Shairport – Apple Airplay streaming for free

 Apple, Geek, Linux, TV and Hi-Fi  No Responses »
Apr 272011
 

I used a few hours of this past long weekend to have a play with the recently released program Shairport (original post and Github repository). What the program does is emulate Apple’s Airport Express. As well as being an fairly over priced wireless router and print server, the Airport Express allows you to stream music from iTunes or an iOS device wirelessly to a stereo.

If you have an Airport Express connected to every stereo in your house you can play music to them all at once, in sync, and have a relatively cheap multiroom music system.

As I have a Linux PC connected to my TV and stereo in the living room I thought I’d give it a go. Installing is very easy – you need to download a few Perl modules (perl -MCPAN -e ‘install Module::Name::Here’)

  • HTTP::Request
  • HTTP::Message
  • Crypt::OpenSSL::RSA
  • IO::Socket::INET6

Then just fire up Terminal and type

apt-get install libssl-dev libcrypt-openssl-rsa-perl libao2 libao-dev libio-socket-inet6-perl libwww-perl avahi-utils make perl shairport.pl

Easy! I’d recommend actually looking at the installation doc when you download as the code is changing everyday and the instructions above are probably already out of date. There are also instructions for installing on OS X and Windows.

So does it work? Yes it does… and surprisingly well. I’ve even created a bash script that runs on start up so I don’t lose it after reboot. I can also connect fine after waking up from hibernation so I don;’t have to have the computer running all the time.

Overall, I’m really happy as it has saved me the £90 I was considering spending on an AppleTV (which can also act as an Airport Express for streaming) just for this feature. I already have Boxee and XBMC installed on the PC and all my music on a NAS but iTunes is really my go to application for music. It doesn’t suck nearly as much on a Mac as on Windows and all my playlists and podcasts are in it. I’ll still probably pick up an Express for the bedroom as having to plug a phone or iPod in feels a bit cumbersome.

Lets just hope Apple don’t attempt to change the key and up security so this stops working. Fingers crossed!

Boxee Vs XBMC

 Geek, Linux, Media Server, TV and Hi-Fi  4 Responses »
Jan 102011
 

I’ve been using my new HTPC for a few weeks now. I’ve mainly been running Boxee to access all my media and stream stuff from the net. Overall it’s been pretty good and since everything has been hardwired I haven’t had too many issues with videos buffering (although there still has been some which I’ve narrowed down to the router so I’m trying to get that replaced).

The one real issue that I’ve run into is with Flash content. Flash is a horrible piece of software at the best of times, but on non Windows machines it’s a massive resource hog. Flash 10.1 on Windows allows the GPU to do the heavy lifting but  this isn’t enabled on Mac and Linux. This means that some Flash content, notably HD videos, is unplayable in Linux on an Atom processor. This is a bit of a disappointment. I’ve tried installing Flash 10.2 beta and that works brilliantly with Youtube through Firefox – playing 1080p videos with ease. The only issue is that Boxee has not been configured to take advantage of it and Lovefilm Player flat out refuses to play anything.

I’m hoping that the final release of Flash 10.2 will iron out this issue because the rest of the Boxee software (except for the embarrassingly basic Music player) is amazing. I love that I can see a video I’m interested in at work, click a bookmarklet labeled ‘Watch Later’ and when I fire up Boxee it’s ready to be watched in my queue. Browsing TED lectures from the sofa is treat and having access to many 4OD comedy shows is great even with the poor 360p streams from Youtube.

The reason I mention XBMC in the title is because I’ve been playing with that a little as well. XBMC is very similar to Boxee (Boxee having been built on top of XBMC code) but the focus is much more on local content. Plugins for TV catch up services, for instance, are harder to find and install. XBMC, however, has a much better iPlayer application. Rather than use the website so the stream, the XBMC app accesses the raw files encoded in the GPU accelerating friendly format H.264. This means HD streams play perfectly on my Revo’s Atom/ION combination.

The XBMC iPhone remote is also much nicer allowing you to browse your library from the phone and instantly play the file as opposed to having to navigate the menus through the TV.

So overall, there are still things that need to be cleaned up before us Linux users get a smooth Boxee experience. Hopefully Flash 10.2 will solve most of these issues which makes me a little worried as I don’t like to rely on Adobe for anything.

Revo R3700, Ubuntu 10.10 and Boxee

 Geek, Linux, Media Server, TV and Hi-Fi  2 Responses »
Dec 182010
 

A few months ago I wrote a post about choosing a device for streaming media from the web and the NAS on my network. At the time I was trying to choose between an updated AppleTV and a net top running XBMC. Since then I discovered Boxee. Boxee is built on top of XBMC but incorporates extra social features and makes viewing web based content easier. For a while I considered picking up the dedicated Boxee Box build by D-Link but at £200 I thought it’d make more sense to buy a Atom based net top and install Boxee on that. That way I get the same functionality but with the option of installing other useful applications.

I quickly realised that the price of the Boxee Box is definitely worth it if you don’t have time to fiddle. I always knew that running an HTPC (Home Theatre PC) was going to take some time to set up but I still wasn’t prepared for the amount of hassle.

