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I’m tired of wrestling with my Mini-ITX PVR/DVR/Media PC setup which has worked a total of three weeks in the last three years. So last night I ordered a new batch of much more standard items.

All parts were ordered from ZipZoomFly, since they had some of the best overall pricing, and it beats spending the extra time ordering from multiple vendors just to save a dollar or two.

• Antec Fusion Black $150.99
• AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core EE BE-2350 2.1GHz Socket AM2 (45W) $94.99
• BIOSTAR TForce TF7050-M2 AMD AM2 Socket AM2 1000 MHz PC2-6400 (DDR2-800) mATX $65.98
• Crucial Technology Ballistix BL2KIT12864AA804 2GB kit DDR2-800 PC2-6400 Memory $74.90

Subtotal: $386.86

(if that subtotal doesn’t indicate that the computer gods are smiling on this selection, I don’t know what does!)

I selected the TF7050-M2 motherboard because it’s cheap, supports the AM2 socket, and it has nVidia’s PureVideo 7050 integrated graphics. Sadly, PureVideo is entirely unsupported under Linux, since nVidia hasn’t documented their hardware API at all. Hopefully, by the time I buy a proper HDTV, they will have released the necessary documentation for Open Source development.

The CPU was chosen because it’s power-efficient, peaking at 45 watts, and extremely cheap.

The memory was chosen solely because they were offering a rebate. Which reminds me, I need to go mail that in…

Attempting to compile Handbrake using jam resulted in a strange error, something like:

/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lz
error: C compiler
cannot create executables


According to the Internets, I needed to install the development version of zlib. However, zlib-devel does not appear to exist in any Ubuntu apt repository. Ultimately, this command installed the necessary library and resulted in a successful compile:

sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev

The XBox 360 can play back xvid/divx + AC-3 (or AAC), and H.264/x264 + AAC. I’ve noticed a distinct difference in audio quality between AC-3 and AAC, at both the default 128kbps and forced 192kbps AAC (--aencoder aac --arate 48 --ab 192).

This is easily demonstrated by listening to the first few seconds of the Fox Searchlight intro, which features kettle drums. The AAC is lacking substantial low-frequency character which is present in the AC-3 version.

This will likely never matter if you watch your movies exclusively on your computer or use only your television’s speakers, but on my NHT 2.5’s, the AC-3 track sounds significantly better.

uShare, a GeeXBox project, is a media server which is compatible with the new XBox 360 “Spring Update” media player capability. Running uShare on a desktop seems straightforward, but getting it working on such a lightweight machine as the TeraStation Live is a bit more difficult, particularly if you’re not experienced at cross-platform compiling.

Bear in mind that the TeraStation Live is ARM-based, unlike the older TeraStations. Luckily, many other embedded network appliances are ARM-based, so many of their compiled binaries can be run without modification.

Before working with uShare, the TeraStation must be hacked for full console access. This is an involved process which is explained here.

Once console access is available, install ipkg and use it to install uShare. The ipkg for the Maxtor Shared Storage II (also ARM-based) should work, so these directions apply. Then uShare can be downloaded and installed by following these instructions.

For me, the startup configuration didn’t work on my TS Live, so I simply created a script called ‘relaunch-ushare’. It kills any running uShare process, then restarts it.

#!/bin/bash
kill -9 `pidof ushare` > /dev/null
/opt/bin/ushare --xbox --cfg=/opt/etc/ushare.conf --verbose -D

The relevant portions of my /opt/etc/ushare.conf file are as follows:

# Port to listen to (default is random from IANA Dynamic Ports range)
USHARE_PORT=49201

# Directories to be shared (space or CSV list).
# Ex: USHARE_DIR=/dir1,/dir2
USHARE_DIR=/mnt/array1/media/video/movies

# Use XboX 360 compatibility mode (yes/no)
ENABLE_XBOX=YES

To administer uShare via its web interface, browse to http://server:portnumber/web/ushare.html. Note that the port number should be whatever appears in /opt/etc/ushare.conf file on USHARE_PORT line.