Ubuntu Multimedia :: Setting Up A Media Center?
Apr 20, 2011
I'm looking for some advice for setting up a media center, which will be hooked up to my flat screen TV. I think I've got most of the technical bits figured out with an Acer with 4 gigs of memory. What I need are some words of wisdom about choices for software and the like:
Is it worth the trouble to install Boxee or XMBC, or to play music and videos using VLC, etc.? I realize I won't be able to stream Netflicks without Boxee, but I haven't decided if that's a breaking point or not. Do I want to connect the computer to the TV screen directly through HDMI, or connect the computer to my receiver, which is already hooked up to the TV? I'm cheap enough to want to take advantage of the receiver, but I'm also wondering if sound quality will be better, since it's connected to my speakers and the TV just has internal speakers. Remote. Do I want to try and figure out how to use one of the several remotes that I currently own, or is it just easier to buy a computer-compatible remote?
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Jul 27, 2010
I've just finished installing the software on the box. I've made it a dual-boot but want to set the default to Windows XP Media Center so my grandson can work with it. I want to change the boot configuration file but the documentation show working with menu.lst file but I can't find it. How do I make the changes without blowing grub out of the water?
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Jan 31, 2010
So I've got old components from my previous computer I'd like to use to build a media center. Here's what I have:
Case
550W PSU
MSI K8NEO 4 Platinum MOBO
[code]...
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Jan 1, 2010
I'm trying to put together a home media center from some old hardware I have. I'm looking at running something like Mythbuntu, Freevo, or Boxee. The computers accessing it would be a couple Ubuntu PCs and a Mac. I'm also wondering if there are good class-compliant (that is the term, right?) audio interfaces for multiple outputs.
What I am trying to set up is a media server to store media (mostly mp3s, some movies) that I will access over the network, which is a combination of wireless and wired. I'd like to have controls in each room for what's playing on separate speakers in different rooms, and the volume. It'd be nice to be able to output from my main desktop, also. This will take some time to put together, so I'd like to start with a good foundation. I found this comparison pretty helpful, by the way:[URL]..
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Feb 11, 2010
i am using ubuntu media on a desktop for all of my multimedia needs and i just installed jaunty (alt install) on an old gateway solo laptop(266 mhz and 186mb ram) to use as my controller/remote using desktop sharing, the problem is the laptop can't keep up with the desktop and everything is all jerky (especially watching dvds). So here are the questions, what can i uninstall from the laptop to make performance better and/or is there another option short of buying a wireless keyboard/mouse (I'm poor and use what I have(besides i like having an up-close display for text and stuff)).
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Feb 12, 2010
I'm trying to set up Ubuntu with Boxee and MythTV as a media centre. I'm currently stuck at displaying a picture on my TV screen. I only have an Intel onboard graphics chip, and so I bought a VGA-to-TV box to convert the signal. This is USB powered and has VGA in, S-Video, Component and VGA out. I have it connected to an external monitor by VGA and to the TV by component cable into a SCART adapter (along with a mini-jack to phono cable from the sound card).
I was hoping that the box would handle the settings for the TV screen, but all I'm seeing are flashing lines of colour, so I'm guessing I have to change the settings. Eventually, I want to get the TV to be widescreen, but I'd like it to work first! I have created an xorg.conf file and put in three extra modes.
- first, an 800x600 VGA to PAL TV converter from [URL]... - second and third, two resolutions generated by the calculator, based on the SwitchResX settings for my MacBook to connect to the same TV. Now I'm sure you want to see a whole load of settings from my machine, but sadly I don't know what settings you'll need to see.
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Aug 27, 2010
I am trying to build a media center for music for me and my roommates to use. Basically I want to build a system just for playing music. Idealy (dare i mention itunes in here) I would love a computer just just booted into itunes(orsomething like it (or better) that just was for playing music.
I plan on buying a computer, like a tiny desktop (i dont want to take up a lot of room) with a huge hard drive just for holding music, and needs usb drives/cd drive for loading music onto it (or just a usb drive). Then get a small screen, not huge with a remote that does not run on wife. Also would like a keyboard on the remote if possible.
