HP ProLiant MicroServer

OK, some feedback.

Ordered 2 of these boxes last week before I knew I could get them from Postmanpat. From now on will buy from him.

1st one set up as a dedicated NAS with 4x2TB drives running unRAID.

2nd one was to experiment with as a XBMC player and here the fun and games started with finding the correct graphics card that's low profile, draws less than 25W, fits into the space available and is as powerful as possible.

Eventually bought a Sapphire 6450 1GB (LP, passively cooled, fits easily but no LP bracket) as I could not find a Nvidia card (either a 210 or 520). Just as I got home today at 5, Jacques from ACT Link phoned to say he got me a MSi N520GT and even brought it over to my house. Owe him one. The card is actively cooled, fits perfectly and comes with a LP bracket. All lekker.

Installed the card, 4GB of RAM, removed all the hard-drives and installed XBMCLive to a small USB stick plugged directly into the Mobo.

First problem; XBMCLive does not know the 520. :mad: Download the 520 Linux drivers from Nvidia, install and now HDMI video works fine.

Second problem; No audio. :mad: Fiddle a bit, but not much. Give up, too much red wine by now.

Download and install generic openelec onto another USB stick and it all works 'out-of-the-box'. So, right now, I'm using openelec and it's looking good.

Playing the reference 1080p 264 Avatar shows slight issues with playback but not so much that I want to slit my wrists.

If I can find one of my Win-7 disks, I'll install Win-7 onto the internal drive and test like that, but right now I'll test for a while as a clean openelec install.

I'll probably convert this to another NAS at some point and build a more powerful, dedicated XBMC player.
 
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jannievanzyl said:
Download and install generic openelec onto another USB stick and it all works 'out-of-the-box'. So, right now, I'm using openelec and it's looking good.

Playing the reference 1080p 264 Avatar shows slight issues with playback but not so much that I want to slit my wrists.

If I can find one of my Win-7 disks, I'll install Win-7 onto the internal drive and test like that, but right now I'll test for a while as a clean openelec install.

I'll probably convert this to another NAS at some point and build a more powerful, dedicated XBMC player.
Click to expand...

What sort of playback issues?
 
Nivec said:
Yes, a dedicated graphics card would only help if you were connecting your Microserver to your TV.

The PS3 is very limited in what types of files it can play. To get around this problem, PS3 Media server was introduced, it transcodes (Converts the file) into a file the PS3 can play. This happens on the fly and requires a fairly powerful CPU especially when dealing with large files.

One option you have is when you come across a file that the Microserver is to slow to convert on the fly, copy it to the PS3 via PS3 Media server, it will take longer than the duration of the video, but the copy on the PS3 will be transcoded and watchable. If it is something you are going to watch again, you can copy the version from the PS3 back to your server. So next time you play it, it will not have to transcode. Did this for a couple of my files, worked quite well.

If you have no specific need for anything other than streaming I would stick with Win 7, you will have fewer hassles with drivers etc. although if you went the linux route, you will probably get better performance with PS3 Media server.
Click to expand...

Thank you, you have been a huge help
 
Hi,

Because my WiFi router only supports 100mbs NIC's I am going to connect the Microserver and PS3 with a crossover cable for streaming.

To stream to my iOS devices from the Microserver via WiFi I am going to have to buy a WiFi USB dongle for it, can anyone recommend a wireless n 300mbs dongle they have bought locally or used that worked out well?

The wifi router will still act as the DHCP and Internet access point.

Thanks
 
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jannievanzyl said:
Second problem; No audio. :mad: Fiddle a bit, but not much. Give up, too much red wine by now.

Download and install generic openelec onto another USB stick and it all works 'out-of-the-box'. So, right now, I'm using openelec and it's looking good.
Click to expand...

I'm sure you did -bit check the Output under the audio settings in XBMC - make sure its set to HDMI, thats how I got mine working.

Openlec - you got further than I did :p

I'll check my Avatar 1080p tonight on Win7+XBMC
 
SomeoneEls said:
What sort of playback issues?
Click to expand...

Random slight jitter and flickering in certain scenes. Not radical but noticible and thus distracting. As stated before, I suspect most people won't really notice it, UNTIL you play the same file on something like a PS3 and you realise how liquid-smooth the file can be played. It's like the rainbow effect you get from some colour-wheel projectors. You don't know it's there till someone points it out and then you're stuffed. You see it all the time. :)

In general, it's not bad though and for TV shows, this box is perfect.

Would love to see how an Atom-based litle system perform. Anyone here built one yet?

Maybe the answer is to get a kick-ass system for your theater and smaller players (like the HP MS) for everywhere else.
 
xrapidx said:
I'm sure you did -bit check the Output under the audio settings in XBMC - make sure its set to HDMI, thats how I got mine working.

Openlec - you got further than I did :p

I'll check my Avatar 1080p tonight on Win7+XBMC
Click to expand...

Think I checked it thoroughly, but you never know. Installing openelec was a bit of a desperation move and thus was a pleasant surprise.

On Avatar, about 1:45 to 3:00 into the movie, are a few scenes of the spacecraft approaching Pandora. Lots of black space with pinpoint stars that pan across the screen. Also the spaceship flying overhead with the capsules on it rotating. All this movement together with the stark contrast in the colours create a fair amount of trouble for the decoder.
 
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I'll give it a go on my LCD and Projector - see what it looks like... I need a new gfx card for my second box - but am still undecided on which one to go for.
 
jannievanzyl said:
Random slight jitter and flickering in certain scenes. Not radical but noticible and thus distracting. As stated before, I suspect most people won't really notice it, UNTIL you play the same file on something like a PS3 and you realise how liquid-smooth the file can be played. It's like the rainbow effect you get from some colour-wheel projectors. You don't know it's there till someone points it out and then you're stuffed. You see it all the time. :)

In general, it's not bad though and for TV shows, this box is perfect.

