Pulseaudio networked audio

PulseAudio is a sound server for POSIX and Win32 systems. A sound server is basically a proxy for your sound applications. It allows you to do advanced operations on your sound data as it passes between your application and your hardware. Things like transferring the audio to a different machine, changing the sample format or channel count and mixing several sounds into one are easily achieved using a sound server.

So I've recently been playing with Pulseaudio to send audio back and forth between the different ubuntu machines I have in my house. If you look at the Frequently asked questions section there's solutions for the most complex setups. There's even one to push audio from multiple machines into one surround mix. It doesn't create AC3 or DTS signals instead multichannel PCM which some surround receiver can decode. Looking at the instructions you can get slightly scared of the commands you need to feed it. But I've found using Pulse Audio Device Chooser which is in the Ubuntu Universe repository you can do most of the simple tasks without touching the command line.

My only problem at the moment is that I don't boot into Ubuntu when using xbmc or Boxee so I don't get a chance to play with the gui device chooser. Plus xbmc doesn't work well with pulseaudio currently. So the main machine plugged into my largest sound source is currently not setup to receive network audio right now. Expect that to change very soon.

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

Interview with Boxee founder

Found this good interview with Avner Ronen, one of the founders of Boxee. Interesting to hear about Avner's previous work on XBMC and helping out the project. So far there's been two forks for XBMC, Plex and Boxee. Boxee is certainly the more interesting. I would use it more but I find XBMC does everything I need and I love the Mediastream Skin, which looks amazing on my 40inch LCD screen.

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

Hacking the wii?

I sold mine a while back but the wii has been totally hacked. When I say totally hacked, I mean not only can you copy games (which is really lame) you can also run unsigned code, which means theres already some homebrew software ready to run on the device. Emulators for the Wii have also moved along really quickly and now you can play Wii games at a higher resolution that the Wii's hardware. Aka you can play some Wii games at 720p resolution rather that 480p. It really feels like the days of hacking the Xbox but with the console online, and it coming out of the box with SD, USB and Bluetooth, I can't wait to see what interesting things get built. Might have to end up buying another one if things get really interesting. XBMC for wii anyone?

There's a ton of links but the best place to start is simply Wii Brew and Dolphin-emu. I found out about the whole thing by watching the video podcast Hak.5 ep's 508, 509 and 510. The show is also now in available in HD which is actually pretty cool for seeing code samples clearly. This is also why I download Coop in HD.

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

FLOSS Weekly 57: XBMC

The beauty of XBMC media centre

XBMC Media Center, the free, open source, cross-platform media-player and entertainment hub.

Running time: 1:04:09

Guests: Scott Davilla and Jonathan Marshall for XBMC

XBMC is a free, open source (GPLv2+) media center application available for Linux, Mac OS X, AppleTV, Windows and the original XBox. It allows users to view, organize, and play back media from an attractive user interface. It utilizes many other FLOSS projects in order to play back almost any media available, and can obtain additional metadata information for albums, artists, TV shows and movies from online sources. And all of this can be achieved from the the couch via a remote control.

There are many skins that allow users to theme the look and feel of XBMC to fit into a user's current system, and many plugins and addons that extend functionality, offering access to online content such as Hulu or Apple Movie Trailers from within XBMC.

The project originated in 2001-2002, with XBox Media Player being developed for the original Microsoft XBox. XBox Media Center was a rewrite of this in 2003, and in 2007 it was ported to Linux and later to Mac OS X, Windows, and the Apple TV, becoming known simply as XBMC. The first, official stable release of XBMC in its current incarnation was XBMC 8.10 (Atlantis), released at the end of October 2008.

Boxee was also discussed. Boxee is a freeware cross-platform media center software with social networking features that is a fork of the open source XBMC media center software with some custom and proprietary additions. Marketed as the first ever “social media center,” Boxee enables its users to view, rate and recommend content to their friends through many social networking features. Boxee is still under development and is currently only available as Alpha releases for Mac OS X (Leopard and Tiger), Apple TV, and Linux for computers with Intel processors, with the first Alpha made available on the 16th of June 2008. A Microsoft Windows alpha version of Boxee was released in January 2009, but is currently available only by private invitation.

