Month: May 2008

CFULLHDMA: Trying to understand Samba

The Conceptronic CFULLHDMA has an automatical way of finding Samba Shares, to make life easy for customers. The device is using ‘smbtree’ for this purpose. smbtree is a text based network browser.

As I do a lot of testings I suddenly did not get any samba share to see on the CFULLHDMA anymore. Bummer, a bug? let’s find out …

Normally I have 6!! Samba shared devices in my network. Suddenly, after rebooting a PC (XP) and a NAS I lost all Samba shares to bee seen in my CFULLHDMA, reboot, turn off / turn on .. nothing helped.

Analyzing I found out following:

the smbtree was generating an error on the CFULLHDMA.

smbtree
session request to 192.168.1.30 failed (Called name not present)
Data overflow in cli_receive_trans

the 192.168.1.30 is my printserver, turning off that device only gave totally no output on running smbtree.

Using the same utility ‘smbtree’ on my Centos webserver (where aroundmyroom.com is running at) generated the same error. For me it meant that it was not a bug on my CFULLHDMA but a general ‘error’ within my network. Checking my network neighbourhood at my XP machine revealed only 1 samba share: a rebooted nas device I had to reset to factory defaults and modified on IP level again (fixed) and where I changed its Samba Share name as well. The rest of my shares were even not seen at my XP system, Linux Server or CFULLHDMA.

To solve the issue I did following:

I rebooted my DSL modem (router / dns / dhcp device) &

Announcement: CFULLHDMA beta firmware 1.09.10

To be released to beta testers later today:

Version 1.09.10

  • fixed: Volume level was / is not saved after turning off the device.
  • fixed: ISO could not be played anymore through SAMBA and USB HDD
  • Fixed: Movies and Subtitles with lots of ‘dots’ in the filename and in the same folder was only displaying the subtitle at first file. Rest of the files could not display the subtitle file.
  • fixed: Solved stream issue: stop playing after the advertisement check with: http://217.196.35.12/pls/mp3/skyradio.pls stream

v1.09.09 internal release, not released.

Note: beta testers have reported issues with some MKV files. They are still under investigation / debugging

CFULLHDMA & CH3SNAS: Using NFS

Simple how-to to use NFS together with the Conceptronic CFULLHDMA and Conceptronic CH3SNAS, a Full HD Mediaplayer & Network Storage device.

if NFS is abacadabra for you and you have no knowledge of Linux: do not worry, than this feature is not your thing.

NFS is mainly used for sharing data between Linux < – > Linux systems. NFS is a good way for quickly accessing data on a ‘local’ device.

So for the CFULLHDMA it means that we make the CH3SNAS part of the CFULLHDMA by ‘creating’ a folder in the file system of the CFULLHDMA with all the content available from the CH3SNAS.

First of all make sure you are using latest “Fun_Plug” on the CH3SNAS. I have used 0.5 which is working together with the 1.04a1 firmware (I used for my test). Copy the 2 files (see info at Fonz’ page) in the Volume_1 and reboot. The installation was successful if you see the FFP folder.

Download and use Putty (telnet client) and enter the shell of the CH3SNAS, for quick enabling UNFS3 User-Space NFS Server you use following command:

sh /mnt/HD_a2/ffp/start/unfsd.sh start

There is also nfsd.sh available, but probably due to some configuration settings in the firmware of the CH3SNAS it did not work, so preferred startup command is the above one.

You can edit your fun_plug by adding above command, after a reboot NFS is automatically started again. (Preferred).

Now you have to configure your NFS share in the CFULLHDMA. To be honest: this is very very simple when you do it by your webbrowser ;-) using the remote is possible if no pc or keyboard is available. Good luck ;-)

http://[ip-address]:49152/web/IMedia

Next: create a new station. Enter a Name ie. NFS CH3SNAS

and the most important part is the URL to enter. By default the EXPORTS file of the CH3SNAS is sharing all folders, so pointing to the root is all you need to do.

nfs://192.168.1.60:/mnt/HD_a2

Press OK and your NFS share is saved.

Press the IMEDIA button on your remote or select it from your main menu, Select My Media, your NFS CH3SNAS is available now, select it and you will directly enter the Root (Volume)1 of your CH3SNAS

Announcement: CFULLHDMA beta firmware release 1.09.08

v1.09.08

  • Changed: Updated icon for Samba shares (based on Samba Logo)
  • Added:  support MKV ASS
  • Added: Support MKV embedded .sub
  • Added: Support for P24 (1080p mode)
  • Added: Support for AVI2.0 (OpenDML)
  • Fixed: Subtitle new line issue \N { & }  etc..  in MKV
  • Fixed: NFS edit (IMEDIA) issue, adding / editing was not possible
  • Fixed: Device could crash when modifying URL to access webinterface over UPnP port

Quick adding NFS links or other imedia url’s can be done through:

http://[ip-address]:49152/web/IMedia 

Vliegen

Morgen mijn ‘air-miles’ weer aanvullen.. ‘even’ voor een meeting naar Barcelona ..

je moet er wat voor over hebben om mooie produktjes op de markt te kunnen zetten .. Zo heb je net 1 project afgesloten en begleid je de introductie zijn er alweer 3 of 4 nieuwe projecten aan de gang ..

Never a dull moment kun je wel zeggen …

Ben je net zoals ik een freak? We zoeken nog aardige, leuke, goed geschoolde collega’s, die het leuk vinden om van een muisje en een mediaspeler iets moois te maken ..  ;-)

CFULLHDMA: The Inside Images

Junkies always like to see the inside of a device. Today I made some images for you

Enjoy!

CFULLHDMA 1.09.04 Firmware [beta]

v01.09.04 [beta testers version]
this version is only interesting for those who want to play with NFS …

1. support NFS (experimental)

Support for NFS shares is added through the iMEDIA menu button
Add a new station: give it a name and enter for the address
nfs://ip-address:/path
for example when using CH3SNAS with NFS you can enter nfs://192.168.1.20:/mnt/HD_a2
when pressing ok you will notice that the ICON is still a blue circle, go out of this menu and go to the main menu or ie. setup menu. Re-enter the iMedia folder and the blue circle is changed into a folder. When entering this folder the actually mount of the NFS share is being executed
and you can access the NFS shares you have created in your exports file.

sidenote: if the icon has changed in a folder through the BGM button you can only edit the title, if you need to change the path, you have to enter a new station. If the icon is still the blue circle you can edit all through the BGM button

this feature is experimental and we are checking how to make it more userfriendly. But hey .. NFS itself is not really userfriendly ;-) its for linux geeks only, no linux box/nas no NFS

2. remove PowerOff warning/error message
3. fix small avi ( ~10M ) segmenataion fault issue from NAS

People who want to beta test can apply with a valid e-mail address in the comments.