Hi guys

at work we have loads of slightly older Axel thin client terminals going spare, and with a firmware upgrade they can run Windows rdp and X11 VNC remote desktops. (see www.axel.com, M3000 M75C)

These are excellent little tcp/ip devices.

The only trouble I can see is that of not being able to display video/and or watch live tv over vnc.

Can anyone please advise why this doesn't work ??? Is it a restriction within the x11vnc config ????

If we could get it going, I would be able to get these to people very cheaply.

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Thanks in advance
Matt Shaw
matt@shagshaw.com

AMD Sempron 2400+ on Via Motherboard,
512MB Ram, 160GB IDE HDD,
Nvidia Geforce FX5500 128MB TV-Out,
2 x Twinhan DVB-T BT878 (Freeview UK)
KnoppMYTH R5F27

Matt - I think you're limited to desktops only via VNC. 720x480 or 1280x720 @ 23, 30 or 60 FPS is nearly impossible for VNC... that's a WHOLE lot of pixels to push

_________________
Retired KM user (R4 - R6.04); friend to LH users.

But why does that restrict what we can watch ????

Could we not slow down how many fps etc with some kind of config change just for the vnc ????

Surely something can be achieved ??? (mplayer/xine/internal player command line options etc ??????)

_________________
Thanks in advance
Matt Shaw
matt@shagshaw.com

AMD Sempron 2400+ on Via Motherboard,
512MB Ram, 160GB IDE HDD,
Nvidia Geforce FX5500 128MB TV-Out,
2 x Twinhan DVB-T BT878 (Freeview UK)
KnoppMYTH R5F27

Let me make sure I'm understanding your situation. You are able to use one of these to see the mythtv menus, right? You just get a blank screen when you try to play a video or watch TV, right?

If the answers are yes, I believe the problem is that VNC/X11 doesn't have the power/bandwidth to push all that video info through your network and into your device. Again, you're talking about TONS of pixels/sec. Contrast that with simply moving a mouse cursor or redisplaying a non-animated (static) object in the mythtv menus.

I don't think you'll ever be able to use X11/VNC to watch video in real time... I may be wrong.

I know of no commandline options to force mplayer to drop frames or the like in answer to your other question.

_________________
Retired KM user (R4 - R6.04); friend to LH users.

I haven't actually tested it yet, gotta convinice the boss to write them off yet, about 20 of them. But we have used them with Windows Server running remote desktops , and off vnc onto our linux app for text based (xterm) displays

Just checked the website docs and it says that the actual models we have spare are capable of "Maximum resolution: 1280x1024, Maximum number of colors: 65536" for VNC

Surely this is respectable enough ????

The reason I say that video will not work is because video doesnt work running winvnc from my laptop, screen just goes blank

Is there anything that can be done ????

_________________
Thanks in advance
Matt Shaw
matt@shagshaw.com

AMD Sempron 2400+ on Via Motherboard,
512MB Ram, 160GB IDE HDD,
Nvidia Geforce FX5500 128MB TV-Out,
2 x Twinhan DVB-T BT878 (Freeview UK)
KnoppMYTH R5F27

Can anyone think of a way that these can be used for myth ????

They are brilliant little devices, and about an inch thick and 8 inches
by 10.

It would be a real shame to see these go when they could be excellent
little viewers, with a larger flat screen monitor

_________________
Thanks in advance
Matt Shaw
matt@shagshaw.com

AMD Sempron 2400+ on Via Motherboard,
512MB Ram, 160GB IDE HDD,
Nvidia Geforce FX5500 128MB TV-Out,
2 x Twinhan DVB-T BT878 (Freeview UK)
KnoppMYTH R5F27

Dude, I told you the problem... it's not a setting/config issue, it's a limitation of the software. You can't pump that many pixels/sec through X11/VNC. Please stop asking.

_________________
Retired KM user (R4 - R6.04); friend to LH users.

Because the video isn't being played via the "normal" X11
protocol. It's being played using the Xv extension and a
"video overlay". To normal X11 apps, the video overlay window
is just a black, empty window. The video card knows how to
play a video stream within that area of the screen, but it's
done sort of behind the scenes at the direction of the Xv
extension commands.

If you disabled use of the Xv extension by the player, then
then the next best option would be the MIT shared memory
extension (SHM). That's another (slower) way to do the same
thing. Video played that way won't show up in VNC either.

If you disable both Xv and MIT SHM, then the video will be
played via normal X11 mechanisms. This will be extremely slow
and CPU intensive, but you'll be able to partially, sort-of,
see it via VNC. However, VNC won't be able to shove enough
bits through the wire to make it anywhere close to watchable.


No.

You should clean your keyboard. The '?' is sticking.



I don't think you can.



There's a reason why they're cheap.

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Grant

Grant

Thanks for the explanation, makes things a lot clearer.

So do you think running on a windows RDP session running vlc over a samba share might work ?

It would be nice to use them for something, maybe use your Windows front end to recordings, eh ????

_________________
Thanks in advance
Matt Shaw
matt@shagshaw.com

AMD Sempron 2400+ on Via Motherboard,
512MB Ram, 160GB IDE HDD,
Nvidia Geforce FX5500 128MB TV-Out,
2 x Twinhan DVB-T BT878 (Freeview UK)
KnoppMYTH R5F27

Don't know. I've never tried to watch video via RDP (I don't
do much windows stuff at all).

If you're talking about mythviewer, I don't know if it runs on
Windows or not -- I've never tried. I presume it would if
mplayer does and you've got Python and all the right libaries
installed (wx, msyql).

_________________
Grant

I've watched video over RDP and it's far less than satisfactory. I suppose it is viewable for short clips (you tube and whatever) but anything fullscreen and longer than about 15 seconds would be ugly to watch.

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Currently Running:
Too lazy to update this with my current hardware, I'll redo it during my next install =)

I have just tried to play a video over RDP (xp to xp) on a 100Mb network and the video was jerky even at only 640x480.

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Paul Turpie
-------------
<--Is your location in your profile? Why not?

I think your only chance would be to put something like VLC or
mplayer onto the thin client and stream MPEG2 or MPEG4 data to
it. MythTv supports UPNP video clients. so if you can find a
UPNP video player client that will run on your HW you might
have a chance.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/UPnP

_________________
Grant

Planning to watch a lot of silent movies?

_________________
ASUS AT3N7A-I (Atom 330)
TBS 8922 PCI (DVB-S2)

The only way a remote front end can work acceptably is if it can receive the COMPRESSED video stream. Even SD TV video has too much data to pump over a network uncompressed, so it's not even a limitation of Myth or VNC.

Of course like alien, I'd prefer some audio with my video.