New Dune HD Max and HD Smart anticipation thread Q3 2010 - Page 270

Originally Posted by drew.c

If you want to use the same USB stick for System Storage and for where you are going to export your jukebox files from Zappiti, yaDIS, or My Movies, etc, you will need to partition it. They have to be stored in two different partitions or locations. I use an SD card instead of USB because on my Dune HD Max, the SD port is easily accessible on the front and the SD card is hidden once it is inserted. It's a personal preference. If you have more than one Dune, most people store the jukebox files where their movies are stored (NAS or server). Some people store their jukebox files on an internal hard drive or ssd. The link you mentioned explains what the System Storage is used for. My old Panasonic Blu-ray player required an SD card to be able to download BD-Live content etc. This is basically the same as the Dune's System Storage. It also is required to create shortcuts (Favorites) on your Dune. Mine is 2 GB in size and I never touch it. You cannot see the contents of the System Storage partition. I use one 8 GB SDHC card with 2 partitions. The first partition is for Zappiti and yaDIS and the second partition is for System Storage. In Windows 7, I use a free tool called MiniTool Partition Wizard to partition the SD card. I initially partitioned the SDHC card as 6 GB NTFS and 2 GB FAT32. Windows can only read/write the first partition on an SD card so I made sure the last partition (2 GB) was for System Storage. This way, you can insert the SD card into your PC and read/write to the first partition if need be. I also keep Dune firmwares and .dsf utility files on the NTFS partition in addition to Zappiti and yaDIS. When I inserted the SD card into the Dune, I went into Setup, Miscellaneous, System Storage, Initialize System Storage. If will find the FAT32 2 GB partition and ask you if you want to create the System Storage there. It converts the FAT32 to EXT3 and will be hidden. You will be able to see the 6 GB NTFS partition from Windows. By default it will have a long share name. You can shorten the share name by creating a txt file named "dune_folder.txt" and adding the line:

storage_name = SD

Copy this file to the root of the SD or USB stick (I assume this works with USB) and reboot the Dune. You can now access this 6 GB storage from Windows Explorer as \\\\DUNE\\SD

You can change the SD name to USB or whatever you choose in the dune_folder.txt. I use SD because I have an SD card.

The only problems I have had with the SD card is I tried using a Class 10 card and it would not work. I could only get a Class 6 card to work properly. I also tried a larger 32 GB Class 6 SD card and had issues with it also. The higher the class, the faster the card. I do not have any speed issues with the 8 GB Class 6 SD card. Zappiti appears immeadiately.

Originally Posted by RaggedEdge

Save a few $$ and get an H1. Like many have said, the display on the D1 is about useless anyway. With the H1, you get a hot swap drive bay and it is a snap to install a drive in it.

Originally Posted by catmother

As posted here before:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=4956

and verified by other posters, the internal slot is a road map to premature failure. After one hour the HDD was so hot I had to use gloves to touch and pull the HDD.
Use an external dock or a server.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=5142

Originally Posted by GusGus748s

I've heard about 10muse, but I never really tried it. I was thinking of may be trying it out to see how it works, but then I don't own an Ipad. Try sending them an email to see if their support team can help you out support@10muse.net. Report back if their support team was any good.

May be dbone, if you've got some time...can you test it out . I'm thinking of buying a couple tablets for my kids (even though they don't deserve it). I was thinking of getting an android based tablet, but the Ipad has to many different applications that I can use with my set up.

Originally Posted by sukumar

Thanks a lot for detailed explanation on creating system storage and other partition. I never thought about using SD card as system storage. Since, I never use this slot, it is good to consider for it.

It is also clever technique to partition in windows and reinitialize from Dune. Thanks for letting know that class 6, 8gb is worked fine. Not sure if you tried 16gb one.

I am helping friend to setup his NAS and will pass this info to him. Unfortunately, I have movies in mulitple hard disks that I connect through hub. It seems only option is to index on each hard drive itself. So, 6gb may be unused for me until I get NAS.

