nearing 1 year, no downtime

[drbenjamin]

Just wanted to swing by the forum and express my appreciation for the mvpmx2 software. A hard drive died in my PC this week, it was literally the first time in almost a year that I logged into my npvr server and did anything. Both my PCH units are used on an almost daily basis, they are like appliances; we turn them on and use them. Thanks Martin for your hard work, I'm sure there are others out there like me who don't post much on the forum because we have no issues to post about!

[mvallevand]

Thanks drbenjamin,. It's somewhat of an anniversary since it was 5 years ago this month that I bought my first A100 It took a few years to get it right but I think sub and I did do a pretty good job of making the PCH into an appliance. It has it's faults and only a qualified success mainly because of the other media it can't play, but considering Syabas are no 3 generations ahead, it isn't that bad. I think my players do deserve to be called 'tanks'. I have been rough on them and the outlive all my other electronics except an old VCR.

Now as I struggle to find alternatives for the next generation of NextPVR users, I am still hit with many challenges. I'll likely be getting my Raspberry Pi delivered tomorrow, and I don't expect it to be as good as my PCH for HD material, but it will be cheap and that is high on everyone's list.

Martin

[drbenjamin]

Yea, I've been watching the threads, it's too bad that no obvious successor to the NMT has emerged. The Raspberry Pi looks cool but I would have thought that it would take a lot of setup to turn it into a client. Is the onboard audio/video up to the task?
Glad you're still working on the project. I tried GB-PVR on a computer as my client one time and gave up. I just can't get the stability out of a PC that I got out of the MVPs and now the NMTs.

[martint123]

I'll jump in and say thanks as well. I have two A100's (both had to have the boards replaced in the early days, both ethernet chips fried).
They both work almost flawlessly apart from the occasional lock up every couple of months (server going to sleep while NMT on menu???)

One advantage of the Pi - (from an outsiders point of view) is that it is more open than the NMT's, allowing 'plug and go' with an SD card rather than the sometimes convoluted hacks to get the NMT opened up.
I haven't got one yet, but keeping my eyes on the threads

[drbenjamin]

Martin - are you thinkng of writing a mvpmx2 for the Pi, so that it would be a NPVR client? Or is your unit for the XBMC plugin I've been reading about? I'd be up for helping test a RasPi NPVR client if you'd like.

[mvallevand]

I'm thinking of it but only to see if I can glue the NextPVR GUI on top of RPi's XBMC interface for personal use at this time. I haven't installed mine yet but I am not expecting it is going to be the best next gen player for my HD material.

Martin

[jt25741]

Yes, another thanks again for Martin and Sub...this combo. Although with some obvious issues, is still the best solution I can find for what we do. Both my A110s are used daily with NPVR, and have been my favorite gadget along with my squeezeboxes.

[obiwan]

I am reaching my 7 year stretch with GPVR/NPVR and the what-did-we-call-it, that hauppage thingy and now 2 Virgin A100ś and it is absolutely amazing how rock-steady these are today.
If it coughs up on itself, my wife makes me go sit in the corner until I fix whatever I did to it
Great Job and many, many, many thanks for the Best Support you will ever find in this faceless environment.

My Respect to the Masters!!!!!!!

obiwan

[jghanisco]

I bought my first popcorn hour prior to running NPVR, but I am now with well over 15 months of service with the first one running NPVR. I am up to 4 running in the house, with another 2 just purchased as back-ups. Other than user error here and there, I have found the A-100's to be rocks. I'm quite proud of my living room set up with my new projector being fed by a trio of electronics released in 2007: the Panasonic SA-XR700 receiver (just loved the slim digital receivers before they dumped the line), hooked into with an LG BH200 for my HD DVD and Blu-ray collections, and the Popcorn Hour A-100. Funny that I will be watching live Olympics coverage tomorrow morning in HD on a device this old, and not paying $20 a month to Cogeco for their DVR.

I am interested if anybody has utilized different PCH's and noticed this: one of my A-100 is very speedy, booting up in 6 seconds, compared to another which takes 14 seconds to boot into the NPVR gui from the default popcorn hour menu. The other 2 take 9-10 seconds. I have tested in different rooms with different ethernet connections, and they are the same results. It's not exclusively firmware related, as the ones that takes 9 and 14 seconds each are under the same version. None have hard drives or anything, so I'm wondering if there were different release versions of the A-100 that may help to explain this difference in speed... Anybody have the same results using multiple popcorn hours?

[mvallevand]

The only things I can think off that might make a difference in start up time.

- default iin startmeup is to search for the server IP, you can normalize this by specifying the IP as a command line option.
- configuring the mvpmc share as IP vs server name
- incorrect config.xml settings for the MAC address.

TV monitors can also cause a difference on boot time for EDID identification but you addressed that changing rooms.

Martin