Hack #14: Custom image for WebDT 366

Thom aka tschak909 developed a Debian Lenny micro-distribution for WebDT 366. It contains ready-to-use and stable Orbiter.

You can buy WebDT 366 with pre-installed Orbiter or, if you already have one, you may just reflash it by yourself.

Hack #13: Getting cover art and attributes from IMDB

Thanks to chriss all LinuxMCE users can retrieve metadata now not from Amazon only but from IMDB as well. There are two patches: 1 and 2 in the Track which add additional button to the web admin interface and needed logic to get and store info. To communicate with IMDB it uses IMDB PHP library.

In my mind IMDB is more suitable place to get movies or TV shows info then Amazon. Also it gives more reliable rating.

Hack #12: Using your own pictures for Screen Saver

As you may know LinuxMCE offers a cool Screen Saver for the media directors. It takes pictures from Flickr and show them on the screen with amusing effects. But for me (ad I suppose many of you) it’d be much netter to display my own photos instead of of shots of Flickr folks. Thanks to LinuxMCE community there is a way to do that. Just follow by instructions from the wiki article “Use my own pictures in the Screen Saver”. It needs a bit manual work. But as results you’ll able to admire your favourite photos.

Hack #10: Custom partitioning with DVD installation

AS you may know DVD installation doesn’t allow to create a custom partition. Actually installer makes following partitions on the HDD:

sda1 = / (everything except the last 12GB)
sda5 = swap (2GB)
sda6 = /mnt/recovery (10GB)

But there is a way to create the custom partition structure. AS the first step you should manually partition your HDD using some LiveCD. After that do following:

mount /dev/sda1 /media/target
mkdir /media/target/etc
touch /media/target/etc/pluto.conf

Then restart your PC. LinuxMCE installer should detect previous installation and gives you two options: install from the scratch or do upgrade. If you choose upgrade the system will be installed on your partition structure.

Tip #16: Howto manage Xine subtitles fonts

If you’re not satisfy with fonts of subtitles you can install new ones and tell Xine use them instead of defaults. Basically, embedded into LinuxMCE Xine lookups fonts in the directory /opt/libxine/share/xine/libxine1/fonts. Put new fonts there and edit Xine config file /etc/pluto/xine.conf as follows:
subtitles.separate.font:<name of the installed font>
As example, you can use that:
subtitles.separate.font:sans
Additionally, you can specify your own encoding:
subtitles.separate.src_encoding:iso-8859-1
Just replace iso-8859-1 by desired value.

Tip #15: Howto configure internet Radio in LinuxMCE

LinuxMCE doesn’t support Internet Radio directly. You can use Sqeezebox or this tip to configure and listen it. The idea is to create a media scenario for desire radio station and assign it to specified entertainment area.

There is a few notes regarding to playback internet radio content. But they can be solved easily till developers fix them in the next version.

Tip #14: Useful shortkeys to change video connection type

By default, the AV Wizard has the resolution 640×480 on VGA. This is not so good in case if your box is connected directly to TV. But there is a way to avoid connection VGA monitor to choose right connection. Just use following shorkeys: 1=DVI, 2=VGA, 3=Component, 4=Composite, 5=S-Video. To choose a resolution you have to press the keys from 6 to 0 – 6=640×480, 7=1024×768, 8=720p, 9=1080i, 0=1080p.

Note: for choosing the resolution and connector you have to be in the initial screen of AV Wizard!

Hack #9: Use VDR on the media director

LinuxMCE includes support of VDR since 0710 Beta 3. But the integration is done for core/hybrid only. To be able watch TV on the media director you should make a simple hack (thanks to Rafik):

• Move original binary file plutovdr to plutovdr.orig, for example
  sudo mv /usr/bin/plutovdr /usr/bin/plutovdr.orig
• create a wrapper for VDR:
  sudo vim /usr/bin/plutovdr
  and put following content there:
  #!/bin/sh
plutovdr.orig dcerouter $* 2>/dev/null 1>/dev/null

AS result you’ll able to watch the same channel as on the core/hybrid. But it’s better then nothing. Hope that LinucMCE developers will implement full integration with VDR soon.

UPDATED: during testing VDR on MD I found that it’s possible to switch channels from MD. Moreover no need to switch on TV on the core first. Just switch on TV on MD and it starts successfully! Also channel’s info is displayed on the MD as well.

Tip #13: Add goup of IR codes for A/V equipment

The lats build of 0710 Beta 3 contains a very useful feature to add appropriate group of IR codes for your A/V equipment. Before there were two possibilities: to copy-and-paste from somewhere and choose some group from the LinuxMCE set. But the difficulty was in figuring out what group should be chosen. Now as I already mentioned the situation is changed. There is a possibility to send specified command directly from the page which contains available groups of IR codes. Just don’t forget to assign one of supported IR transmitters to the A/V device before choosing the group.

It’s definitely useful feature. I spent just a few minutes to find appropriate IR group for my TV!

Tip #12: Play DivX with Subtitles

One good feature is going to be added into LinuxMCE 0710. It’s a possibility to playback DivX movies with subtitles. The media player expects to have file with subtitles in the same directory as DivX and with the same name but with one of following extensions: *.asc, *.txt, *.sub, *.srt, *.smi and *.ssa. For example, if we have DivX file The_Troy.avi, the file with subtitles should be named The_Troy.avi.srt and placed in the same directory.

A few configuration parameters are available in the /etc/pluto/xine.conf to customize subtitles font, size, encoding type. You can find them here.

Unfortunately, that feature is not yet included into LinuxMCE 0710 Beta 3.

UPDATED: It should work in LinuxMCE 0710 Beta 4!