Anywho whats a good media center, and can I boot just straight into the media center? I would like support for; browse by artist, album and just song name. Also I would like to be able to make playlist within it, and it needs to be able to support a massive amount of songs.
desktop computers to use for this project and remotes that I could use? Also how would you suggest the best way to go about doing this? I would love if it booted straight into the media player. Internet is not a huge deal to me, might connect to internet once just to grab album artwork. So a media player that auto fetches artwork too would also be nice.
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Oct 11, 2010
I've been looking around for the past week, but I have yet to find anything yet that provides a media center solution using Ubuntu + Xbox 360, comparable to Windows 7 + Xbox 360.
I want to drop Windows 7 completely on my media PC, and just use Ubuntu (or Linux Mint). I've tried ushare, XBMC, Moovida, and a few other apps. Either they don't support sharing, or it's difficult to configure, or it is a cheap looking solution.
Is there no way to use my Xbox 360 for a smooth media center experience, similar to how it functions as a Media Center Extender for Win7, while replacing Win7 w/ Ubuntu?
I'm even open to commercial Linux solutions, I'm just hoping to be able to drop Win7 if possible..
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Jan 6, 2011
I got it into my head to change the graphics card in my Ubuntu 10.04 media center. I removed my old ATI card and installed a new ASUS ENGT 430. I tried to uninstall the ATI drivers and associated software prior to this but obviously I didn't get it all. When I boot into X it takes me in under low graphics mode. I've tried rebuilding my xorg.conf. I've installed the driver from the ASUS site and nothing.
I decided to swap in my old ATI card and obviously I've not cleared all the ATI artifacts as the low graphics mode that machine first booted into was at the high resolution that I was running previously. I uninstalled all Nvidia software but now I'm not even able to get the old ATI software to work. Jockey sees the drivers after I install them through the Software Center but they're not really working. XBMC won't start for GL reasons.
What do I need to purge all graphics drivers and install the nVidia driver? I've got a feeling if I started from scratch I could get it to work but I seriously don't want to reinstall everything. I've worked hard to get my XBMC config just so and I don't want to lose everything
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Jul 19, 2010
Has anyone had experience building a dedicated multimedia center? I know Its going to be ubuntu based and probably run xbmc. I've seen a pc case to use but I dont know if the remote control for it can work under ubuntu or any other distro. Has anyone had success making a remote control for an ubuntu based media center work?
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May 23, 2010
i have geforce 8800 gts, ubuntu 10.04 when i don't install nvidia drivers movies plays great ( including HD) but programs (games,media center) does not play well at all choppy when i do install the opposite is correct movies plays choppy but all other progs plays great.
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May 9, 2011
I am trying to set my default media player as MPlayer and selecting it with a right click in the menu, open with and then telling it to open with every time. It then opens it in MPlayer that time no problem but then next time I just double click on the file (or any file with same type) it just opens it with the original default player. I've tried using SMplayer as well as default and it does the same thing. I'm on Ubuntu 10.04.
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Jun 1, 2011
I'm using OpenSUSE-11.4+KDE and have not been able to access my Sansa Express drive. I can pull it up part way, but it acts as read only. I'm not sure what settings I may need to make in the Partitioner to fix this.If I boot into a LiveCD of LinuxMint10-KDE and plug it in it is instantly identified as a "Media Device," and I have access into the MTP section of it I believe.
I prefer using Banshee, but will use Dolphin to manual drop files it I can get the Sansa drive to operate as with Read+Write. I've seen this device listed here at "plug and play" [URL]../HCL:Gadgets#Media_Players
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Jun 9, 2010
I've been thinking of turning my old computer into a media center for a while now (it was running Ubuntu Server 9.10). I recently bought a new 23inch screen so.. out with the server, in with the media center! (currently Xubuntu but running on LXDE as it's a lot lighter) My problem: The computer barely manages to play 720p videos on XBMC (on ..... or totem/vlc it's just impossible with breaks, lag and constant freezes).. I used the debug function of XBMC and guess what.. a 720p movie takes my cpu to a constant 100% usage!! =X
So here's my question.. what distro or 'buntu flavor would you advise me to use?? I thought about a minimal install but don't want to try it just yet..
[Code]....