Would love to see how an Atom-based litle system perform. Anyone here built one yet?

Maybe the answer is to get a kick-ass system for your theater and smaller players (like the HP MS) for everywhere else.
Click to expand...

I see some guys using XBMC on Windows are upping the XBMC process priority and reporting better performance, perhaps you can try the same on Linux. I found this:
http://www.nixtutor.com/linux/changing-priority-on-linux-processes/

I am keen one something like this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Desktop-dual-core-processor-Windows/dp/B004AHLP9O
It’s not perfect, but given a bit of time I am sure we will see more manufactures producing some “kick-ass” HTPC’s.
 
xrapidx said:
I'll give it a go on my LCD and Projector - see what it looks like... I need a new gfx card for my second box - but am still undecided on which one to go for.
Click to expand...

Get the biggest hammer you can afford. As simple as that. The HP MS box dictates the GPU because of size and power constraints but if your box and mobo don't limit you, go big. Especially for your theater. You need something to compliment those monster subs of yours in any case! :)

I've not mentioned this before, but on my desktop system (i7 with old(ish) Nvidia GTX9800 running Win-7-64), I have no playback problems.

Sometimes nothing beats sheer horsepower. ;)
 
jannievanzyl said:
Get the biggest hammer you can afford. As simple as that. The HP MS box dictates the GPU because of size and power constraints but if your box and mobo don't limit you, go big. Especially for your theater. You need something to compliment those monster subs of yours in any case! :)

I've not mentioned this before, but on my desktop system (i7 with old(ish) Nvidia GTX9800 running Win-7-64), I have no playback problems.

Sometimes nothing beats sheer horsepower. ;)
Click to expand...

Yeh... I'm thinking of doing that - first need to sort out my sound proofing first (my neighbour has decided to take offence), hope to get started this weekend.
 
Does anyone have experience with the Powercolor HD5450 2GB from Esquire (also, does it have a LP bracket) - wondering how it compares to the Sapphire HD5450 1GB with Hyper Memory up to 2.8Gb
 
xrapidx said:
Yeh... I'm thinking of doing that - first need to sort out my sound proofing first (my neighbour has decided to take offence), hope to get started this weekend.
Click to expand...

Not sure you're going to get it right. :)

Those 2 monster subs of yours will laugh at any sound proofing. The low frequencies are being propogated by the structures, not the air. You're basically shaking your neighbour's foundations. You'll have to float your complete home theater.

You could consider installing LF transducers diretly on your couches.

Or stop watching action movies. ;)
 
jannievanzyl said:
Not sure you're going to get it right. :)

Those 2 monster subs of yours will laugh at any sound proofing. The low frequencies are being propogated by the structures, not the air. You're basically shaking your neighbour's foundations. You'll have to float your complete home theater.

You could consider installing LF transducers diretly on your couches.

Or stop watching action movies. ;)
Click to expand...

At the moment, I'm trying to dampen the higher frequencies - an explosion every now and then doesn't matter :p

I think the sound is leaving through the ceiling, window behind the projector screen, and unused fireplace - I plan on boarding the window and fireplace up with Isover Energylite boards... and then use the rolls in the ceiling.
 
xrapidx said:
From who's site? I installed the one from ATI/AMD - it enabled sound over hdmi but didn't enable hardware acceleration in XBMC.
Click to expand...

I used the ATI/AMD site and worked perfect but you need to make sure your distro has not got the open source ones installed. Saw a site on Wednesday (forgot to bookmark) that showed how to remove the old drivers and install the correct ones - rather a ball-ache.

But back to my setup, this morning I played a DVD I bought my son yesterday (Cats & Dogs II) and was very impressed with the auto-scaling with my card. Picture was very good and will no longer buy BluRay movies for the kids anymore (I tend to hate the black bars on DVDs).
 
xrapidx said:
At the moment, I'm trying to dampen the higher frequencies - an explosion every now and then doesn't matter :p

I think the sound is leaving through the ceiling, window behind the projector screen, and unused fireplace - I plan on boarding the window and fireplace up with Isover Energylite boards... and then use the rolls in the ceiling.
Click to expand...

Hmm...not so sure. Maybe walk over to the neighbour and listen a while. The higher the frequency, the quicker it gets attenuated. Low frequencies pretty much propagate through anything. Ask any whale or submarine commander.

The isolation will reduce your heating and cooling bill though or just get new neighbours. ;)
 
jannievanzyl said:
Hmm...not so sure. Maybe walk over to the neighbour and listen a while. The higher the frequency, the quicker it gets attenuated. Low frequencies pretty much propagate through anything. Ask any whale or submarine commander.

The isolation will reduce your heating and cooling bill though or just get new neighbours. ;)
Click to expand...

We're not on speaking terms... I offered to replace his worn window weather seals at my cost (because his windows rattled), he ignored the offer and phoned the police the next time we watched a movie :rolleyes:

I'm going to try and get the sound down to what is legally allowed according to Cape Town by-laws, then its his problem... I'll actually have it professionally taken at the boundary wall - and if the police are called, I'll show them the certificate.
 
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xrapidx said:
We're not on speaking terms... I offered to replace his worn window weather seals at my cost (because his windows rattled), he ignored the offer and phoned the police the next time we watched a movie :rolleyes:

I'm going to try and get the sound down to what is legally allowed according to Cape Town by-laws, then its his problem... I'll actually have it professionally taken at the boundary wall - and if the police are called, I'll show them the certificate.
Click to expand...

I've got a dBm meter if you need it, but I suspect you're already within the limits. What are your local regulations? Levels/times?
 
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