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> I thought I would try doing a network boot on my frontends.
> Has anyone else set this up, any tips? Howto's etc so I don't take the
> long
> road?
>
> Regards
> Toby
>

Never done it any other way :-)

I'm running an Epia SP13000 as a combined frontend/backend as a diskless
system NFS mounted back onto my server box (an Athlon XP2700+ with 50G of
raid1 OS and 600G raid5 storage for videos, music, TV, pix etc).

Things start off by setting the BIOS of the Epia to DHCP an IP address and
grab pxegrub from the server. The kernel is tftp'd off the server and the
frontend root filesystem is NFS mounted. All the frontend code sits in a
directory on the server where I build it (being how the server is 3x as
quick). So the shopping list is...
dhcp server
pxegrub
tftp server
(and their associated config files)
exported nfs root directory
a kernel suitable for the frontend
basic OS
Mythtv stuff!

I'm running Gentoo so I just chrooted into a directory on the server and
built a new basic system there. As you can tell (i.e. Gentoo) I don't
choose the simple way :-)

The easiest way is to build the system on the frontend with a harddrive
then copy it to your server and switch to nfs mounting the root
filesystem, then get and boot the kernel from your server and then finally
PXE boot at which point you can unplug the harddrive. Simple stages where
its easy to unwind if it all goes tits up.


--
Robin Gilks




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> I'm running an Epia SP13000 as a combined frontend/backend as a
> diskless system NFS mounted back onto my server box (an Athlon
> XP2700+ with 50G of raid1 OS and 600G raid5 storage for videos,
> music, TV, pix etc).

I'm thinking of doing the same setup with my system. It's annoying that
neither Debian nor Knoppmyth allow you to install to a folder on a
mounted filesystem rather than the filesystem itself. It would make
life easier for setting up a PXE booting network.

Wouldn't it make more sense to have the backend running on the server
and just the frontend running on the PXE booted device? This would
lower network traffic while watching live TV as the backend streams to
the /myth/tv (or wherever) folder and the frontend reads from it. It
would work fine for one or two tuners and a frontend on a 100Mbit
connection but as soon as you started adding more clients or use wifi,
you may start to see bottlenecks in the network.

Just my two cents.

I've been trying to get a Compaq T1510 thin client to boot from TFTP for
a while now with no luck. It acquires an IP address from the DHCP
server but never requests the kernel. Any ideas Robin?


Sam Hadley-Jones.

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>
>> I'm running an Epia SP13000 as a combined frontend/backend as a
>> diskless system NFS mounted back onto my server box (an Athlon
>> XP2700+ with 50G of raid1 OS and 600G raid5 storage for videos,
>> music, TV, pix etc).
>
> I'm thinking of doing the same setup with my system. It's annoying that
> neither Debian nor Knoppmyth allow you to install to a folder on a
> mounted filesystem rather than the filesystem itself. It would make
> life easier for setting up a PXE booting network.
>
> Wouldn't it make more sense to have the backend running on the server
> and just the frontend running on the PXE booted device? This would
> lower network traffic while watching live TV as the backend streams to
> the /myth/tv (or wherever) folder and the frontend reads from it. It
> would work fine for one or two tuners and a frontend on a 100Mbit
> connection but as soon as you started adding more clients or use wifi,
> you may start to see bottlenecks in the network.
>
> Just my two cents.
>
> I've been trying to get a Compaq T1510 thin client to boot from TFTP for
> a while now with no luck. It acquires an IP address from the DHCP
> server but never requests the kernel. Any ideas Robin?

Diskless or largely diskless frontends are always an interesting solution.
The problem is finding hardware that can be a diskless frontend that will
play HD native over HDMI/DVI with digital audio support. Still looking for
the right solution. Oh and wireless too.

Steve

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On 9/4/06, Steven Ellis <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
> Diskless or largely diskless frontends are always an interesting solution.
> The problem is finding hardware that can be a diskless frontend that will
> play HD native over HDMI/DVI with digital audio support. Still looking for
> the right solution. Oh and wireless too.

Is that really a concern here at the moment? I guess HD-DVD and/or
Bluray will arrive here some time soon, but as of right now what HD
content is there?

Steve

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> Wouldn't it make more sense to have the backend running on the server
> and just the frontend running on the PXE booted device? This would
> lower network traffic while watching live TV as the backend streams to
> the /myth/tv (or wherever) folder and the frontend reads from it. It
> would work fine for one or two tuners and a frontend on a 100Mbit
> connection but as soon as you started adding more clients or use wifi,
> you may start to see bottlenecks in the network.
>

Running the backend on the server would mean hacking extra cables through
walls etc to where the server lives for the sat disk LNB and the
terrestrial feed. It would certinaly make cooling in the frontend a lot
easier as a PVR150 gets quite warm!

As far as wireless goes, I've not seen anyone who has been really happy
with it - my house was prewired with cat5 for the phones so I just put a
switch in the garage where its all distributed from and use DSE rj45
phone/ethernet splitters where I want net access.

