voodoo & hokum

My favourite XBMC Remote App

I don’t usually like remote control apps. YES it amuses me to no end, to be able to control a device using my phone, but I’d still rather have physical buttons.

With physical buttons you don’t have to look at the remote when you’re navigating; you can feel where up/down/left/right & OK are.

With a remote app on a touch-screen phone however, you don’t have the same tactile sensation and therefore have to look at the phone when you want to press a button.  Your phone will also probably huff and lock its screen after 30 seconds of neglect.

My current favourite Windows Phone app for controlling XBMC on my TV is XBMC REMOTE. I know they’re all called that, but its thumbnail is up there ^ and it’s made by a group called 7Illusions (but doesn’t feature on their website yet).

This app controls XBMC (Eden) via http over your WiFi and lets you browse your XBMC library from within the app, displaying all your fan/album art, showing the watched status on your episodes and movies and even has a menu for updating and cleaning your library!

The thing I most like about it however is that in addition to a regular remote layout with touchscreen buttons for up/down/left/right & OK, you have the option of using GesturePad.  You have to enable this feature in settings but when switched on it will replace the up/down/left/right & OK buttons with a big grey rectangle.

Using this grey rectangle, instead of looking at your phone every time you want to press a button, you look at it once to find the GesturePad and swipe with your thumb in the direction you wish to navigate.  Swipe left for left, swipe up for up and tap your thumb for OK.  It makes the interaction a little more pleasant.  You still have to look at the phone to find buttons such as back/play/stop etc, but chances are you’d have to do that on a normal remote also.

The app is free to try and £1.49 to buy.  It would be nice to have an option for preventing the phone from locking its self, but still a very nice app. You can get it here.

The HTPC Saga pt4

I came up with a solution to my case problems. LEGO!

LEGO is awesome; it requires no tools, I found a big box of it on top of a wardrobe, and if the computer dies in a few weeks/months, I can simply dismantle the case and re-use the pieces… maybe in a truck or a space ship…

I started off with some of the big flat green bits to use as the base, and after setting the computer on top, filled in the rest of the base with smaller flat pieces. I then basically built around the outside of the computer in blocks, up to a height of two layers (I wanted to keep the whole thing quite low profile).

Anywhere there was I/O I needed to use, I left blank after a height of 1 block to allow access. The fit is quite snug, you can connect cables without the board moving around.

There are a few interesting details:

The activity light circuit board has been sandwiched in the front and is visible through some translucent blue pieces, unfortunately they’re quite dim and don’t quite look blue. I’ll maybe swap for something a little more transparent.

The fan exhausts through a couple of white fence pieces, they’re nearly the right size and look quite amusing :P

The power switch to the laptop is on the opposite side of the board to the cooler (as it would have originally been upside down) so it’s rather difficult to turn the machine on. I racked my brains for an age to find a solution and finally settled on a simple rocker which when pressed, pushes on the switch. It’s not exactly tactile but it works!

After the switch problem was solved, I decorated the front with a few flat pieces that I used to still think are awesome.

I’m left with a gaping hole in the top, and I don’t have enough flat pieces to fill it in, luckily I had some (quite thick) perspex lying around, so a few minutes later, I’ve got a roof window!



What next?

I think I’m pretty close to finishing the project, but the fan needs a bit more airflow, I planned to drill some holes in the Perspex over the fan, but can’t think of an interesting pattern. If I’m stumped or I don’t possess the skills for anything elaborate, I’ll just drill a radial pattern.

I also found a can of glass frosting, which might make a nice effect if I sprayed a logo/name on the window? May be a bit pointless without illumination though.

The HTPC Saga pt3

If my USB stick install of beta XBMCBuntu takes a turn for the worst (which can happen on USB sticks running pre-release software), I usually re-install the operating system and start my library from scratch.  This means re-adding the media sources; XBMC then has to find all the Movies and TV Show episodes, scrape the internet for library data and download all the fan-art again. On top of this, the watched status of the content is lost i.e. I can’t tell which episode of The Big Bang Theory I’m on.

My first solution was Trakt.tv.  This wonderful service uses a XBMC plugin called Trakt Utilities to scan my library and update my Trakt profile to show which Movies and TV Shows I’ve watched, awesomely geeky in its self!  After a library re-build however, you can use this service to re-sync your seen episodes with XBMC, meaning you can pick up where you left off!  It also enables you to sync your watched videos between different computers.

Trakt also rocks

It still takes ages to re-build my library however.  I don’t have an enormous collection compared to some, (approx. 170 Movies & 40 TV Shows) but it’s a pain none the less.  I was searching the XBMC forum/wiki to discover a quick way of copying my library from another machine when I found something much more interesting.

