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What I have tried… (part 1)

I started my Mythtv building with a Haugpauge 500 tuner card, 20 gb hard drive, and knppmyth. at the time the ivtv drivers for hauggpauge tuner cards was not very mature and could not handle the haugepauge 500 cards very well. The haugepauge tuner also did not fit in the computer that I wanted it to fit in. One bonus to this tuner was the fact that it also had a built in FM tuner for raido signals. I really didn’t care about this feature but I thought it was a nice addition.

Knoppmyth was easier than I could have ever imagined to install and set up but it did not include support for the Haugpauge 500 card that I was trying to use. One problem I had with knoppmyth was because most steps were done for me I had no idea how to add my own things or edit certian files to make it the way I wanted it. It was kinda like picking up someone elses project and trying to make it your own.

I attempted to use Mythdora which is very similar to Knoppmyth but instead of using Debian it used Fedora Lunix. I was told that it was a little bit more “state of the art” with its driver support but I found that I did not like Fudora as much as I liked Debian.

After trying the self installers I decided I would just try and build Mythtv myself from scratch. I mean how hard could it be? I started with Debian Sarge. I got Debian installed and then started reading documentation on how to get the newest ivtv drivers installed, media programs, and Mythtv.

I quickly gave up on Debian because, well, because there was to much documentation to read. I didn’t have time to read book upon book of documentation I just wanted to get mythtv working. At this point I took my first break from Mythtv. Things looked too difficult so I put it on the side for a month to figure out what I was going to do.

Worklog

I have been working on Mythtv for over a year. I am making a worklog of what I have done to get the installation working. I will start this series of posts with what hardware I will making my Mythtv box with.

The computer I will be using is a HP Evo D510

My particular computer has a 1.8 Pentium 4 processor, 512 mb DDR ram, 40 gb hard drive.

The extra hardware I have added to the computer are Nvidia 6200 video card, Turtle beach audio advantage micro (for optical audio), and a DIVICO Fusion HDTV gold 5 plus tuner card.

My purpose for this computer is to be able to watch and record HD shows and also play DVD’s and listen to music. I did not think that would be a daunting task but I have found differently along the way. My main goal for this computer is to allow the watching of TV, listening of music, and watching movies to be seemless and easy. I do not want to have to change inputs on my tv, turn on my receiver, or turn on my computer to do what I want it to do.
The OS I will be using is Kubuntu 6.06. The software I am using to control the HD watching and recording is Mythtv. I hope to let Mythtv control the music and DVD’s also but that is not required.
One catch to all of this is I am not a advanced Linux user. I have not been using Linux my whole life and I have never compiled my own kernel. I have been playing around with Linux in the form of live cd’s for about 3 years and I think with tutorials that already exist and irc rooms I can make this computer work exactly how I want it to.

I will try to keep this as up to date as I can with failures and progress so that anyone else with similar hardware or similar goals can join in my struggle.

Why Windows takes so long to shut down.

Ever want windows just to turn off?  I found this helpful tool through another tech site.  They found there was a windows tool that is called User Profile Hive Cleanup Service.  Here is what Microsoft says about the tool.

The User Profile Hive Cleanup service helps to ensure user sessions are completely terminated when a user logs off. System processes and applications occasionally maintain connections to registry keys in the user profile after a user logs off. In those cases the user session is prevented from completely ending. This can result in problems when using Roaming User Profiles in a server environment or when using locked profiles as implemented through the Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP.

What that means for you is this tool helps windows shutdown fast.  Simply run the installer after installation finishes go to run and type “services.msc”.  Find the service labeled User Profile Hive Cleanup and make sure it is running,

and restart. (you have to restart before the settings take effect.  I just thought I would share one of the many random things I have found.

Is 55 the answer?

What I used:

I used my 1987 Toyota MR2 with a 1600 cc engine. The car weighs approximatly 2500 lbs (1134 kg) and only seats two people. It has 117,000 miles on it and is rear wheel drive.

What I did:

I drove my car for 1 week as I normally would and 1 week never allowing my engine to rev over 3000 rpm. In the 2 weeks of testing I never had cargo in my car, never had a passenger, and never went through a drive through or had excessive idling. Not allowing my engine to go over 3000 rpm held me to a top speed of about 57 mph. It also caused me to accelerate very slowly but I was still able to get up to my destination speed by the time I reached the freeway.