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Apr 18, 2011
I have a ViewSonic Windows Media PC. Would it be possible to get Ubuntu on it and get all of the information I need for the drivers that I'll have to somehow install to make it work on Ubuntu? I was going to work on an ancient POS but I can't get it to boot from USB and I have no CD-ROM for it.
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Apr 19, 2011
I have a pretty powerful computer and GPU that I'd like to fully utilize.I've been using Linux for the better part of 10 years and I'd like to know (as I can't think of a way) how I can use a single PC as a desktop AND a media center.My vision would be to essentially have to separate workstations on one PC. My desk monitor will be station one (desktop) and my TV will be station two (media center)... both should work independently of each other as if neither knows the other exists.
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Jun 6, 2011
I want to measure the system load on my Ubuntu media center computer. What commands and utilities are available? I've explored the w, top, iostat, and uptime commands. Anything else I could use?
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Feb 6, 2010
I have recently put Ubuntu on a friend's computer. I can access the windows partition and everything through Ubuntu. When I go to restart, his Windows XP Media Center Edition is in the boot loader's list but when I go to boot into it all I get is a black screen with a flash _ at the top left. It then just continues to sit there. I was wondering if maybe GRUB was looking in the wrong spot for the OS.
Before I installed Linux he was having problems with Windows XP, which is one reason why I switched him to Ubuntu. For some reason his computer was booting his HP Recovery partition instead of his Windows partition on start up. I was hoping by putting Ubuntu on and using GRUB as a boot loader I would be able to load Windows and Ubuntu side by side as it is on my machine. Windows still doesn't work though I hope people can help me out. I know this isn't really an Ubuntu question but I was unsure where to post boot loader questions.
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Dec 10, 2010
I am trying to setup a temporary media center because the one I was using died. The computer I have to work with is a crappy old computer and its only purpose is going to be a middle man between a server I have for movie storage, and my TV. I don't want to spend any money right now because I'm working on building a MythTV system at home, so until then I'm trying to setup this temporary solution. The computer I have to work with is a Dell Optiplex GX150, everything stock.
I'm looking for a distro that is light enough to run on this machine without any problems (about a 1 gighz processor and a 1/2 a gig of ram), can display movies just fine, and must be able to support 1080 resolution. I've tried Mint 10, but that's way too top heavy, as is Ubuntu 10.10 and 10.04. I also tried gOS which displayed the resolution just fine, but was WAY too resource intense for this machine... Just clicking on the menu took 5-10 seconds same as with Mint.
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Jan 17, 2010
I'm about at wit's end trying to figure out how to get Fedora 10 (can't go upgrade past that version, due to no more support for the integrated Radeon S300 graphics) on my HP Media Center desktop to resume after suspend- or to disable suspend, or anything that will prevent the computer from hanging after a period of inactivity. I have tried various combinations of noapm, noacpi, s4_nohwsig, etc., etc.; nothing helped. Actually, noacpi might have helped, I don't know, because disabling ACPI somehow disables internet as well, and I'm not willing to pay that price.I went into the CMOS RAM setup (both before and after updating the BIOS to the latest version), and the only Power options available were "After AC Power Failure," "WOL in S4," and "XD (Execute Disable)."Does anyone perchance know the magical solution to make the problem go away, aside from reverting to Windows?
P.S. The specs:
Dual-Boot XP / Fedora10 with GRUB bootloader
PentiumD 820(S) DC 2.8 GHz (800 MHz FSB, Socket 775)
[code]...
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Feb 24, 2010
When i try to copy files from my samba server (Ubuntu 9.10) to my windows seven media center, the speed is extremely slow. So slow that is better to download 100mb file from the internet, than from my lan. And on my lan, every card and switch is at 1000 mbps speeds on cat5 cables. And from XP or other linux machine
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Apr 24, 2010
Ubuntu 9.10 10.04 "software center" seems like a good idea compared to the previous implementation but it ignores proxy settings under system->preferences->network proxy and system->administration->synaptic package manager->settings->preferences->network.
Other sections of Ubuntu work fine through the proxy e.g. web browsers and using synaptic directly. However sudo apt-get install doesn't work through a terminal on Ubuntu 10.04 beta despite all updates. problem is definitely in Ubuntu as some parts of it recognize the proxy settings and other parts don't. This disconnection appears to be worse in U10.04 compared to U9.10 but earlier distributions (from memory) never had this problem. Is there a "fix" I can use to get Ubuntu 10.04 to recognize the proxy settings across all its features?
