[mythtv-users] My experience with Zotac ZBOX-ID86-U as my new Frontend

Mon Jun 9 02:16:20 UTC 2014

This past week, I pulled the trigger and picked up a new Zotac 
ZBOX-ID86-U in an attempt to replace my higher wattage.  I wanted to 
share my experience with the wider group.

First off, I think this box can cover most if not all of my needs. 
1920x1080 at 60 works flawlessly.  I record everything via QAM from Cable, 
and I have a mix of transcoded and non-transcoded data.  I've tested 
Blu-ray files, MKVs, DIVX, and pretty much all samples. Those files that 
can benefit from VDPAU acceleration really keep the CPU usage low, and 
for those that don't so far have only yielded higher CPU usage.  MythTV 
Frontend itself is generally responsive enough, but not as snappy as my 
other machine as you might imagine from an Atom box.

Ok, the hardware I purchased:

Zotac ZBOX-ID86-U
     : 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DXFFSEC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00DXFFSEC&linkCode=as2&tag=ranthoinranpl-20&linkId=W47OBMU45GIISI4O
Samsung 840 EVO-Series 120GB
     : 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E3W15P0/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00E3W15P0&linkCode=as2&tag=ranthoinranpl-20&linkId=NEIXIJ7TIV5WFGW3
2x2GB Corsair DDR3 1066 (PC8500)
     : 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001N0DQOS/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B001N0DQOS&linkCode=as2&tag=ranthoinranpl-20&linkId=QDCRFJVWZ2FRVK2S

The ZBOX was easy to add the memory and SSD to, but right off the bat I 
had issues with the memory, giving an error beep and no POST. The two 
memory modules that Amazon shipped were not identical, one had more 
chips than the other, but they were both 2GB modules.  One worked 
standalone in the ZBOX, the other did not, and they wouldn't work 
together.  Amazon quickly shipped a replacement, but the unit that 
arrived was the same was the one that would not work.  Good news in the 
end though, as the two 'error'ing memory modules did work 'together' and 
allow the ZBOX to post and give me 4GB of memory.   For the record, the 
ZBOX and the Mythbuntu install I'm about to talk about *did* work within 
2GB of memory, I just wanted to have the extract breathing room for 4GB.

When I got the ZBOX all together, which really took all of two minutes 
or less (memory and SSD installed) due to the sheer simplicity of this 
box, I booted off a Mythbuntu 14.04 USB stick I created using "Universal 
USB Installer" from PenDriveLinux.com and kicked off the install.  I 
chose Mythbuntu, hoping to have a simpler install than my other long 
running frontend which has been running Gentoo.  My first install 
attempt failed due to a bug in the installer where you can't enable VNC 
during installation.  Once I found that out, my install completed fine, 
and after making sure the right MYSQL privileges were set for the new 
frontend, everything was up and running.

I've attached a StreamZap remote to the machine that I have previously 
used, and it just works.

Power utilization seems to always be below 30W, which is great, and 
probably will be a huge savings over my old box, for which I'd guess the 
Nvidia card in it alone is using more wattage.  I'm going to do some 
further measurements when I have time, but so far I'm very happy.  The 
unit has a fan also, and so far I've not even notice the box.  Further 
more, it is much more quick than my older machine.

Issues I encountered:

     Overscan (or underscan?  I forget which) for my TV size had to be 
set, but this is really my TV's fault.  I've had to run the display on 
the other frontend similarly with overscan to fix the screen correctly.  
I only note this because below you will see my HDMI-0 output is 1804x1014...

     Using HDMI for video and audio is generally working fine to my 
Onkyo receiver, *except* that whenever I change HDMI inputs away from 
the the one assigned to the ZBOX, the Nvidia card registers this as a 
'disconnect', and when I switch back.

Output of xrandr when switched to another video input:

    $ DISPLAY=:0.0 xrandr
    Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 16384 x 16384
    DVI-I-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
    DVI-I-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
    HDMI-0 disconnected primary (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

Output after switching back, notice the first video format is the 
preferred, but isn't actually selected:

    $ DISPLAY=:0.0 xrandr
    Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 16384 x 16384
    DVI-I-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
    DVI-I-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
    HDMI-0 connected primary (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
        1920x1080      60.1 +   60.0     59.9     59.9     50.0 24.0    
    24.0     60.0     50.0
        1680x1050      60.0     59.9
        1440x900       59.9
        1400x1050      60.0
         .... and a bunch more lower res ....

The video remains offline until I use

    DISPLAY=:0.0 xrandr --output HDMI-0 --mode 1920x1080 --rate 60

Output after the above:

    $ DISPLAY=:0.0 xrandr
    Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 16384 x 16384
    DVI-I-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
    DVI-I-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
    HDMI-0 connected primary 1804x1014+0+0 (normal left inverted right x
    axis y axis) 160mm x 90mm panning 1920x1080+0+0
        1920x1080      60.1 +   60.0*    59.9     59.9     50.0 24.0    
    24.0     60.0     50.0
        1680x1050      60.0     59.9
        1440x900       59.9

I'm probably going to ditch HDMI if I can't figure out how to stop it 
from turning the screen off like this.  Using xrandr works fine most of 
the time, but when I play some lower res video file, pause, switch away 
and switch back, the frequencies are out of wack and I have to exit the 
playback to fix the screen.

I've tried various settings in the xorg to no avail so far.  I've always 
been somewhat confused about the who/what/why of Xorg config files, 
always having to experiment to get things right.

Does anyone have an idea of a fix for this?  I just want the display to 
automatically return when the HDMI-0 shows as connected again.

Another issue, which I think is actually a Mythbuntu 14.04 issue, 
mythfrontend isn't going full screen, leaving the top taskbar on-screen 
the whole time.  There's a quick fix for that also:

    DISPLAY=:0 wmctrl -r "MythTV Frontend" -b add,fullscreen

Also, for whatever reason, Mythbuntu I *think* is defaulting to leaving 
the screen saver on.  I ended up turning that off, I don't see the need, 
it only serves to confuse visitors when they turn on the TV and the 
screen is blank.

I've created a script with both of these commands in it, and assigned it 
to the POWER button in .lirc/irexec :

    begin
         prog = irexec
         button = KEY_POWER
         config = /home/myaccount/bin/fixsleep.sh &
    end

I'm connected via ethernet.  I wasn't able to connect to my 'N' wifi for 
some reason, and I've not even bothered to try and debug it. I'm sure I 
could fix it if I needed to, but I don't.

-JK
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