TWiT Wiki for this show

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

Hulu removes its self from Boxee

This is so insane. Boxee is doing nothing wrong and even the Hulu team have no real problem with whats going on. But oh no the content providers can't understand the whole situation and have demanded Hulu be removed from Boxee. The users are going to lose out big time in this. We really need to educate the content providers about this new world of digital distribution. This is from the Boxee blog

we love Hulu. they have built a great product and brand (including one the best Superbowl ads this year). since our early days in private alpha, Hulu was the most requested site by our users. so we built support for browsing Hulu on boxee, reached out to Hulu, and on Oct 20th, 2008 shared it with our alpha testers. the response has been amazing. people love watching many of their favorite shows on Hulu via boxee. last week we generated more than 100,000 streams for them…

two weeks ago Hulu called and told us their content partners were asking them to remove Hulu from boxee. we tried (many times) to plead the case for keeping Hulu on boxee, but on Friday of this week, in good faith, we will be removing it. you can see their blog post about the issues they are facing.

our goal has always been to drive users to legal sources of content that are publicly available on the Internet. we have many content partners who are generating revenue from boxee users and we will work with Hulu and their partners to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.

we will tell them how users love Hulu on boxee, why it represents a great opportunity for them to better engage with fans of their shows, how boxee can help in exposing their content to new people, and why they should be excited about future opportunities of working with us.

In the i'm a pirate and what you going to do about it session at Beebcamp, it was identified that streaming could be the answer to bit torrent downloads for most users. But with decisions like this one, there's almost no choice but to look to the darkside for the same content. I'm really hoping the BBC is stronger that Hulu and won't remove the unofficial iplayer plugin from Boxee. I actually just helped a friend get boxee setup because he would like to watch BBC content on his TV instead of his laptop. There a family which don't really watch live TV and own a Apple TV, Boxee with iplayer makes tons of sense for them and I'm sure many others…

Fear not the users of Boxee, the Boxee team are collaboratively working out a pitch for the content producers. If its any good, it could be very useful for other content producers large and small. I highly suggest everyone get in there and add to there pitch.

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

Want to buy my old Home Cinema setup?

So if you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen I bought a new Home Cinema amp on the weekend. I had planned to upgrade in the near future but when I was out getting my mobile phone upgraded, I come across a great deal in SuperFi. It was a ex-display Onkyo 7.1 Channel Home Cinema amp (Onkyo TX-SR505E). I had planned to buy the next one up from Richersounds but for over double the price. The one I bought was on shop floor for 120 pounds but I knocked them down further again by another 20+ pounds. 97 pounds exactly which is very good for a 7.1 home cinema amp. It took me ages to get it setup because its very different from my previous setup and I didn't have all the cables.

Anyway all this begs the question, what do I do with the old Home Cinema kit? It still works and is still really good but its going to be a real pain to sell on ebay, computer exchange are not going to take it and I don't really think I'll get much for it. So I have made a video to prove it all works and hopefully someone might be interested enough to drop me a offer. I'll add the specs below but here's someone with almost exactly the same setup I had.


Dolby Digital/DTS Decoder: Technics SH-AC500D Surround Processor. Supports 2x Optical and 2x Coxial connections, Supports Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1 and Pass through Stereo with automatic switching, fully working remote, Dolby midnight mode support, Solid american power adapter included. Bought for 300 pounds brand new from a specialist importer


Dolby Prologic Power Amp: Sherwood Newcastle R725 RDS. 100 watts per channel (5.1) 130 watts in Stereo. 8 analog audios in, 2 tape loops, phono input, A/B speakers modes, supports dolby prologic, 4 surround modes, composite video switching, 2Eq's plus Cinema bass, 6 Channel input (the technics decoder uses this). Remote sometimes works. Bought for 299 pounds from Richersounds in the UK

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

The two sides of Vigin Media

Thanks Sheila for this link, ISP To Voluntarily Disconnect File-Sharers, Offers Free Usenet.

Virgin Media in the UK has announced that it is working with the music industry to chase down its file-sharing customers and disconnect them from the internet. At the same time, it will offer an enhanced service which will see its customers get free Usenet binaries access, untraceable by the music industry.

I like it…very sneaky. I have been thinking about switching to Virgin Media for a while, fibre to the home (fibre optic) speeds is very attractive. I do however wonder what their download limits are? I'm still doing about 140 gig a month.

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

Ideas and plans

Ideas and plans, boy oh boy have I got ideas and plans in my head. If you’d been to this page before you’d notice it was something slightly different. Something about joining Consume.net, yep I will but this is only part of the overall strategy as such..

