[gentoo-user] Software for LCD Data Center

[gentoo-user] Software for LCD Data Center

[czernitko]

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Hello list!
I've recently bought LCD television from Panasonic (TX-L32E30E Viera). It is
connected to my home LAN and it should be able to access data on local
computers using some Data Center feature. From what I've heard, it is
something little bit different than common NFS/Samba sharing. It should be
natively supported by Win7 and there may be some applications for WinXP.
Unfortunately no applications were shipped on CD with the telly. I wonder
whether there is some way to connect my home Gentoo server to the telly? Is
there any linux application/specific Samba configuration/...? Have anyone
tried anything similar?

Peter

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Re: [gentoo-user] Software for LCD Data Center

[Mick]

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On Saturday 20 Aug 2011 10:40:37 czernitko wrote:
> Hello list!
> I've recently bought LCD television from Panasonic (TX-L32E30E Viera). It
> is connected to my home LAN and it should be able to access data on local
> computers using some Data Center feature. From what I've heard, it is
> something little bit different than common NFS/Samba sharing. It should be
> natively supported by Win7 and there may be some applications for WinXP.
> Unfortunately no applications were shipped on CD with the telly. I wonder
> whether there is some way to connect my home Gentoo server to the telly?
> Is there any linux application/specific Samba configuration/...? Have
> anyone tried anything similar?
> 
> Peter

Look into:

* media-video/ushare
     Available versions:  
		~	1.1a "~amd64 ~x86" [dlna nls]
     Homepage:            http://ushare.geexbox.org/
     Description:         uShare is a UPnP (TM) A/V & DLNA Media Server

it should work once you connect a wireless (USB?) adaptor to your TV and sort 
out connections across the LAN.

HTH.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Software for LCD Data Center

[Stroller]

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On 20 August 2011, at 10:40, czernitko wrote:
> …
> I've recently bought LCD television from Panasonic (TX-L32E30E Viera). It is connected to my home LAN and it should be able to access data on local computers using some Data Center feature. From what I've heard, it is something little bit different than common NFS/Samba sharing. It should be natively supported by Win7 and there may be some applications for WinXP. Unfortunately no applications were shipped on CD with the telly. I wonder whether there is some way to connect my home Gentoo server to the telly? Is there any linux application/specific Samba configuration/...? Have anyone tried anything similar?

I've just checked the telly's specifications page [1] and, as per Mick's reply, it does appear to be DNLA you're thinking of.

DNLA is rubbish - it's a "standard" so wide that it's no use as a standard any more. Manufacturers can choose such small subsets of features to implement, and have such freedom in *how* they implement features, that no two devices need ever work together - they can still all call themselves "DNLA compliant".

So don't rely on DNLA - there are sure to be plenty of good video formats unsupported by your TV - but you might also check out MediaTomb, an alternative DNLA server.

Stroller.


[1] http://panasonic.net/avc/viera/eu2011/product/e_lcd.html

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[gentoo-user] Re: Software for LCD Data Center

[James]

Stroller <stroller <at> stellar.eclipse.co.uk> writes:

>  I wonder whether there is some way to connect my home 
> Gentoo server to the telly? Is there any linux 
> application/specific Samba configuration/...? 
> Have anyone tried anything similar?

Not yet. 

> DNLA is rubbish 

Prophetic response. DNLA is just another "vendor speak" where the 
manufacturer's  wants to lock you into using closed source options
where they have a vested financial interest in channeling your usage.
It's not intended for Linux folks to do as you please. Microsoft
or Apple tainted type of assimilation is the goal....


A possible coarse of action might be to apple to those fancy, vendor
intended services directly from your telly (like netflix). 
Then sniff the data traffic to figure out how the software works.
Find an open source equivalent and see if it works. Surely some
group of hackers are working on a solution to use those ethernet
ports on the newer Telly. I have an ethernet port on my newest
55" telly, but my experience is it takes tons of time in the
early days of such, before a viable (compatible) hack exist to
use the resource (in this case an ethernet on a telly) as
you please with linux. Or just monitor and search periodically
until some hack becomes available. I hope I'm wrong,
but this is the pattern that seems unchangeable and
adopted by most new manufacturers.

I just googled for "panasonic linux SOC" and found this
as a starting point for your research:

http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Panasonic-UniPhier-MN2WS0220-/

The Arm Cortex A9 is a very common core
(System on a Chip) that runs embedded linux most of the 
time....

Happy Hunting,
hth,

pist: when you find a solution, do post back to us!