You said you can access sd card from windows using //Dune/sd. Is Dune inserted SD card visible from windows. How do you map?

Originally Posted by drew.c

I tried a 16 GB Class 10 card and I could not get the Dune to initialize the system storage, even before partitioning it. I tried a .dsf file that was suppose to format it and it also did not work. I was able to initialize a 32 GB Class 6 card but it would lock up my Dune. If I run across a 16 GB Class 6 cheap I may try it. For now, the 6 GB NTFS partition is big enough. I have 321 Movies and 489 TV Show Episodes. Most are blu-ray iso's. Zappiti currently uses 865 MB out of the 6 GB NTFS partition on my SD card. yaDIS used 1.5 GB (see my posts on pg 268 about that).

Yes, all DUNE attached drives are viewable from Windows except for System Storage. With your drives (hard drive, ext hard drive, usb, SD) connected to the Dune and the Dune powered on, under Windows, open Computer or Windows Explorer. On the top line, type:

\\\\DUNE

You will see all of the attached drives including Hard drives, SD and/or USB. If you do not create the 'dune_folder.txt' on the root of each partition (except System Storage), you will have very long default share names. For example my internal hd default share name was "2TB_GPT_64K_7a389b73892723d". It is much easier to open notepad and add one line to the top:

storage_name = SD

Save the file as "dune_folder.txt" and copy it to the root of the SD card. I have the same file copied to my internal hard drive and it has

storage_name = HD

To connect to it from Windows, in Computer at the top line, type \\\\DUNE\\HD or map a network drive to this location and you now have read/write/delete access to this parition. If you have multiple external USB hard drives name each one HD1, HD2, etc. Zappiti and yaDIS will use this shorter share name also.

Originally Posted by mickey79

Question Guys:

So I finally got around to replacing the onboard Realtek NIC in my HTPC with a popular Intel NIC. It definitely made a considerable different in the network performance between my HTPC and other devices; and also within the HTPC itself.

However, I still haven't been able to resolve my issue with streaming full Blu-ray ISO. There is some improvement however. Right now what's happening is - when I hit play on a full Blu-ray ... It actually starts off without any stutter/jerk ... however, the stutters starts in about 10 ~ 15 seconds of smooth playback, and then stays. This happens with any & every Blu-ray I start to play.

Here's what I really wanted to ask ... is there anybody here using any Intel NIC card & streaming blu-ray? If yes, an you share your NIC Card settings/configurations with me? Under the Adapter Properties for this NIC Card ... there are so many options -- and I have no idea what half of them do. I just know I do have it set at 1.0Gbps Full Duplex. That's about it; if someone who's successfully streaming full Blu-ray using an Intel NIC can share their adapter properties -- that might really help me.

Thanks!!

Originally Posted by dbone1026

I am using an Intel NIC card with my WHS and have zero issues streaming. However, even before when I was using the stock Realtek NIC on the mobo I had no issues. I have not touched one setting on my NIC card, simply installed the card, the drivers, and that was it

Originally Posted by originalsnuffy

I am one of the few people that uses the built in hardware capability to convert hi res audio from DTS HD MA into multi-channel PCM. My upstairs receiver does not have these advanced codecs, so this mattered to me.

It turns out that the last update to the official firmware for the unit turned off the multi-channel PCM decoding capability. My original unit experienced some Blu Ray drive problems, and had to be replaced. The replacement was a newer version that could not run older firmware, so I was locked out of using this capability on the replacement unit.

One source tells me that this had to do with the unit not having mutli-channel analog audio outputs, therefore it is not permitted to perform this conversion over hdmi. I don't make up these licensing rules, just passing the information along.

Another person says this is bunk as there is no problem with the 53D lite.

Anyway, I found an unsupported file on another website that restores this decoding capability.

http://dune.do.am/dune_service_enabl...l_decoding.dsf

or

https://rapidshare.com/files/3192091...l_decoding.dsf

Originally Posted by GusGus748s

I installed a 4gb usb flash drive in my D1, and I don't even use it. I've got the Zappiti's output folder in my unraid server. I'm thinking of taking the flash drive out and use it for something else.