My first attempt at installation was with Ubuntu 10.10.  Everything went smoothly until I came to shut down after the installer finished. The screen locked up. ‘No problem’ I thought and did a hard reset. After installing the NVidia drivers I restarted and it hung again. Turns out the wireless driver for this hardware  in 10.10 has a problem unloading. I couldn’t find a solution that evening so decided to have a look at Windows XP.

Installation was fine until I was greeted with that long forgotten about issue of searching for drivers. I managed to get everything working and Boxee installed. This is where I find out that Boxee relies on DXVA (Direct X Video Acceleration)  to offload processing to the GPU. This is only available in Vista and Win 7.  Every video played like hell… even 240p Youtube videos.

In the mean time I managed to stumble upon a fix for the previously mentioned wireless driver bug in Ubuntu 10.10. Post number 9 on this thread. Hurrah! The hard disk was formatted and Ubuntu was reinstalled with the fix doing its stuff. I can now shut down/hibernate/suspend without the system locking.

Video performance is much better under Ubuntu. Boxee in Ubuntu uses VDPAU for its GPU acceleration which is obviously available to 10.10 as it’s the most up to date release. Flash content can still be a bitch but that’s down to Adobe not building GPU acceleration into Flash 10.1 on any OS except for Windows. 10.2 fixes this so once that’s out of beta hopefully Boxee will build it in and even 1080p Flash content will play smoothly.

I was hoping to be able to stream most things wirelessly but  I’m starting to think my ISP supplied N router has an issue with sustained data throughput over wireless.  I can copy a file from my NAS (gigabit ethernet) to my Macbook Pro (wireless N) and get about 3-4 MB/s. That should be enough for any video file to play smoothly but when watching a DVD rip in Boxee it’ll stop randomly for a few seconds every 10 or so minutes. I think I’ll just run a cable round at some point. At least then I can plug in my Blu Ray player and XBox 360 as well.

There are still definite issues with this set up but overall things seem to be running smoothly. I’ll maybe make another post with my actual views after a few weeks usage. I think once I put down an ethernet run things will become a lot more useful and I can actually make a proper judgement on the set up.

Thinking the unthinkable

 Apple, Geek, Linux  No Responses »
Oct 272010
 

A few things have recently got me considering the unthinkable. ‘What is the unthinkable?’ you ask. It is the idea of buying a computer that is not is not designed in Cupertino, California and doesn’t have a big, shiny Apple on it.

For the past few years I’ve been an avid Apple fan. Not at fan boy levels of devotion but I can often to found frequenting Apple rumour sites and posting in discussions about new Macs. I should probably point out that I’ll probably always have an Apple laptop. At this point in time I can’t find another company that builds such well built, high quality laptops. Yes you pay a premium but that’s all worth it when you compare a Macbook Pro with a similarly specced PC.

What I’m looking into is building a desktop tower running Linux. Usually I would look straight towards an iMac or Mac Mini for desktop use but the past week or so has brought up a few interesting points that are swaying me towards Linux.

Firstly, Ubuntu 10.10 was released. I’ve been fiddling with Ubuntu for years. Every six months when the new version is released I download the disk image and install it into a virtual machine. I even ran Ubuntu as a server for a few months and as a media streamer for a while. I’ve always found something missing. After using Windows for years I’m sick of having to fiddle with a computer to get it to perform simple tasks. Even now that I’m learning to program, I want to spend my time with the important stuff, not installing drivers. This why I bought a Mac. The first few times I tried Ubuntu on my old PC it wouldn’t recognise the wireless card. This was finally fixed around the time of 7.04 but there was always something holding me back from wanting to use Ubuntu full time. 10.10 is, I think, the first Ubuntu release that’s ready for prime time and can be used by anyone.

The second factor affecting this decision was the ‘Back to the Mac’ press conference held by Apple to introduce the Macbook Air and provide a sneak peak at Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. It left an uneasy feeling with me regarding the direction Apple are taking with their desktop operating system. I may just be being paranoid but this convergence of OS X and iOS (iPhone) has me concerned about the future of Apple computing.

For instance, I know that users will be able to install software from other sources beside the Mac App Store but for how long? And will not being in the App Store be comercial suicide for developers. I kind of like the App Store on the iPhone (although it could do with being a little more lenient) but on a computer, and in Apple’s hands, it could mean the end of the Mac platform as we know it.

Another example of iOS ‘features’ creeping into OS X is the idea of fullscreen apps. Why do I want a full screen application on a 1280 x 800 pixel screen? Or even worse a 1920 x 1080 screen found in the smaller iMac. Mac users have always sneered at Windows users that instantly hit ‘maximise’ on their internet browser and are left with two huge white spaces on either side on the 700 pixels of information. OS X is about taking full advantage or your screen’s real estate; smaller windows are arranged all over the so as much as possible is instantly accesible. This is how you work on a Mac. Not fullscreen.

Lastly I am slightly concerned about the deprecation of Java on the Mac. I’m not a Java programmer (although I will be taking a couple of modules on it next year for my Open University course) but Apple dropping official support for such a major language is troubling.

I hope I’m wrong about my concerns. I still think Apple are years ahead of their competitors on both the desktop and mobile devices, even with some of their bizarre decisions. I just hope Steve realises that we might be happy with a slightly controlled phone or even tablet for the sake of performance, battery life and security but this won’t fly on the desktop.