James

Re: [gentoo-user] Software for LCD Data Center

[Michael Mol]

On Sun, Aug 21, 2011 at 2:21 AM, Stroller
<stroller@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:
>
> On 20 August 2011, at 10:40, czernitko wrote:
>
> …
>
> I've recently bought LCD television from Panasonic (TX-L32E30E Viera). It is
> connected to my home LAN and it should be able to access data on local
> computers using some Data Center feature. From what I've heard, it is
> something little bit different than common NFS/Samba sharing. It should be
> natively supported by Win7 and there may be some applications for WinXP.
> Unfortunately no applications were shipped on CD with the telly. I wonder
> whether there is some way to connect my home Gentoo server to the telly? Is
> there any linux application/specific Samba configuration/...? Have anyone
> tried anything similar?
>
> I've just checked the telly's specifications page [1] and, as per Mick's
> reply, it does appear to be DNLA you're thinking of.
> DNLA is rubbish - it's a "standard" so wide that it's no use as a standard
> any more. Manufacturers can choose such small subsets of features to
> implement, and have such freedom in *how* they implement features, that no
> two devices need ever work together - they can still all call themselves
> "DNLA compliant".
> So don't rely on DNLA - there are sure to be plenty of good video formats
> unsupported by your TV - but you might also check out MediaTomb, an
> alternative DNLA server.
> Stroller.
>
> [1] http://panasonic.net/avc/viera/eu2011/product/e_lcd.html

I'll second the MediaTomb recommendation. It's got a significant
learning curve to get set up, but they've got a large community wiki
with examples and advice, and their IRC channel is helpful if you run
into bugs.

(Amusing side note...MediaTomb is what got me into Gentoo way back
when...I wanted to use a distro a bit better set up as a development
environment, as I was tracking down crasher bugs in media codecs that
were killing my mt server. As it happened, libavcodec was crashing
when it encountered a corrupted bitstream)

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] Software for LCD Data Center

[czernitko]

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Thanks for all your answers guys! And sorry for not responding for three
days, I was away on holiday. From what you say I will give DLNA a try (no
other choice, I simply want to watch movies stored on my pc). I found some
list of DLNA software on
http://www.rbgrn.net/content/21-how-to-choose-dlna-media-server-windows-mac-os-x-or-linuxbut
I will give a try to ushare and MediaTomb first. I'll go through the
list and try each piece of software and see which one works best with my
telly x gentoo combination. I'll let you know as soon as I have more info!
Cheers,
Peter

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Re: [gentoo-user] Software for LCD Data Center

[Stroller]

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On 24 August 2011, at 12:57, czernitko wrote:
> … From what you say I will give DLNA a try (no other choice, I simply want to watch movies stored on my pc). …

The *choice* may well be to connect some kind of external box to your TV and use that to stream and decode the videos from your NAS.

The video codecs available in your TV will be somewhat limited, and the selection will not be upgradable.

My ideal "television" would not even contain tuners, but only HDMI / DVI / component inputs - I would prefer a screen which is nothing more than a display.

You can get set-top boxes which will stream videos across the network from your Samba shares for about £80 (e.g. PlayOn HD Mini, Western Digital TV Live). The contain dedicated decoder chips for h264, do 1080p and will play most any video codec you throw at them.

Alternatively, if you want a bit more flexibility, you can get a dual-core 64-bit Atom box with a 250gb hard-drive, 2gig RAM and Linux pre-installed for £130. I believe that using the nVidia drivers this gives slightly more grunt for decoding than the STBs. Slap Gentoo on it and emerge XBMC - plenty of people report it working fine.
http://www.ebuyer.com/267867-emachine-er1401-desktop-pt-nbzec-004
http://www.emachines.com/products/products.html?prod=ER1401-57


I appreciate that "go and spend more money" is not what you're expecting hear, and that you're thinking "but it's already built-in to my TV", but AFAICT you don't actually have a clear idea of *what* is built into your TV. My crystal ball shows frustration in your future. I have a bunch of guitar tuition videos here in VP6 format - will your telly play those? 

On AVforums the single most common response to the question "what video player do you wish you'd bought in the first place, if you knew then what you know now?" was XMBC.
http://www.avforums.com/forums/streamers-network-media-players/1478323-ok-knowing-what-you-know-what-player-would-you-buy-tomorrow.html

Stroller.


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Re: [gentoo-user] Software for LCD Data Center

[Michael Mol]

On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 7:57 AM, czernitko <czernitko@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for all your answers guys! And sorry for not responding for three
> days, I was away on holiday. From what you say I will give DLNA a try (no
> other choice, I simply want to watch movies stored on my pc). I found some
> list of DLNA software on
> http://www.rbgrn.net/content/21-how-to-choose-dlna-media-server-windows-mac-os-x-or-linux
> but I will give a try to ushare and MediaTomb first. I'll go through the
> list and try each piece of software and see which one works best with my
> telly x gentoo combination. I'll let you know as soon as I have more info!

If you need help with MT, I can offer some assistance as I have time.


-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] Software for LCD Data Center

[czernitko]

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Ok, you were right guys! I installed MediaTomb per your recommendations, and
it works like a charm! Installation and configuration was easy as a pie
thanks to Gentoo's portage and MediaTomb's web UI. Moreover its DLNA is
compatible with my telly! Yay! :) Streaming of video, conversion of
unsupported formats and everything just works in five minutes of work! And
it is much better than Twonky Media Server which is the only officially
supported software by Panasonic.
Thanks for all your time guys!
Peter

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