Originally Posted by drew.c

If I had more than one Dune, I would definately keep them on my unRAID server so that Zappiti would only have to export them to one location. The nice thing about exporting Zappiti to my unRAID server was the export was much faster. The down side is I have heard others complain that if the servers hard drive spins down where the jukebox files are exported, there is a delay opening your jukebox software on the Dune. Last week I tried exporting Zappiti and yaDIS to my unRAID server. I purposely spun down all my unRAID drives, rebooted my Dune, and it took about 1-2 seconds opening Zappiti the first try. Thereafter it would open instantly. My SD card does not spin down and always opens instantly. I could live with 1-2 seconds. After testing it some more, I may decide to keep them on the unRAID server. I currently have 15 TB not including the 3 TB parity drive. I am stuck on unRAID beta 5.0 Release 12a because of the LSI controller issue.

Drew

Originally Posted by originalsnuffy

http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/showthr...t=28070&page=6

You will have to find the link on this page. I do not know why the direct link did not work.

Originally Posted by catmother

As posted here before:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=4956

and verified by other posters, the internal slot is a road map to premature failure. After one hour the HDD was so hot I had to use gloves to touch and pull the HDD.
Use an external dock or a server.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=5142

Originally Posted by drew.c

If I had more than one Dune, I would definately keep them on my unRAID server so that Zappiti would only have to export them to one location. The nice thing about exporting Zappiti to my unRAID server was the export was much faster. The down side is I have heard others complain that if the servers hard drive spins down where the jukebox files are exported, there is a delay opening your jukebox software on the Dune. Last week I tried exporting Zappiti and yaDIS to my unRAID server. I purposely spun down all my unRAID drives, rebooted my Dune, and it took about 1-2 seconds opening Zappiti the first try. Thereafter it would open instantly. My SD card does not spin down and always opens instantly. I could live with 1-2 seconds. After testing it some more, I may decide to keep them on the unRAID server. I currently have 15 TB not including the 3 TB parity drive. I am stuck on unRAID beta 5.0 Release 12a because of the LSI controller issue.

Drew

Originally Posted by GusGus748s

I tried using 10muse, but some of the movie do not get recognized....still trying to figure out how to send the output to the dune

Originally Posted by mlknez


My LSI controller works fine with Windows 8 storage spaces... very fast!

Originally Posted by Killroy

There is no output to the Dune with 10Muse... everything is controlled via the iPad app.

Originally Posted by GusGus748s

Thanks for telling me that. I don't have an Ipad yet so I've stopped using 10muse.

Originally Posted by RobertR

I'm not clear on something: Can the Dune player access internal PC hard drives for playback? What are the advantages and disadvantages of keeping files on PC hard drives vs. a NAS box?

Originally Posted by RobertR

I'm not clear on something: Can the Dune player access internal PC hard drives for playback? What are the advantages and disadvantages of keeping files on PC hard drives vs. a NAS box?

Originally Posted by fcwilt

Yes assuming the PC or NAS supports one of the protocols that Dune supports - SMB or NFS.

I have all of my content on one largish NAS unit (6 bays of 2TB drives). I have 4 Dune players - any of which can play the content from the NAS.

Or perhaps you meant: I have a PC with internal drives and I want the Dune to access them.

Originally Posted by RobertR

Thanks Fred. I did a little research, and Windows 7 Ultimate does support NFS.

Originally Posted by rdgrimes

All Win-7 versions support SMB, so there's no need to worry about NFS. You just have to figure out how to flog Windows into sharing files on the network.

Originally Posted by RobertR

Thanks Fred. I did a little research, and Windows 7 Ultimate does support NFS.

Yes, that's what I meant. I'm just trying to figure if I can save the cost of a NAS. I can add 3 SATA drives (maybe more) to my PC, so that would make 4 with the drive in the Dune.