What did it do?

Driving ~57 mph on the freeway and not accelerating over 3000 rpm caused me to get 8 mpg more than I previously was getting on normal driving. For me this was approximately a 28% rise in my fuel efficiency. Over my whole tank of gas I am able to get an extra 80 miles before I have to fill up. This essentially gives me a little more than 2 extra gallons of gas per tank. Because I get the equivalent of more than 2 extra gallons per tank I save (at current gas prices) $9 per tank. I fill up my tank every week so this will cause a yearly savings of about $500.

What were unexpected results?

I first of all did not expect to have such a high gain in my gas mileage. I expected 3-4 mpg more at most. Even with driving slower I never had to leave earlier than usual for work/church/etc. and I was never late (at least not later than usual). Surprisingly I felt more relaxed while driving at 57 mph at all times. I would not get upset when someone was driving slowly in my lane and I did not get competitive when someone passed me (because everyone was passing me). My drive to work was much more entertaining and I was able to relax and think clearly more than I normally would.

For my slow week I passed 5 cars and 1 truck. I also had 1 person honk at me.

What may have interfered with the experiment?

One day (driving normally) I drove with my t-tops off for about 15 miles. This probably caused undesirable wind turbulence and may have affected the gas mileage.

I can not be certain that both times I filled up my tank I filled it with the exact amount of fuel (but it was probably pretty close).

I drove at night for about 60 miles during the slow week. This normally would not affect much but my headlights pop up so it probably caused some drag and may have had an affect on the gas mileage.

Weather was close to the same but I cannot be certain that it was the same and may have had some influence on gas mileage. For those who are familiar to southern California you probably know that the temperature doesn’t change much. I was able to avoid major changes by driving during the same part of the day for both weeks.

What is next?

Because my mileage increased so much and I am used to driving at such a slow speed now I will continue to drive at 57 mph on the freeway. This next week I will test how much of a difference it will make to drive on city roads normally and slow just on the freeway. I may try a couple of other experiments to see if I can get my car up to 40 mpg but for now I am very happy with what I have found.

Lowering the speed limit is defiantly not the answer as far as I’m concerned. A 30% increase on most SUV’s and trucks will still only increase gas mileage to 15-20 mpg. That is still far to low to make a big change in gas prices.

What the world needs is some cheap add-on that will make current internal combustion engines more efficient or run on an alternative fuel. Until that happens the world still has close to 1 billion cars that are running far too inefficient. Even if hybrids start making great sales we still have cars that will be using fuel like they have been for the past 100 years.

Digg this?

More Windows Hacking

I found two things that I think everyone who works on computers frequently should know.

The first is how to RDP to a Windows XP box without kicking off the current user.  This is usually only available to XP Server machines but Riccardo Raneri had a walk through on how to do it with a normal XP machine.  Just to make sure I don’t have any more dissapearing links I put the instructions and the .dll file you need in the attached zip file.  I would put all of the instructions here but they are kinda long so only those that are interested should downloadthe attachment.

The second “hack” is really cool if you install Windows from the cd (for those of you who do not know what a image is).  This has to be one of the most simple and helpful hacks while installing Windows.  You can play pinball (or minesweeper, or solitare) while Windows is installing.  I found it via digg but it was also available from google.  I just never thought to google it.  The instructions are really easy.

You just have to wait until the right moment the pinball files are copied. Sometime after where it asks you for the product key and a question or two after that, where it says ‘copying files’.

SHIFT-F10 for command prompt
cd \
cd “Program Files”
cd “Windows NT”
cd Pinball
pinball.exe
That is all for right now.  I should have more updates later in the week.

What am I doing?

