HTPC Gems -- Great Tools

[RetroBox]

Originally Posted by SomeWhatLost

well, now that there is a remote control/automation section, you cant forget CQC, it does everything... and has a very nice Sage driver too...

I have not used this tool yet, but I did take a look at the website and it seems really powerful and a good way to create interfaces to connect various systems. Also seems to have a learning curve to it - again, haven't used it, so cannot really comment on that. Out of curiosity, what are you programming into this tool? I would like to get ideas of its application rather than working within the Sage interface to get things done - particularly now that we are getting into the Home Automation space with the InControl for Sage /Homeseer plugin.

[SomeWhatLost]

well, I haven't kept up with the whole 'learning curve' of it, and you are right, there can be a fairly steep/large curve if you really want to do everything...

but on the other hand, its also quite simple, most everything can be done with just point and click, and when your really need to enter some text, it knows what the default text that will work for just about everyone should be so it enters that for you too... (this is the level that I am at)

as for Sage integration, for the moment its only one way (I think) ie CQC can know what sage(or extenders) is doing, can tell sage(or extenders) what to do, know whats on the recording schedule,etc...
currently there is no way to control CQC from sage (that I know of... and even if I am correct, that's probably just more to do with no one smarter then me has added that ability yet, probably a somewhat simple thing to add I would guess)

anyway, while I really, really want to get vS70 remote from Vidabox

so far I just use a samsung Q1 I got from woot cheap...
here is what building an interface looks like (note I am not a gui expert, and I had sage running in a little widow just so I could see my interface work...)

here is a rather old 'main menu' I had at one point, note, I just liked the back ground picture, there is no CQC reason why you need to keep the picture the same from one interface to the next...

also note, the audio/video/etc ctrl buttons are just for trouble shooting... they are not needed on a day to day basses... only when I have been messing with stuff...(aka I broke something)

here is one of my older pick a move to play on the theater room HD200 screens:




these videos dean made will help you get a better feel for what CQC can do...

actually, Dean, IVB, sic0048, beelzerob or Fonceur could probably explain all this stuff better than me...

[ybrew]

Originally Posted by RetroBox

+1 on this one. I just completed a new system install and this tool really helped a ton! I was able to install Java, Flash, Hulu Desktop, VLC, Silverlight, WinZip and 7-Zip all in one shot without having to worry about bloat.

Just used this now. Very fast & super easy.

[RetroBox]

Originally Posted by SomeWhatLost

anyway, while I really, really want to get vS70 remote from Vidabox

so far I just use a samsung Q1 I got from woot cheap...

That remote looks awesome! What I like the most about it is its ability to access the Music /Videos library and do all the browsing on the remote before sending the command. Another great feature is that it communicates via WiFi.

I found it under the Nevo brand for a discounted price of $645 on this site. It was a tough bullet to bite when I spent half this much on my Harmony 900 - and most people already think that's rediculous.... then again, feeding the beast is half the fun and I just might need to plot this on my Wish List. I did end up getting my Dyson vacuum cleaner that way last year .

UPDATE - Check out this link: 15 Cool Remotes

[SomeWhatLost]

Originally Posted by RetroBox

I found it under the Nevo brand for a discounted price of $645 on this site. It was a tough bullet to bite when I spent half this much on my Harmony 900 - and most people already think that's rediculous.... then again, feeding the beast is half the fun and I just might need to plot this on my Wish List. I did end up getting my Dyson vacuum cleaner that way last year .[/url]

yes the Vidabox vS-70 is almost the same thing as the Nevo s-70 Remote, but it has a special firmware to just plug into CQC... yes, there are probably ways to make the Nevo just work with CQC with its stock firmware, but its probably not as 'clean' or nice... and I doubt Vidabox just gives away their special firmware, so once (if?) I ever manage to save up a bunch of pennies I will get the vidabox one... even though it may take a few more pennies...

I got a dyson too.. the ball one... it has the proper amount of suction... or so they claim...

[SomeWhatLost]

here is another one I have been using lately... Teracopy
great at moving a lot of files around... also can do a checksum on both the original and the copy just to make sure they really are the same...

