Placeshifter and Ubuntu

[Khristopher]

I've just started to play around with Ubuntu but wanted to try get the Placeshifter up and running on it.

So far I've got it installed and running, however part of the text gets cut off everywhere.



Also, I'm unable to tune into a channel. It sits there with a blank screen and eventually errors out.

Suggestions?

[jreichen]

I have the same problem with truncated text on a remote placeshifter client. But the text is fine in the placeshifter running on the server. It happened around the time I went from 6.3.6 to 6.3.7.

[gplasky]

The above screenshot shows you're running the Dynamic Menu plugin. You need to go back to the default STV and confirm that this issue is there also. If not, you may want to contact the author, nielm, of the Dynamic Menu plugin about your issue.

Gerry

[bcjenkins]

Are your java versions consistent on server and client? Also, there is another thread covering this here.

[doc]

I installed Automatix2 and using that installed..

'Ubuntu Extras and multimedia codecs' &
'Extra Fonts'

and that cured the issue that you're having.

[jreichen]

Originally Posted by gplasky

The above screenshot shows you're running the Dynamic Menu plugin. You need to go back to the default STV and confirm that this issue is there also. If not, you may want to contact the author, nielm, of the Dynamic Menu plugin about your issue.

Gerry

FYI I'm not running the Dynamic Menu plugin...

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Are your java versions consistent on server and client? Also, there is another thread covering this here.

My client was running 1.6.0 and my server was running 1.6.0_03. After switching the client to match the server, the text was still truncated...

Originally Posted by doc

I installed Automatix2 and using that installed..

'Ubuntu Extras and multimedia codecs' &
'Extra Fonts'

and that cured the issue that you're having.

Thank you! I already had codecs installed from Medibuntu, but the fonts from Automatix2 fixed the problem.

[Khristopher]

This worked for me as well! THANKS!

Now the only problem I'm having is the blinking OSD screen!

EDIT: Turning on 3D Acceleration seems to have fixed it for me.

[doc]

Originally Posted by Khristopher

Now the only problem I'm having is the blinking OSD screen!

EDIT: Turning on 3D Acceleration seems to have fixed it for me.

I turned on the fancy screen effects, the ones that have no benefit whatsoever but they look cool. It installed a different NVidia driver to enable that, and the OSD went a bit wierd around that time (I think).

I'll have a play around when I get home later. I'm at my dads right now for a free lunch

[motobarsteward]

I have an ASUS 4GB EEE PC with ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) intalled onto a 4GB SD card. I followed DOC's guidance above and it all works. You have to set the System->Preferences->visual effects to none. I get sound and video.
I'm not sure if it was Automatix2 or the software upgade that the update manager loaded afterwords but my wifi and wired network packed up just after so I fixed it as described in http://code.google.com/p/eee-ubuntu-...es/detail?id=9. Anyway, I only have one small problem to fix and that's the flickering I get when I have OSD and vido on the screen at the same time. Can't fix it as other have by turning on 3D accelaration as place shifter won't start with it enabled. Anyone else worked out how to fix this?

[motobarsteward]

Originally Posted by motobarsteward

I have an ASUS 4GB EEE PC with ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) intalled onto a 4GB SD card. I followed DOC's guidance above and it all works. You have to set the System->Preferences->visual effects to none. I get sound and video.
I'm not sure if it was Automatix2 or the software upgade that the update manager loaded afterwords but my wifi and wired network packed up just after so I fixed it as described in http://code.google.com/p/eee-ubuntu-...es/detail?id=9. Anyway, I only have one small problem to fix and that's the flickering I get when I have OSD and vido on the screen at the same time. Can't fix it as other have by turning on 3D accelaration as place shifter won't start with it enabled. Anyone else worked out how to fix this?

That small problem is now fixed! Change the video driver that is in use from the 'Experimentel Intel driver' to the '810i intel driver'. Turn off the advanced desktop and voila! I can use placeshifter with no flickering.

[reggie14]

Since the 8.04 release client came out today I thought I'd give Ubuntu another chance. I never could get the Placeshifter working right with Feisty Fawn. But, so far its not looking good. Admittedly I don't really know what I'm doing. I pretty much have a clean 8.04 install with ATI drivers (I have an X300 in my laptop). I installed the restricted extras to get java. The placeshifter starts up (as long as I don't have 3d acceleration on), but when I play a recording I get the audio but no video. I've tried it with the visual effects on and off.

This is pretty much the same problem I had under Feisty.

Can anyone help me out? I know I probably didn't provide enough information, but I don't know what else would be helpful.

[Woobie]

I was having the same issues on hardy with audio playing but only getting a black screen. I also have an ATI card and am using the fglrx drivers.

The cause of my black-screen problem was the xv output driver. Normally mplayer will keep falling back until it finds a working video driver -- this is why mplayer will work when you run it manually on a file yet fail in Placeshifter. Placeshifter explicitly instructs mplayer to use the xv output driver which doesn't seem to work with the default hardy ati setup. You can test this by running xvinfo. If you're having the same problem it will say something like:

$ xvinfo
X-Video Extension version 2.2
screen #0
 no adapters present

When it's working, there should be a lot of diagnostic output.

The solution for me was turning on TexturedVideo in the device section of my xorg.conf file. Here's my Device section, hopefully this helps you. This might not be optimal, but I just got it working and haven't played around with it much yet. I'm getting some flicker, but it looks like people have already solved that issue in this thread.

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]"
        Driver      "fglrx"
        #Driver     "ati"
        Option          "VideoOverlay"  "on"
        Option          "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
        Option          "DRI"                   "true"
        Option          "AllowGLXWithComposite" "true"
        Option          "TexturedVideo" "on"
        Option          "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps"
        Option          "UseFastTLS" "2"
        Option          "RenderAccel" "true"
EndSection

Here's a discussion of the ati/xv problem on hardy: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...24/+bug/197639

[reggie14]

Thanks Woobie. Sure enough video playback starts working, but unfortunately it flickers like crazy. I didn't get the impression that the people on Launchpad figured out how to fix that issue. They indicated that turning off compiz helps, but it didn't for me (and I'd rather not do that anyway).

[chip33az]

I have a compaq laptop that I use as a test machine. I could install Debian on it and the SageTV PS would work out of the box (well, with dependent software).

If I put PCLinuxOS on it, I would get a black screen for playback. Same thing for Mandriva (they are similar).

For my machine, I found if I change the resolution from 24bit color to 16 bit color, everything in SageTV worked fine no matter which distro I used.

[Vox-uLaw]

Non-Ubuntu O/S users experiencing the font issue the OP depicts and don't have access to an/the Extra Fonts package can utilize CoreFonts.

[mothbhai]

Originally Posted by jreichen

Thank you! I already had codecs installed from Medibuntu, but the fonts from Automatix2 fixed the problem.

Now that Automatix is no longer available for HH, how can I install the extra fonts to resolve the right character cutting problem?

[stuckless]

Ultramatix picks up where Automatix left off... They may have it there.

[wado1971]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Ultramatix picks up where Automatix left off... They may have it there.

Ultramatrix & 'xtra fonts' worked fine for me in Ubuntu 8.04 - thanks

In Ubuntu 8.10 fixing the font problem was even easier -- just ran the Synaptic Package Manager and installed "ubuntu-restricted-extras" which lists M$ fonts as one of the packages. This might have even worked in 8.04?

Edit: Although the above ("ubuntu-restriced-extras") worked for me, it also marks a bunch of other packages which may not be desired. I found that installing "msttcorefonts" from SynapticPckgMgr is more straight forward without additional pckgs and fixes the PS font problem just fine.