This past week I found some parts for my car to fix some of the little annoyences that an old car have. The parts I was going to replace or fix were:

1. Dash
2. Dash Clock
3. Heater
4. Trunk Carpet
5. Passenger Sun visor
6. Passenger mirror
7. Engine prop
8. Missing spare tire
9. Knocking from front sway bar

I was also going to add the following things that were not on my car already:

1. Power Windows
2. Power mirrors
3. Power door locks
4. Rear sway bar

I found most of the parts at a very good price from someone on the mr2 forums. When I went to pick up the parts I found out that he did not have the Passenger Sun visor that was in good condition so I didn’t get that. He also didn’t have any truck carpet so I didn’t get that either. I soon found out that my rear shock towers do not have the tabs needed to bolt on the rear sway bar. The other option I would have is take the shock towers out of doner car but that would be more work than I originally planned. I was pleased to find that he had the spare tire and engine prop (which sorta worked). So I drove over to Rey’s house and started to take parts off of my car to prepare for the new parts.

I took off the dash and one of the doors and realized I may have a bit of a problem. The problem i ran into was that my doors do not have holes to pass the wires through for the power windows and power door locks. So I will have to cut holes in my doors to make a place for the wires to come through. Or I could just swap the whole door and cut a hole on the door pilar of the body to allow the wires to come through. Either way if I wanted to have power doors I would need to cut the body. So that is what I did. I got the drivers side cut and I plug in the door and the door locks don’t work, the window doesn’t roll down. That was very annoying. I have no idea what is going on just yet but here is my checklist at the end of the weekend.

1. Dash
2. Dash Clock
3. Heater (I ran out of time)
4. Trunk Carpet (not available)
5. Passenger Sun visor (not available)
6. Passenger mirror (but this may be temporary)
   
7. Engine prop
8. Missing spare tire
9. Power Windows (drivers side is in but doesn’t work)
10. Power mirrors (drivers side is in but doesn’t work)
11. Power door locks (drivers side is in but doesn’t work)
12. Rear sway bar (if it is still available in a week I will probably swap everything to get this)
13. Knocking from front sway bar

In all I actually feel kinda sad because for some reason I feel like I messed up my car. Really it is just because the door doesn’t work. If the door did work I would feel a whole lot better at this point. I guess you can’t have everything go according to plan.

I also got really far in my MythTV box. I got everything to compile and it was looking great. Some of the folders didn’t install the same way the tutorial said but for the most part things were just working. I never tried to startup mythtvfrontend because I was still working on the MythWeb portion and when I restarted the computer I got an error. NOOOO!!! I was so far and now I have no idea what is causing the error. Ubuntu won’t even start. I am going to try a live CD to see if I can’t fix the problem and if that doesn’t work I will start searching forums. I have come to far to have the computer die on me now.

X2VGA2 review

A much awaited VGA adapter for the xbox has been released a couple weeks ago. I have had the pleasure to buy one and give it some tests.

My first impressions of taking it out of the box were somewhat mixed. The manual was not in the box because it was not ready by the time the item shipped. That made me wonder what the big rush was in getting the product out the door. I do no not know many people watering at the mouth to get the X2VGA2 but either way they felt they needed to rush the shipment and instead of a manual give you a peice of paper with a link to download the pdf manual.

The X2VGA2 came with a short component video adapter for the xbox (which is really cool), a power adapter, and the vga adapter itself. The component video cable is really neat because it is only about 12 inches long. This makes things great for keeping a neat desk with a xbox, vga adapter, controller, computer, monitor, keyboard, and mouse. The only other thing I would maybe need is on optical audio cable but lets face it, not many people have optical receivers at their desks.

The first thing I noticed about the actual adapter was that it needed a power supply. The first X2VGA adapter and the X2VGA+ adapters did not need any external power. I really enjoyed that aspect on the first adapters, but I realized that this isn’t just a xbox vga adapter. Instead this is a HD component VGA adapter and there would be no way to pull power over component video cables. This adapter will allow me to play a xbox 360, ps2, ps3, gamecube all with the same adapter!

I started getting myself worked up at this point and I realized something on the adapter that I cannot explain. There is no audio passthrough! The X2VGA+ had optical audio out, 1/8″ plug in for your computer, and a 1/8 plug out for headphones or RCA audio (with an adapter). When you were using the xbox the audio would automatically switch from the computer input to the xbox. This was a great feature. The X2VGA2 has no audio plugs what-so-ever. I could have looked at the diagram on their site to figure that out before I purchased the X2VGA2 but it still didn’t make sence why they would leave sound out of the adapter. The lack of optical audio was no problem because the component adapter for the xbox had the optical plug directly on it.

