[ale] Electric bill

[Pat Regan]

On Sun, 5 Jun 2011 15:12:44 -0400
David Hillman <hillmands at gmail.com> wrote:

> Pat, I like your idea of only using the computer when you have to.  I
> have been trying to figure out how to have my media server wake up
> only when I want to watch movies on the PS3 console and without doing
> much manual labor. I am thinking it would a good idea to have a small
> device that acts as a delegate for much more powerful machines that
> actually provide the services. Whenever the PS3 asks for a movie file
> from the delegate, it'll relay a WOL signal to the media server box
> (if it isn't awake yet).  The delegate only has to understand the
> media sharing protocol, but it doesn't have to be powerful enough to
> crunch the numbers, etc.  Once the media box comes up, the delegate
> can transfer control directly to the media server box.  The same sort
> of idea is used for web services.  Is that too complicated for these
> types of network services?  I haven't been able to find a way to way
> get the PS3 to directly wake the cranky media box; it always just
> times out. The media box is old and takes forever to boot up.

I think this idea is interesting.  As I was reading your paragraph I
thought of a couple of ways to make this happen...  Running a sniffer
on the router looking for the right connection attempt or watching the
arp table on the router for the ip of the media server.

The problem would be that the PS3 would never try to talk to the IP of
the media server.  I don't know exactly how the upnp media sharing
protocol works, but it probably broadcasts and asks for media servers
to announce themselves.

You could probably have the router listen for upnp broadcasts, possibly
just using netcat.  If it sees one it could send the appropriate WOL.
I think the problem is that the PS3 probably searches for media servers
as soon as you turn it on.  Your media server would probably need some
sort of automatic shutdown if it isn't actually streaming anything.

My use case is a bit different than most people's.  My so called "media
server" almost never streams any media.  It has been attached to my
projector for most of the last five years or so, until pretty
recently.  Most of the movie watching happened right there, so it
was always simple to just turn on server (aka player) when I turned on
the projector.  They'd both be ready at about the same time.

I have a PS3, but it isn't capable of playing most of my media.  It can
only play baseline h.264 and I encode everything with high profile
h.264, it also has a 4GB local file size limit.  So far I've found two
inexpensive boxes that will play high profile 1080p mkv files.  The
Seagate Theatre+ and the WD Live TV devices (the older serial number WD
boxes can't ff/rw in high profile 1080p files).

I have one of the Seagate boxes out on the TV in the living room but
I've never tried streaming to him.  We're in an apartment and running
ethernet to my office would be a hassle.  I've just been sneakernetting
using an older usb hard drive.

The Seagate and WD boxes can be had for around $100 and play just about
everything I throw at them.  They both support NTFS, the Seagate
supports HFS+ as well.  I was able to snag the Seagate box last year
when Newegg had them on sale for $40 shipped.

I don't seem to have any kill-a-watt data on the PS3 or the
Seagate/WD.  I'm absolutely certain that the PS3 uses a lot more juice,
though.  The little media players have tiny little wall warts with very
thin power cables and they barely get warm.  I can't say that about the
PS3 :)

Pat