My second solution was a central library. Using only a MySQL database, a few shared folders and an XML file; you can use the same central library, fan-art, thumbnails and plugin settings for every install of XBMC on your network.  This means no matter which computer you’re using, every time you use XBMC it’s (more-or-less) identical!  All of this (in addition to amusing me more than it should) means the next time I have to re-install the operating system on my USB drive, I simply need to replace one XML file and everything is back to normality in seconds; oh yeah!  It also means I can start watching a movie on my TV, pause it, and go somewhere else to watch the rest on my laptop, exactly where I left off.

“What now?” I hear you ask, well; if the motherboard with wires sticking out of it lives for a few weeks, I’ll build it a case, or mount it on the wall, or stuff it in a drawer/box.  There are a few tweaks I’d like to make to get more functionality from my remote and I have a problem setting XBMC to the required 1920x1080 resolution (the disconnected laptop screen is possibly haunting me).  I’m using the speakers on my TV, *gasp* so will have to source something more appropriate.

If I make any more head-way I’ll possibly post it and if anyone asks, “what did you actually do all weekend?” I’ll send them here.

The HTPC Saga pt2

Through trial and error, here’s where I am now:

To ferry around HD content I abandoned WiFi as a medium and now use a HomePlug system, I simply plugged the adapters in to the wall, connected network leads and they just worked. Job done. Speed wise; I haven’t measured their capacity, but have never experienced their limitations.

To control the HTPC from the aforementioned sofa, I bought a simple remote control. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that model but I’ll put up with it for another while.

The HTPC I’m using is a de-constructed laptop with no hard-drive which runs XBMCBuntu from a USB drive.  I shall elaborate.

The HTPC

I don’t want to buy a new computer right now, luckily I actually find it more interesting to try and cobble something together that will do the job. I was gifted a knackered laptop a while ago and set to work dismantling it; screen (broken), hard drive (missing), DVD drive, keyboard, track-pad, battery and casing have all been removed.  The remaining parts consist of the motherboard, RAM, CPU and CPU cooler; the computer has on-board graphics, sound, networking and the usual connectivity.

I want some good software that can run on this basic system. XBMC is the most flexible media centre software I’ve ever used, it runs on my Win7 gaming rig and on my Ubuntu laptop; the flavour I’m using here is the new XBMCBuntu Beta3 (Feb/2012).  This is a live version of the new Eden release which is happy running from a CD.  It is equally happy running from a USB drive, and by using Unetbootin to put it there, it’s possible to use persistence to save any changes you make. Lovely!  (I’m aware of even lighter versions of XBMC such as OpenElec, but it can’t boot from this computers awful bios, and I couldn’t find an OpenElec ISO to feed into Unetbootin)

XBMC rocks

So there we have it, a HTPC that cost nothing (nothing but hours and hours of my life).  Admittedly there are a few shortcomings; my pets may electrocute themselves on the circuit board lying on the floor, it’s also a trip hazard and USB drives and Beta software have a few reliability problems.

The computer will need a case, but I want to make sure it doesn’t expire before I expend any energy.

The reliability problem; I have taken measures to account for, measures that have unexpected benefits. More on that next time.

The HTPC Saga pt1

I like watching American TV shows.  Maybe it’s because American networks (presumably) have enormous budgets that they can produce some fantastic programming.  Don’t get me wrong, some amazing shows originate from this side of the Atlantic; Sherlock, The IT Crowd, Father Ted, Red Dwarf & TopGear to name but a few.  For stylish high-drama big-budget whoppers though, the States are unbeatable; The Wire, Mad Men, Band of Brothers, Game of Thrones et al. (I also have an addiction to crime series’ like Monk, The Mentalist, Dexter & Castle)

I don’t like DVD’s. Because my content of choice isn’t broadcast here at a time or on a channel that suits me, and physical media are on their way out; I prefer to consume my digital audio and video in an electronic format.

I like watching things on my TV; from my sofa. One of the problems with the aforementioned digital media is that they are inexorably linked to computers, which are removed from the sofa/TV relationship.  The answer then is to connect my media which resides on my computer, to my TV, and from there to my sofa; where I am.

The TV

I like Home Theatre PC’s.  My selected solution to my problem is to attach a computer to my TV, which will access the content on my desktop computer, so I can waste my evenings from the comfort of my sofa.  However there are a few obstacles to overcome; getting a HTPC, getting the content to the HTPC and controlling the HTPC from the sofa.

The Sofa

So that’s the problem defined, next time; how (if I can) will I accomplish this?