[wrems]

Originally Posted by SomeWhatLost

here is another one I have been using lately... Teracopy
great at moving a lot of files around... also can do a checksum on both the original and the copy just to make sure they really are the same...

I was just going to post that one. I was using it today and thought it would be another good addition to this list. It's a good one.

[SomeWhatLost]

Originally Posted by wrems

I was just going to post that one. I was using it today and thought it would be another good addition to this list. It's a good one.

um, how do you use it?
I get the basics, pick the where to put them, pick test or not, drag and drop the files into its listy thing...
but how do you remove a file from its list?

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by SomeWhatLost

um, how do you use it?
I get the basics, pick the where to put them, pick test or not, drag and drop the files into its listy thing...
but how do you remove a file from its list?

You send them 14.95 € to buy the pro version

It's a cool utility. I haven't noticed any real speed improvements copying things around (even disk to disk) but having the option to do a CRC check is awesome!

I've also been using MD5 Summer to test some files I copied to a hard drive and migrated to my new unRAID box. It's found a few errors (stupid unicode characters and Linux NTFS drivers) that I had to fix!

[j3rt]

Thank you for the Renamer link.
Single greatest tool ever.

I will be donating to them shortly.

[RetroBox]

Hi Everyone,

I have updated the list with the latest gems and have added a new section for Remote Controls under Hardware... it was inevitable. The list is looking awesome but a little bedraggled... I am working on a new (and hopefully better) way to organize it and plan on releasing something soon (hopefully). Thanks to everyone for helping put this together.

[RetroBox]

Originally Posted by Spectrum

I've also been using MD5 Summer to test some files I copied to a hard drive and migrated to my new unRAID box. It's found a few errors (stupid unicode characters and Linux NTFS drivers) that I had to fix!

I have heard of checksum before, but don't really know what it means and how to use a tool that provides this information. I am planning to jump into the unRAID bandwagon, but what I'd typically do is drag-and-drop files from my current box to the server... any pointers on why this method is better?

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by RetroBox

I have heard of checksum before, but don't really know what it means and how to use a tool that provides this information. I am planning to jump into the unRAID bandwagon, but what I'd typically do is drag-and-drop files from my current box to the server... any pointers on why this method is better?

Any checksum (CRC, MD5, SHA1, etc) is just a hash computed by an algorithm based on an input file. If any bit in the file is different it will produce a different hash. If you are using Teracopy to copy files over and have it set to test after it copies it will generate the CRC hash of the source files and the destination files and compare them. If there are no differences it's safe to assume the copy is 100% identical.

MD5 summer just computes the MD5 hashes of the files and saves them in a text file and then you can manually have it check the copied files against the list of hashes. Same idea as what Teracopy does with the CRCs. The reason I used it instead of Teracopy was because I loaded up a 1TB drive and mounted it in the unRAID box then copied the files off. I get ~50-60MB/s writes when copying across the network to the unRAID box with no parity and ~30MB/s with parity. It was faster and easier to just move the files to the drive and do a direct copy from drive to drive on the unRAID box. Now that it is set up and everything I had pack-ratted away on my desktop is on it, I just copy across the network

When you make the jump to unRAID this might help some. Then again since I wrote most of it, it might confuse you more

[RetroBox]

Originally Posted by Spectrum

Any checksum (CRC, MD5, SHA1, etc) is just a hash computed by an algorithm based on an input file. If any bit in the file is different it will produce a different hash. If you are using Teracopy to copy files over and have it set to test after it copies it will generate the CRC hash of the source files and the destination files and compare them. If there are no differences it's safe to assume the copy is 100% identical.

MD5 summer just computes the MD5 hashes of the files and saves them in a text file and then you can manually have it check the copied files against the list of hashes. Same idea as what Teracopy does with the CRCs. The reason I used it instead of Teracopy was because I loaded up a 1TB drive and mounted it in the unRAID box then copied the files off. I get ~50-60MB/s writes when copying across the network to the unRAID box with no parity and ~30MB/s with parity. It was faster and easier to just move the files to the drive and do a direct copy from drive to drive on the unRAID box. Now that it is set up and everything I had pack-ratted away on my desktop is on it, I just copy across the network

Very cool, thanks for the insight. I admit I don't know much about this, and frankly never really cared until now that I am facing moving TBs of data over machines.... always work smarter.

