’re trying to raise £1000 for cancer research in the memory of anyone who’s lost someone to cancer – we’d really appreciate a donation. The link is: http://www.justgiving.com/tri_copaon

I’ve been trying to do some training for the last 3 weeks. I’ve joined the biggest cheapest swimming pool in London – This morning a dead fish floated past me!

I wanted to watch freeview on my PC so I bought a brand new Hauppauge Nova-TD-500 card. Unfortunately I found the signal strength (and therefore picture quality) to be unexplainably low – There were significant image artifacts and glitches. I tried a whole load of things but the solution was to buy an attenuator. Without the attenuator the card was useless.

For reference, this was my “why isn’t my nova-t 500 card working” checklist:

1. Is there a problem with the co-axial cable? No – because if I plug it directly into TV (i.e. not via PC) I get a good picture.
2. Is the signal too weak? No – because I tried a antennae signal booster -> No luck.
3. The Nova-t 500 has two inputs, am I using the right one? Yes, I tried pugging the co-axial cable into socket 1 then socket 2 then socket 1 and 2 at the same time using a cable splitter – I get different results depending on what socket I plug the coaxial cable into but nothing solves the issue. For reference, If I plug it into the bottom input (the one closest to the IR port) I seem to get a slightly better signal on one tuner but ZERO-SIGNAL on the other but if I plug it into the top input I get equally poor signal on both tuners.
4. Is it just a problem with the software / application rather than the hardware? No, I tried DVB in different applications (I tried Kaffeine and Xine as well a MythTV) -> All give bad TV image.
5. Is my computer configured okay? I looked at whether DMA is on -> Yes, I’m using a SATA HDD. I checked that we’ve got the latest card firmware (/lib/firmware/dvb-usb-dib0700-1.20.fw). I experimented with the “force_lna_activation” and “buggy_sfn_workaround” module options -> No luck.
6. Is my computer fast enough? I compiled MythTV with VDPAU and checked CPU usage with “top” -> CPU usage is <5% so no performance bottleneck. VDPAU is only useful for HD content anyway??
7. Is there a problem with my card? No – I took it back to the shop and bought a 2nd one but got the same results. (opps!)
8. Is there a problem with electrical interference? I tried using electrical insulation tape in all places where the metal in the PCI card might be touching the metal of the PC case. Yes – This actually did help a bit which means that perhaps there’s some kind of EM interference inside the PC?
9. Is the signal too strong? Yes – because I tried a attenuator and it fixes the problem.

A jackalope?

I highly recommend the new Ubuntu 9.04 release (Jaunty Jackalope), it has A+ compatibility on a Sony VGN-AR51E. I also recommend upgrading from previous Ubuntu versions. Apart from the pretty new style system notifications the other thing well worth upgrading for is the promise of better boot performance.

Boot speed: Obviously, when I turn on my laptop I would like it to be ready ASAP but in the last few years each release has seemed to take longer to boot than the last. In order to minimise boot time I installed the 64bit version and partitioned with the new ext4 filesystem. After installing, doing an update and rebooting, I installed bootchart (sudo apt-get install bootchart) and rebooted again. The chart generated in /var/log/bootchart says boot time was 23 seconds. Pretty good.

Jaunty Goods:

• Better boot time.
• Pretty system notifications.
• The new login screen is nice (not that I often see it because I have auto-login enabled).
• My Laptop Webcam now works out of the box (sudo apt-get install cheese)
• UK English dictionary available in firefox without need to download an extension.
• Setting up my printer (HP Photosmart-3200) was the easiest it’s ever been. It was auto-discovered and literally done in 3 clicks.

Jaunty Bads:

• The new wallpaper isn’t as nice as Intrepid (where’s the abstract jackalope?)
• The automatic updates aren’t as good as Intrepid because they now seem to nag you.
• I suffered from a complete system freeze related to the nvidia drivers. I couldn’t even boot the machine – took an hour to recover. Only happened the once though.

My latest project at work was to implement a redesign of the website homepage. The new page is a lot less busy and less work for our server:

Before:
After:

I’m loving jquery at the moment.

The best April Fools jokes are the subtle ones right?

We have pretended to add a dating service to our website. Check it out at peopleperhour.com. We’ve added cheesy dating profiles and fake FAQs such as the following:

Will the dating site affect my rating on PPH?

No you will have a separate score on the Dating site however both scores will be visible in the dating site: a high professional score is most often a source of attraction and as such will be displayed.

Check out Feverous Tea:

XBox360,RTS,4/10 – February 2008

It has been proved, RTS on a console just isn’t possible. You can put as much effort and talent into making it as possible but a mouse is a fundamental requirement of a RTS.

Playing this demo made me doubt whether releasing a demo is always financially advantageous for the game companies? In this case, I would have certainly bought the game if I hadn’t been able to play the demo. I did have to buy a subscription to XBox live gold to download the demo so it wasn’t a total loss for Microsoft.

Fiction, 6/10 – February 2009

1000 pages set in 12th century Britain based largely around the building of cathedrals – sound interesting? No, but it comes highly recommended (33rd in the BBC’s 2003 big read) and in an effort to broaden my horizons I gave it a go. It is based on real historical events such as the Battle of Lincoln and the murder of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury and it had me happily living in the middle ages with monks and builders and downfalls and triumphs for a few weeks. I found it a little slow and it laid things out a bit too clearly but a worthwhile read nevertheless.

I looked around for quite a while to try to buy something non-Microsoft branded because I didn’t want to “feed the hand that bites us” but at the end of the day one has to be a bit pragmatic?

I highly recommend this keyboard – Everyone should upgrade from a standard keyboard because it’s not all that expensive and risking RSI is stupid (especially as a software developer I’m attached to my keyboard for more than 10 hours a day).

This is my list in order of importance when it comes to a happy computing experience (I could go on extensively about each point but won’t):

1. A machine with decent performance – the machine should always “think” faster than you?
2. Lighting fast internet connection – should be faster to Google something than disturb your co-worker to ask them?
3. Software freedom – should be able to choose your own tools.
4. Screen size – should have enough screen real estate to prevent the overhead of unnecessary window switching.
5. Comfortable keyboard and mouse – should try to prevent future RSI problems.

Source: Weightwatchers “Cook!” (p180), Takes: 20 mins to prepare and 45 mins to cook, Rating: 9/10

Looks like a cake but doesn’t have the texture of a cake – it’s really smooth and melt-in-the-mouth. Usually recipes don’t look like the picture right? Well, this is an exception:

Mousse cake

Not mouse cake

Source: Weightwatchers “Spicy and speedy” (p5), Takes: 15 mins, Rating: 6/10

This is quick to make because you use a ready prepared stir-fry veg pack and quorn pieces are quicker to cook that real beef. The chilli is the important ingredient, without them it would be really bland. I prefer it with noodles rather than rice. Excellent weight loss food.