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Apr 13, 2011
Ubuntu10.10.i want a media player with all media codecs.it should able to play all formats of videos and audios so please suggest me a media player.(i used km player in windows i want a media player like that)
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Apr 13, 2010
I recently installed VLC Media Player and now wonder how I could make it my default media player in Ubuntu because every time I want to listen to a song, I have to right click and "Open With...VLC Media Player".
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Oct 29, 2010
using Ubuntu 10.10 server edition I guess on my Dell Dimension 5150. 3Ghz P4 with 2Gb DDR2 6400. A ATI HD3870 512Mb and a 450watt brick. 1.5 Terabytes of hard drive space. What I would like to do with this is set it up so that I can log into this machine through my laptop or other computer on the network and watch the movies off my hard drive. Basically have a headless server that 5 to 6 computers can access and it not slow down of mess up the audio track on the movie. Is there any software I need or is this a big project that requires a whole bunch of settings?
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Aug 25, 2009
My hard drive is partitioned in 12 partitions (for various reasons) anyways I am having two issues when I mount my data partition. Firstly I can only write/edit files on the partition when I am under root. Second when it mounts it uses the drive's UUID as the mount name in /media (so it is horribly long!) is there a way I can force it to mount under a different name? I tried right clicking on the drive like I am able to do in Ubuntu and set a "mount point" but Fedora does not have this option.
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Feb 1, 2010
I'm trying to setup a media server for my Playstation 3 I've opted for the one off of this site PS3 Media Server now the installation instructions in the README don't really say much just make sure you have JRE 6 and run the script which I have done but get a message that I can't even began to cipher which is the following..
Code:
./pms.jar: line 1: PK: command not found
./pms.jar: line 2: h:: command not found
./pms.jar: line 25: h:META-INF/MANIFEST.MFManifest-Version: 1.0
Ant-Version: Apache Ant 1.7.0
[Cpde]....
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Feb 4, 2010
My DVD player is on /dev/hdc but when I put 'xine /dev/hdc' on the command line I get an error saying 'There is no demuxer plugin available to handle /dev/hdc'. If I use the mount point /media/DVD instead of /dev/hdc it works fine. I am trying to get DVDs to play automatically but I can't see how to get xine to look for /media/DVD instead of /dev/hdc. I have tried changing the location on the Settings -> Media tab, and the line which says 'directory a media in dvd device will be mounted' in ~/.xine/config but neither worked.
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Jun 11, 2011
Kernel 2.6.21.5, Slackware 12.0 When I click on some audio stream links in my web browser (Mozilla Firefox), the stream comes in a URL ending in .pls, usually listen.pls. As I want mplayer to play it and not the default player, I intend to make the first the default one. In Firefox (2.0.0.4) I can do Edit>Preferences>Content>File Types>Manage and change the actions associated with each file type. However, if the type is, say, PDF, I can can only change the action if a PDF file has anytime been downloaded. So, the same goes for a PLS file.
You have an example of the kind of link I talk about here: [URL] In the case of a radio broadcast audio stream, I am not downloading it, I think. At least, the Download window does not open. The Download window not having open itsef, the PLS type does not appear in the window Edit>...>File Types>Manage leads to. And so, I cannot change the action. The action would be 'Open them with this application': mplayer.
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Jan 1, 2010
I'm thinking of setting up an old desktop (Dell Dimension 4300/512mb RAM/20g&80g hdd) as a media/file server and using Slackware 13 for it. I'm completely new to doing anything server-wise,it of background: I'm running current versions of Zenwalk and Vector on two different laptops, with the Zenwalk one multi-booting Vista and Ubuntu. The desktop in question is running XP and Zenwalk. I have DSL hooked up to a Linksys WRT (running dd-wrt firmware) for network. I'm not a noob, just not in my comfort zone. My goal is, in addition to setting up the server, to get more hands under the hood (so to speak) on improving my linux skills. It was a toss up between Slack and CentOS, and being very familiar with Slack-based systems, I'm going that route.
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