Reply With Quotegreat, that's a good flexibility & insurance-policy to have !
Running Cortex on one PC and multiple cameras on another is something that is indeed done on some installations. The two can be 'Cortex bridged' meaning that you can pass automation functions and images between the two.
great, that's a good flexibility & insurance-policy to have !
Chris is right when choosing a controller PC (or Mac if you mst) you have quite a few decisions to make. It maybe best to note them down.
Are you going to run Cortex on a dedicated machine?
Will the Cortex PC be running other functions, camera capture?
Will the PC running Cortex also act as a home server?
Will the PC running Cortex be ripping or streaming video?
In the past I've run Cortex on a home-server setup using a Mini-ITX based PC, the machine was just about adequate.
However, now I'm thinking of getting a very low power PC just to run Cortex. Currently Fit-PC is ticking quite a few boxes and runs at less than 10W.
For my other functions, email, file sharing, print sharing, audio streaming. I'll continue to use a Mini-ITX machine with a Atom processor. From experience these come in around 40/50W. Then I have a beast machine that I use for DVD ripping and streaming live TV as well as a home lab for new server software (obvioulsy not everyone will requires this type of setup). The beast is a quad core with high performance graphics card, etc, etc; it consumes 120/150W.
So my thinking is Fit-PC running 24x7, Cortex is isolated from other programmes (although I may include a piece of email software to store and forward for when the email server is off). The home server will run during the day only when I am at work and at home, but whilst we sleep it'll be off. Then the beast will only fire up when it is needed. This setup will also allow me to turn off the core Linksys Gigabit switch overnight which takes another 50W. All of this functionallity is possible because Cortex can control the power to the other machines.
The above is my own example and thought process that I have gone trhough. It is therefore difficult to make a general recommendation on the PC for Cortex.
HTH
Paul
hmm, Mac would have been nice, but of course such thoughts are not realistic, long-since ... OTOH, hope (dream) the guys are working on an iPad option - as a screen and/or remote and/or controller, perhaps with an iPod touch or two to help, second-hand perhaps, it might be a good match (good UPS & the 30-pin connector offers a lot of options, and there's rumour of a 7" version, too) ... !
http://pinouts.ru/PortableDevices/ipod_pinout.shtml
http://developer.apple.com/programs/mfi/
Last edited by chris_j_hunter; 18th September 2010 at 11:37 AM.
>streaming live TV ...
this is a bit OT, but ... not sure what you're doing this from, but the EyeTV stick that we use (plugged into a laptop) to get the signals into the network started having difficulty maintaining signal quality on either & both channels ... fiddling with the leads & connectors seemed to have some effect, but the cure turned-out to be putting the stick in the freezer for an hour - since which it's been working perfectly again ! Not sure if this is a standard technique, but it was that or buy a new one (reluctantly) & it seemed worth a try ...
Last edited by chris_j_hunter; 18th September 2010 at 12:17 PM.
With the fit-pc comming in at about 420 pounds excl VAT for the windows 7 version. The Zotac looks to be good value at about 380.71 including VAT with W7.Originally Posted by Paul_B
The Zotac consumes about 30 to 40W when its working and this drops to about 24W when idle and 0.5W when in standby mode. SO not quite as green but still not bad.
And the small UPS they do for the FIT looks cool. Wonder if it would work with other small PC.
Talking about tiny PCs I have one of these (complete with DVD/CD dock which needs a good project idea for and the time to implement it.
Last edited by toscal; 18th September 2010 at 12:18 PM.
IF YOU CAN'T FIX IT WITH A HAMMER, YOU'VE GOT AN ELECTRICAL PROBLEM.
www.casatech.eu
Agree with your comment on price of the Fit-PC it isn't the cheapest option, you could probably do something similar with an older Via CPU and flash memory and it would consume somewhere between what the Fit_PC and Zotac do.
@Chris the Live TV stream is part of GB-PVR although this only works with PC and Media Tank (Popcorn Hour, etc) devices
I have thought about that route too and the v low power of the Fit is attractive but the whole cost of running
10W Fit 24/7 + 40W Atom based Nettop or similar on say a 50% duty cycle still means the 24/7 consumption will be 30W .. more than an energy efficient i3 based system - which doesn't seem so attractive... Which is why I am sticking with a 17W laptop for now I've got it working again!!
As for camera cards I have seen 4 camera cards on a USB stick in www.Henrys.co.uk but not tested for quality / capture rate.
I am also awaiting results of the USB voice modem for Cortex which I think is being trialled.
The Zotac looks v similar to the box I referenced on the linitx site but with a slightly earlier processor. I am hoping this new gen of Atoms will prove more efficient at the system level but will wait until confirmed by a review...
Still baffles me why Fit PC can make a box that appears to have the same Atom + ION internals as the Zotac ION in the review Toscal mentioned but about a quarter of the power consumption... and several times the price!
YGWYPF I guess
Mind you I would like to see the Fit PC cope with all USB sockets used up and supplying power to the things plugged in.
IF YOU CAN'T FIX IT WITH A HAMMER, YOU'VE GOT AN ELECTRICAL PROBLEM.
www.casatech.eu
I'm currently running Cortex + SqueezeServer on a Asus AT5NM10-I (Dual Core Atom D510) box with laptop hard drive. Perfectly responsive and still showing quite light average processor load. Cameras are on a separate machine that also does some other server duties.
Can't tell you the power consumption (real consumption) at the moment.
The thing that attracted me was that the motherboard was totally passively cooled - so no whiny 40mm fan needed. The motherboard is built into a shoebox style case with a pretty quiet vibration damped 80mm case fan and hard drive silencer from QuietPC.
As you might guess, my priority was dB over W and £. But it's not worked out bad on the W and £ front.
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