Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

A place to talk about A/V receivers, Blu-Ray players, LCD or Plasma TV mounting, audio tips or anything else that you think fits.
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dicecca112
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Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

Post by dicecca112 »

Bonus Points to the Person who can Figure out where the Title Comes From. This is a little Pet Project I have been planning for a while.

Pictures and synopsis to come this weekend.
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Until then I'll leave you guessing :)
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

Post by dicecca112 »

Specs

1X16GB Mtron 7000 Pro SSD (SLC) (Own)
2X1TB SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (ETA Wednesday)
1X PROMISE FastTrak TX4310 PCI SATA II Controller Card RAID 0/1/5/10 JBOD (4 Connections) (ETA Wednesday)
1 X MSI Industrial 945GM2 Core 2 Duo Mobile Mini-ITX Mainboard = DELIVERED
1 X T2500 Intel Processor (ETA Wednesday)
1X Morex Venus 668B Case - Black = DELIVERED
1X ASUS Xonar D2X Sound Card (ETA Wednesday)
2 X 1GB Ultra Low Profile PC2-5300 DDR2 (OWN)
1X 2 to 1 Flexible PCI Riser = DELIVERED
1X 5.25" to 3.5" Adapter Brackets (ETA Wednesday)
1X DVD-RW Lite-ON (OWN)

Going to be Running either XBMC or MythBuntu as a DVD Machine. It's only function is to play DVDs at HD Quality. Box will contain over 254 Discs of both Movies and TV Shows. H.264 File Format will be used. OS will be Ubuntu 8.04 or 8.10

Case can hold up to 5 HDDs (Box physically could do 6, 4 on the Controller, 2 on the board)
1 HDD in the FDD Slot
1 on each of the two 5.25" Slots with Brackets
2 in the designation bays for HDDS

Video Connection is VGA, Audio Connection is Toslink from Sound Card to Reciever

Display is 32in Samsung LCD (720p)

ETA of Case - Monday/Tuesday
ETA of Hard Drive, Sound Card, and Raid Card Tuesday/Wednesday
Case to be Wired on Thursday

To-Do
Research best Raid mode - RAID1 (Since Rips are 1-2GB per DVD, 2.4 for TV DVDs, 500 or so DVDs should fit per 1TB Disk)
Research NetFlix Streaming on Linux No Support in XBMC on MythTV, will wait for Linux Support via Web
Research Online Radio (Pandora and Last.fm) Pandora No, Last.fm Yes in XBMC
Research Ripping by Chapter for TV Series Handbrake, select Correct Chapter
Rip all DVDs - In Progress
Custom Splash Screen (Beaker Special Image)
Download 8.10 Ubuntu, 8.10 Mythbuntu Decided on XBMC
Research ISO Playing in XBMC Decided on MKV

Decided
XBMC
Ripping to MKVs
Addition of DVD-RW (So I can use box as dedicated Ripper)

Estimated Complete Online Date January 2nd 2009
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martini161
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

Post by martini161 »

your going to be bottle necking your drives significantly by going with a PCI raid card. why not a higher quality sound card like this? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829270003 ive heard good things about it and it works in linux.
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

Post by dicecca112 »

Speakers aren't good enough to hear a difference, the card was free from a friend. And I have a script that will shuttle the wanted file to the SSD for optimal performance :)

And I don't have anything but PCI in this rig, and I'm not updating the board. I actually achieved better benchmarks on PCI Controller card, than the onboard controller of the mobo, so no worries. Raid is for data redundancy not speed.
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

Post by martini161 »

oh, ok. thats a pretty nifty script there. whats it written in and how many lines is it? :lol:
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

Post by smack323 »

Winamp has some pretty good online radio built in to it thru shoutcast, and its free.
Core i5-6500 - Corsair Vengence 16GB DDR4 2133 - MSI 2080Ti - Antec 750W - Crucial 525GB SSD - Windows 10 64bit - ASUS 32" LED
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

Post by dicecca112 »

This is a Linux Box
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

Post by Dragon_Cooler »

As far as online radio goes i strongly suggest di.fm, I listen to them almost 24/7 to thier house, chill, and trance. I swap between them depending on what I am doing and what mood im in. LOL But as far as best raid, for what you have and what its going to be doing and if you can afford it, raid 5 at the very least. It doesnt have have the best I/O performance, but you at least get space with redundancy. The best I think you can do is Raid 10 IMHO. 4 drive minimum.
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

Post by dicecca112 »

I use Pandora and Last FM, just have to find the plugins. Plus there is a plugin for the Squeezebox, so I can use that to stream to the computer. Working with Mythbuntu right now. Not sure I'm a fan of it. Formatting the TB Drive to EXT3 right now so I don't have to mount the drive every time I want to use it.
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

Post by martini161 »

i use pandora and last.fm too 8) and songbird in windows
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

Post by Alathald »

You can add a NTFS to fstab so it automounts in ubuntu at least. Should work exactly the same in mythbuntu...can't wait to see some pics :)
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

Post by dicecca112 »

Too lazy, and Myth is not the way to go. Looking at LinuxMCE and Elisa
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

Post by martini161 »

XBMC? doesnt have tv support though...
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

Post by dicecca112 »

Don't need TV support just DVD, and it doesn't full screen correctly on Intel Hardware
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

Post by dicecca112 »

Updated thread with new Mobo and CPUs. Anyone recommend a good PCI-E Sound Card? Dolby Digital is a must with a coax output. Incase your wondering I'm going all out :)

Looking at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829132006

I will take optical though, as it appears only real high end cards of coax
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

Post by martini161 »

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829271001 but its not PCIe
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829132006 but it needs to be plugged into your PSU Edit: doesn't have coax, but it does have optical
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

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martini161 wrote:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829271001 but its not PCIe
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829132006 but it needs to be plugged into your PSU Edit: doesn't have coax, but it does have optical
Has to be PCIE, the raid card is taking the PCI slot

That other needs power really? I'd rather not go that route. If its optical that's fine. I'm gonna be powering 1 SSD, and to SATAs, with only a 200W PSU. I would like to keep the Power Usage Low. I gotta hook up the Power Reader to the DVD while playing. It'd be cool to have it lower than the power consumption on that.

And martini161, thanks for all the quick answers :)
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

Post by martini161 »

it only needs power because i dont think PCIe1x pins provides much power at all, so it wont take much power at all
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

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Okay, I'll have to wait till I get the case (I think today) to see if I have the right connectors.
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Re: Project Micro Shrink-o-Matic Machine

Post by dicecca112 »

After seeing that http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829132005 works perfectly (expect for SPDIF), in Ubuntu, I splurged and bought it. I can do some leg work to get the SPDIF working.
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