So whats the strategy? well its a mix of ideas and plans (wouldn’t you know) If things get very busy on this page I will start breaking the ideas down into multiple weblogs. And I hope to at some point draw up a map of how things should be, and what I need to buy and fit to complete it.

Ok so the idea is to use digital technology to make changes to me and my partner’s lifestyle. Ok sounds easy enough. At the moment we watch films through a computer rather than a dvd player. Because of course you can not watch divx or xvid films on a standard dvd player. Now I know thats changing due to the kiss dvd player and others like it but standard dvd players only have support for mpeg 1 and 2, not mpeg4. Anyhow I’m looking to solve that problem by using a modded (preferred chipped) xbox. So thats part of the plan at least. more later

I already own a home cinema system, which is a 32 inch widescreen tv, Sherwood prologic cinema reciever, Technics ac3 decoder which supports all 6 channel formats including dolby digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1. And if you include 5 speakers and 1 subwoofer you got the picture. To add the picture I have a freeview digital television box which was originally ondigital’s own box. More about that at some point maybe.

On the computer side of things, got 1 workstation with stacks of memory, beefy Ati all in wonder 8500 dv graphics card, multiple hard drives and a cd bruner and dvd drive. That is then connected via 100megabit ethernet to a server which is where your reading this weblog now. That server has stacks of memory, hard drive space and also has a cd burner and region free dvd drive. The Network I’m using is all 10/100 and has a wireless hub using dhcp to allow the tabletpc and my partner’s laptop to roam anywhere in the house. there is also a 400megabit firewire link between the server and workstation to stop tieing up the network during heavy transfers. But doesnt work because Microsoft didnt put in the driver for firewire networking on windows 2000 professional, such a shame too. In the kitchen there is an old 21 inch toshiba television which use to be my main television, its mainly used by my partner while cooking for watching analogue stations. And I think that basicly covers everything for now.

Ok so plans and ideas. First thing the wireless hub, its an 802.11b hub and supports 11megabits, its based in the living room and covers the whole house but signal drops alot when it hits the bathroom at the far end of the house. You can get a signal, but not a very good one if your on a laptop. If your on a pocketpc with wireless, it drops the connection at the bathroom door. So no streaming music while in the bath at this moment. I could either move the current wireless access point to the middle of the house and get a even spread of wireless or buy another one and stick it down pass the kitchen and very near the bathroom. See that option sounds good because I can then cover the garden which is also on the far end of the house, past the bathroom. that will also give me a chance to swap the hubs around and put a 802.11g hub in the living room and the older 802.11b hub near the garden instead. I was thinking of using the bridging mode, but i think a long ethernet cable to the far hub will do the trick.

Next up, the xbox media player. I have been following the xbox scene of the sly and have been quietly surprised by the amount of development going on. The best development effort has to be the xbox mediaplayer, which will play divx 3 – 5, xvid, vcd, supervcd’s and dvd’s. Aka every kind of film I own. So what i’m thinking is that if I buy a xbox then get it chipped or modded I could use that as digital media jukebox (sorry yes it plays ogg, asf and mpg3s as well). But rather than use the cd drive or small local hard drive all the time I can use the network sharing option to access shared drives on my server or workstation as well. There is also a ftp option if all else fails. Ok so that means I can access all my films without unlocking a computer, which will make my partner very happy. If all goes well then maybe I’ll buy another one for the kitchen television.

Ah i love digital television, its clear bright and cheap. We in the uk have had 3 main ways of recieving digital tv, sky (expensive and requires a dish, but has tons of interactivinty and channels), Cable (just as expensive and lacks serious interactivity) and Free to air (use to be called OnDigital before ITVdigital took it over and that was before the BBC pumped millions in to it and called it freeview). Freeview is just that, free to view. Basicly its partly funded by the tv licence (yes we have to pay to watch tv here) and all you need is a set top box and a ariel nothing more. You get about 30 channels on freeview at the moment with more in the pipeline soon. Anyway, I’m thinking of buying one for the kitchen and or one for the workstation so I can watch one thing and record another.At this moment i can only record what i’m watching, unless its on analogue tv and i can watch that and record the digital feed. there is a freeview box by pace which has pvr (tivo) fuctionality and has two digital decoders, so you can watch one and record another on to its local 20gig hard drive. Its good but not at 300 uk pounds its not. Specially now you can buy freeview boxes al low as 70 pounds brand new.