When I turned the device over I saw the familiar buttons of Power and Source and I also noticed a button labeled Screen Shift. A quick glance at the pdf manual told me that the Screen Shift button is for 480i output. That is nice to have but I am still curious why there is a 4th, unlabeled button on the front of the X2VGA2 adapter. The button pushes in but there is no light or action that is accompanied with it. The buttons did not seem as sturdy as previous models and my source button gets stuck almost every time I push it. This was annoying but not a deal breaker.

The top input is in the most awkward place I can imagine. The slide top was very hard to get open and upon my first attempt I thought I was going to break the adapter. Once I had it open I realized that if the adapter was sitting on my desk with the xbox plugged in the back it would be very unbalenced to have cables coming off the top. Moving the lights so they are closer together and a small door on the front would have been much more effective in my opinion.

Finally, how is it to use. When the xbox first starts everything displays fine but once a game starts I have to switch inputs and switch back so it will continue to display on my monitor (I think it has something to do with switching from 480i to 480p). It is annoying but I think I can live with it. The adapter automatically switches inputs when it detects a video source which can be good and bad depending on how many devices you have plugged in. Overall I like being able to play Halo on Xbox Connect every Wednesday night without taking up the TV. The X2VGA2 still has some things missing, but for the price and ability to use any input it is worth it.
Like I stated earlier the hardest thing to understand is the lack of audio. I end up playing Halo with no sound because I do not have female RCA to female 1/8″ audio adapters lying around to even plug in headphones. My only other option is to get 2 female to female rca adapters and then another stereo rca cable to reach my nearby amp. Either way It would have been better to have RCA inputs for audio and a 1/8″ output for sound.

For the discounted $64 this was still a good buy. The rush shipping was also a very nice thing to have (my adpater made it to Southern California in about 3 days). You will never find a component vga video adapter that is still capable of displaying 480p, 720p, and 1080i. Most vga adapters just show the standard 640×480 resolution that is outputted by 480i. One quick trip to radio shack to pick up some female RCA plugs and a couple 1/8″ female adapters and I should have sound inputs and outputs right on the device.

In other words, the X2VGA adapter could have been better, but it is still the best available for under $100.

The weekend in review

So here is my weekend:

Saturday morning I woke up at 6 and was out to get my car started to drive to elsinore to work on it. I had already loaded it up so all I needed to do was get it started. I couldn’t get it started.  I call AAA and wait for the tow truck guy to show.  He comes and helps me get the car push started and I drive down to Elsinore.  As soon as I get there it is already 9:30 and I was hoping to be there around 8:00.  I also then realized that my dad’s supra is still in the garage.  I help him bleed the breaks and push the car out into the driveway.

Once my car is in the garage the first thing I do is go to jack it up and put it on jack stands.  I cannot find any good place to jack it up in the front and I pick a spot that looks like a brace.  Turns out it was more of a cover and I bent it.   No time to complain cause I am getting a really late start.  David shows up and we tear into the rear breaks.  We take off the rotors and calipers and then start trying to figure out where all of the bushings go.  We figure out a couple of them and get started on taking off control arms to get to where the bushings are.  Once David is working on the rear I went to the front to replace the sway bar bushings up front.  While up front I figured out where a couple more bushings go and we get almost everything taken apart.  We head out to lunch and go to rent the tool to remove the bushings.  Autozone doesn’t have the tool so we go to Kregan.  They don’t have the exact tool but they have something that should work.

We get back and I start looking at taking out the bushings while Dave takes off the exhaust to get to the starter.  My dad helps get out the first couple of bushings and I put in the new ones.  David has the starter off by this time so we put in the new one and he wires up the new cable.  First try, the car starts (and without exhaust).  That is great news! As long as I can put everything back together I can drive it.  Dave works on putting the exhaust back on and I go to put some of the front back together.  I find where the last of the bushings go and now we just need to get all the old ones out.

I try to take out the bushings in the rear but cannot get the tool to push them out.  I ask my dad for help and he gives up on the tool pretty quick.  He grabs his torch and starts burning out the bushings.  I don’t know what I think of this at first but within 5 minutes the first bushing is out.  I get back to work on the front (taking off the control arm and doing the steering bushings).