Originally Posted by Spectrum

When you make the jump to unRAID this might help some. Then again since I wrote most of it, it might confuse you more

This will come in very useful when I make the plunge into the UnRAID space. I have included it as one of our Gems for easy reference. Thanks for putting this together.

[KeithAbbott]

I can't believe nobody thought to add the SageTV Registry Settings Utility to this thread, maybe under the Menial Task Life Savers category. Here's a link to a previous thread about it:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...istry+settings

And here's a link to the utility itself:

http://babgvant.com/files/folders/sa...ntry12640.aspx

[wrems]

Originally Posted by KeithAbbott

I can't believe nobody thought to add the SageTV Registry Settings Utility to this thread, maybe under the Menial Task Life Savers category. Here's a link to a previous thread about it:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...istry+settings

And here's a link to the utility itself:

http://babgvant.com/files/folders/sa...ntry12640.aspx

I agree, at the same time, I kind of thought that anything specifically Sage related was a given and Retrobox was looking for more third party apps/tools. Correct me if I'm wrong.... ONe too many rum and cokes

[KeithAbbott]

Another candidate for this list:

SoftPerfect Network Scanner

The software pings computers, scans for listening TCP/UDP ports and displays which types of resources are shared on the network. Displays a nice inventory of the devices on your home network.

[RetroBox]

Originally Posted by KeithAbbott

Another candidate for this list:

SoftPerfect Network Scanner

The software pings computers, scans for listening TCP/UDP ports and displays which types of resources are shared on the network. Displays a nice inventory of the devices on your home network.

I have not tried this out yet, but I've been having a hell of a time recently upgrading routers and deciphering what's still being used in my network...

I will classify this one under "Remote Desktop /Access Tools"... seems to fit best there. Thanks for sharing

[sjrx0213]

I'd like to nominate Display Changer as a nifty software tool.

I'm working with a new HTPC built for SageClient and I've been experimenting with S3 sleep to get a more "instant on" feel. Often, the client will wake up and put the HDTV into its native resolution instead of 1280x720. After a couple of frustrating hours searching the web for quick and dirty solutions to either programatically load an Nvidia profile or change the resolution, I came across a link to Display Changer (ironically, in an Nvidia developer forum).

I'm still playing with it, but I've got a remote control button mapped to fire it off and in my initial test, it changed my display from native to 1280x720.

At first it seemed like it wasn't working, but I figured out you've got to supply ALL of the following arguments:

-monitor
-width
-height
-depth
-refresh

Once I got all of args worked out, it did the trick. Nice not to have to re-invent the wheel (painfully, in my case).

It's free for personal use.

[RocKKer]

A few tools I use to prove out new hardware or expose faulty "in use" hardware -

IntelBurnTest - This is for for Intel CPU's, this is a front end for the Intel Linpack. This stresses the CPU, memory and many of the subsystems on the motherboard. Can also expose CPU heat issues, etc. Run it for 24 hours.

For AMD platforms I use Prime95 stress test. Run 24 hours.

Memtest386+ as already posted, run for 24 hours.

Manufacturer's HDD diagnostic tool's - Use this for new HDD's or in use HDD's, run quick test, long test and optionally write zeroes. Write zeroes is a destructive test so if this there is data on this HDD, back it up or be prepared to lose it forever. For new drives there is no need to partition and format it for any of these tests (writing zeroes destroys partitons and file systems anyway).

HD Tune - Use this in conjunction with the manufacturer's HDD diagnostic tool. I run the Benchmark and Error scan. Sometimes the Error scan shows slow or bad blocks, I have fixed them by running the manufacturer's write zeros to the HDD.

As a final step, I also run a video encode, this usually runs for multi-hours and really stresses your system so any system defects should show up. You can use Handbrake, BR-Rebuilder, MeGUI, etc.