Steve raises the point about HD - by the time I'll be able to afford the
content (or the choice has disappeared) we'll be 3 generations of hardware
further on :-)

--
Robin Gilks



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Steve Hodge wrote:
> On 9/4/06, Steven Ellis <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
>> Diskless or largely diskless frontends are always an interesting
>> solution.
>> The problem is finding hardware that can be a diskless frontend that
>> will
>> play HD native over HDMI/DVI with digital audio support. Still
>> looking for
>> the right solution. Oh and wireless too.
>
> Is that really a concern here at the moment? I guess HD-DVD and/or
> Bluray will arrive here some time soon, but as of right now what HD
> content is there?
I personally don't see HD to be that far behind the digital launch
especially if they follow the UK and go H264 over DVB.

Plus with my current solution the HD up-scaling of the new FreeView
signal is excellent, especially the widescreen channel, if you use DVI/HDMI.

Steve


--
Steven Ellis - Technical Director
OpenMedia Limited
email - steven@openmedia.co.nz
sales - sales@openmedia.co.nz
support - support@openmedia.co.nz
website - http://www.openmedia.co.nz


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On 9/4/06, Steven Ellis <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
> Steve Hodge wrote:
> > Is that really a concern here at the moment? I guess HD-DVD and/or
> > Bluray will arrive here some time soon, but as of right now what HD
> > content is there?
> I personally don't see HD to be that far behind the digital launch
> especially if they follow the UK and go H264 over DVB.
>
> Plus with my current solution the HD up-scaling of the new FreeView
> signal is excellent, especially the widescreen channel, if you use DVI/HDMI.

The problem is content - AFAIK local producers aren't set up for HD.
Would TVNZ want to show HD shows from overseas when all their local
stuff is SD only? I doubt it. I guess Canwest might be more keen.
Would either company choose one HD channel when they could have (e.g.)
4 SD channels for the same transmission price? Especially when so few
people have HD ready equipment?

After all there's no reason why Sky couldn't broadcast in HD now. The
launch of MySky would surely have been the perfect time to also launch
HD. But they didn't.

I think HD broadcasts will start years after HD-DVD and Bluray start
to take hold in this country.

Steve

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Steve Hodge wrote:

> The problem is content - AFAIK local producers aren't set up for HD.
> Would TVNZ want to show HD shows from overseas when all their local
> stuff is SD only? I doubt it. I guess Canwest might be more keen.
> Would either company choose one HD channel when they could have (e.g.)
> 4 SD channels for the same transmission price? Especially when so few
> people have HD ready equipment?

The rumour is that at least some of the channels will be HD channels,
TVNZ have built a nice shiny HD studio or two.

:D


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Steve Hodge wrote:
> On 9/4/06, Steven Ellis <steven@openmedia.co.nz> wrote:
>> Steve Hodge wrote:
>> > Is that really a concern here at the moment? I guess HD-DVD and/or
>> > Bluray will arrive here some time soon, but as of right now what HD
>> > content is there?
>> I personally don't see HD to be that far behind the digital launch
>> especially if they follow the UK and go H264 over DVB.
>>
>> Plus with my current solution the HD up-scaling of the new FreeView
>> signal is excellent, especially the widescreen channel, if you use
>> DVI/HDMI.
>
> The problem is content - AFAIK local producers aren't set up for HD.
> Would TVNZ want to show HD shows from overseas when all their local
> stuff is SD only? I doubt it. I guess Canwest might be more keen.
> Would either company choose one HD channel when they could have (e.g.)
> 4 SD channels for the same transmission price? Especially when so few
> people have HD ready equipment?
Sorry but not true.

1. Most local production companies have international owners and are
moving over to HD as they can afford it. Shooting on HD video is usually
cheaper than film.

2. Some local content is produced on film which if it is Super16 or
better can be turned into HD.

3. TVNZ's new equipment is all HD. They can't buy SD kit even if they
wanted to.

4. Maddigan's Quest was shot in HD.

5. Most US and a lot of UK/AU imported is in HD.

6. One H264 HD Channel takes the same bandwidth as One SD MPEG2 channel.

> After all there's no reason why Sky couldn't broadcast in HD now. The
> launch of MySky would surely have been the perfect time to also launch
> HD. But they didn't.
Because it wasn't ready. They can't make HD PVR units fast enough for
the UK market. The waiting list is huge.

<disclaimer on "This is my opinion and not that of my company">
What I'd personally like to see is One HD channel per multiplex. One
each for TVNZ and Canwest featuring the best they have in HD, plus Prime
in HD, which Sky would use to try and up-convert people to the full Sky
offering. Pipe dream I know, but I think it would drive the market in an
amazing way. Over time the main channels would slowly switch over as the
market grows or as additional UHF Frequencies (SkyTV's UHF block comes
to mind) become available.
</disclaimer on>

I doubt we will see something like this immediately because of the lack
of decent set-top boxes that support H264. The UK HD services are still
in a "test" mode.

The funny thing for me is that the OpenMedia myPVR already supports SD
MPEG2 DVB-T/S, and I'm testing HD H264 DVB-T/S patches. I say "bring it on".


Steve

--
Steven Ellis - Technical Director
OpenMedia Limited
email - steven@openmedia.co.nz
sales - sales@openmedia.co.nz
support - support@openmedia.co.nz
website - http://www.openmedia.co.nz


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