The rest of the night was basically just bushings being burned out, putting on rear breaks with Dave and then everyone had to leave and I finished up the front.  I got it all back together and the tires put on. At this point I am more dirty than I think I have ever been so I had to change and take a shower.  As soon as I straighten up the garage and put away most of the tools I start my drive home. On my way home I notice a lot of play in the steering and some bad noises coming from the front. I am really to tired to do anything about it so I just drive slowly.
It was about 9:30 when I was driving and I hadn’t eaten dinner and neither had Beth.  I get Jack in the box and go home.

By the time I get home I am so tired I just want to eat and sleep.  Luckily Beth wanted to do the same because she was cleaning like a mad-woman in my absence.

Sunday we went to church and then out to lunch.  Barney’s is the resturant (a.k.a. The only place in town) we went to and I have still not been disapointed by that place.  Great food! On our drive home the inlaws called and were waiting at our door.  We get home and play games pretty much for the rest of the night.  It was lots of fun and even though I did not get to rest I am still glad I was able to get so much done.

Tonight I will drive down to Elsinore again and have dinner with my sister because it is her birthday!

This is probably the longest post ever but it was also the longest weekend.  I might be able to update some more things after I recoup but don’t expect much for the next couple of days.

Projects update

I have had a chance to work on a few of my projects in the past few days so I thought I would post a quick update before the weekend.

Mythtv my pvr installed flawlessly thanks to the new knoppmyth update. My only problem is selecting the right card to have it tune channels. I have tried multiple cards and scanning with multiple options but non of them return any results. I have had a little help from some people but I am still to new to linux to be able to do a lot of trouble shooting on my own (that and I don’t have the time to troubleshoot). So for now I am waiting for an easy way to select the right card or possibly a new update from the forums I posted to.

MR2 my mr2 is still not running but I was able to try a few more things last night. I found out that all my connections look good and clean (but that still doesn’t mean there isn’t something bad in the wire itself). When I try a fresh battery all my electronics work but the engine still does not turn over.  Just one click and the electronics go off.  This still makes me think that the problem lies in the starter.  Tomorrow is the day I will be doing a bunch of work on the car to get it in better shape.  I will be waking up super early and hope that the car will push start.  If the car does not start then it will be a long day of working on the car in my parking space.

XBOX I ordered the replacement lid for my xbox so it will be whole again.  I am also going to be modding another xbox in a couple of weeks (I ordered the chip today).  The real exciting thing is the fact that XBMC 2.0 will be released shortly and the xbox 360 skin will also come out soon so that is cool too.

I will have more to post early next week after my car is hopefully running.

To good to be true

Thursday night I went to get some ice cream and once I got the ice cream I went out to my car and it wouldn’t start. I had a click and then nothing. The lights inside began to dim and then just wouldn’t come back on. First thing I thought to try was check to see if the battery is charged. I ask someone to give me a jump and luckily they had some cables. After that didn’t work (same thing, click and no start) I waited until I saw some people to ask if they could give me a push start. I managed to get three guys to give me a push out of the parking spot and up a hill a little bit. I was able to roll down the hill and get the car started.

Once back at my apartment I wanted to try and see if the car would start now because it ran fine. I turn the key and I get the same results. It is Saturday now and I am still trying to figure it out. I think it is the starter motor but there are a couple of things that just don’t add up.

1. My radio would not turn on when i was driving and kept trying to eject a cd that did not exist.

2. My antenna would not go down when the car was off. The reason that is odd to me is because if it were just the starter than was bad all of the other electricals should work fine.

3. When I put in the key now (I removed the radio just to take it out of the equation) I hear some odd noises from the center console. It could be somewhere in the dash but I am not sure. It almost sounds like when you run current through a speaker but at the same time it sounds different. It may be the fuel pump but I am not sure.

So now I am trying to figure out why my car will not start and what the mysterious noises and problems are. My battery is at autozone getting a charge right now and I am going to go to a different autozone to pick up a starter. I may need to replace it tomorrow but I am not sure where I will be able to do it.

On the plus side Beth is feeling better. She has been sick for the past 3 days. I saw V for Vendetta last night and I didn’t care for it to much (Beth says it is because I cannot relate to a book worm character). Maybe I will write a review of it sometime but for now my recovering wife, car work, xbox, and pvr take presidence.
That is all for now.