Excellent hardware for streaming!

[BalunKnot]

i know that this thread has sparked alot of interest in these thin clients. a search of eBay reveals a ton of different models available. can anyone else advise which models of the thin clients you have purchased and how you have found them to work for streaming your scanner???

Thanks

 

[KC1UA]

Success!

Today I received my HP/Compaq T5720 Thin Client. I'm pleased to say that without too much difficulty I now have it up and running two of my feeds.

The XPE interface is of course very similar to the "real" Windows XP. The first thing I did was go in and set it to log in as Administrator every time. Of course when I rebooted I was right back to the standard "user" account that the device comes with. The trick to overcoming this, and to writing anything to the built in flash drive is to "unlock" writing to the drive. It's called the "Enhanced Write Filter". Every time you want to install a program, remove a program, add an icon, basically make any changes, you need to "commit" the drive to doing so, and reboot. A bit of an adjustment, but no biggie.

The other issue I had was with the HP Firewall that was installed. It drove me nuts to the point where I simply removed it via the normal manner, Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs. I have seen some software available at HP's site for removing programs. I guess I need to learn more about this. As an example, there was a download for a tool to remove Windows Media Player. It's also available to be uninstalled from Add/Remove Programs. I'm not sure what the difference is. Maybe someone who is further along with these things than I am can comment. Kindly, HP provides a replacement image of XP Embedded, which I have of course already downloaded!

I was able to install Teamspeak and Edcast (formerly Oddcast) onto the device. I'm using a version of Teamspeak that allows for multiple instances to be run. The only difference I'm seeing is that it indicates the program is "already running" when I load a second copy, and then it runs anyway. I'm also running two copies of Edcast to provide my marine and aviation feeds to Scan America. To accomplish running two feeds I installed a Soundblaster USB device. It used Windows native drivers and allowed me to manipulate the line in. The onboard audio is SiS chip based, and unfortunately allows for a microphone input only. With some manipulation I was able to balance the audio to a point that sounds reasonably good. The aviation feed runs on the USB sound device, the maritime feed runs on the onboard audio. The feeds can be accessed at http://barnstable.ma.scanamerica.us/index.php or via the Scan New England website.

I am not using keyboard, mouse, or monitor after the inital setup. I'm remoting in using UltraVNC. I could use Windows Remote Desktop as well I suppose; I've just become a fan of UltraVNC for remoting around my LAN.

So far I'm very pleased with the way that this is working, and my thanks to the original poster for starting this thread.

 

[baybum]

Will this one work?
I use media encoder to listen to my home scanner from work.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...go=DR&its=S%2BI%2BSS&itu=ISS%2BUCI%2BSI&otn=4

 

[Uplink]

Great review Scott, very helpful! Thanks for posting.
Nice gadget for streaming, bummer about mic input only, but we can't have everything.

Today I received my HP/Compaq T5720 Thin Client. I'm pleased to say that without too much difficulty I now have it up and running two of my feeds.

The XPE interface is of course very similar to the "real" Windows XP. The first thing I did was go in and set it to log in as Administrator every time. Of course when I rebooted I was right back to the standard "user" account that the device comes with. The trick to overcoming this, and to writing anything to the built in flash drive is to "unlock" writing to the drive. It's called the "Enhanced Write Filter". Every time you want to install a program, remove a program, add an icon, basically make any changes, you need to "commit" the drive to doing so, and reboot. A bit of an adjustment, but no biggie.

The other issue I had was with the HP Firewall that was installed. It drove me nuts to the point where I simply removed it via the normal manner, Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs. I have seen some software available at HP's site for removing programs. I guess I need to learn more about this. As an example, there was a download for a tool to remove Windows Media Player. It's also available to be uninstalled from Add/Remove Programs. I'm not sure what the difference is. Maybe someone who is further along with these things than I am can comment. Kindly, HP provides a replacement image of XP Embedded, which I have of course already downloaded!

I was able to install Teamspeak and Edcast (formerly Oddcast) onto the device. I'm using a version of Teamspeak that allows for multiple instances to be run. The only difference I'm seeing is that it indicates the program is "already running" when I load a second copy, and then it runs anyway. I'm also running two copies of Edcast to provide my marine and aviation feeds to Scan America. To accomplish running two feeds I installed a Soundblaster USB device. It used Windows native drivers and allowed me to manipulate the line in. The onboard audio is SiS chip based, and unfortunately allows for a microphone input only. With some manipulation I was able to balance the audio to a point that sounds reasonably good. The aviation feed runs on the USB sound device, the maritime feed runs on the onboard audio. The feeds can be accessed at http://barnstable.ma.scanamerica.us/index.php or via the Scan New England website.

I am not using keyboard, mouse, or monitor after the inital setup. I'm remoting in using UltraVNC. I could use Windows Remote Desktop as well I suppose; I've just become a fan of UltraVNC for remoting around my LAN.

So far I'm very pleased with the way that this is working, and my thanks to the original poster for starting this thread.

 

[mikea7531]

Very interesting thread! You guys definitely have peaked my interest in this. I run a ProScan feed for the Somerset County, NJ area. Right now it's currently on a PC that's also running ScanStar Spectrum Commander with 3 scanners, and also Unitrunker on two different trunk sites running two voice scanners. The feed has become very popular and now will probably need to put this feed on it's own computer.

Would anyone that currently has one of these thin clients be willing to test a trial version of ProScan on it to see if one of these units would be able to handle it?

Thanks in advace for your help!

 

[JSTARS03]

Logging and Recording

Very interesting so far. Has anyone attempted to run BCTool (or whatever your preference)
for unattended logging and recording audio to an external hard drive? I currently have one
computer running two instances of BCTool for two BCD996Ts with two soundcards. Soon
to be upgraded to three 996s. It would be nice to get one or two of these XPE clients instead
with a USB soundcard dongle or two.

Shaun

 

[nydxa]

Icecast under Linux?

I started a separate discussion, but since my issue is related to these thin clients, others might learn from what I'm going through.

I got a great deal on an HP T5735, that's running Linux (Debian 4.0) Pleanty of Flash memory and RAM. I must confess that I'm 110% Linux illiterate and honestly, I'll never complain about Windows again! I've spent 5 hours reading, trying to figure out how I can load Icecast on this box. All I'm seeing is command line statements which might as well be written in some foreign language.

Is anyone in this forum familiar enough with Debian Linux, that might be able to point me in the right direction?

The client boots up and I can surf the net via the embedded Firefox browser. To someone who is knowledgable they are probably laughing as they read this.

 

[baybum]

How do you "unlock" the drive for writing?
Also, I connected an external drive via the USB for the purpose of installing Encoder and the HP does not see that drive.

I have an HP 5710 with XPE.

Thanks

 

[baybum]

Scott helped me out and now I am logging on as administrator.

Now...does anyone use Windows Media Encoder on XPe?
The version I have is not compatible with XPe.

Thanks to all...great thread!


Mike

 

[baybum]

disregard my last 2 posts.

 

[krazybob]

My preference is a standard PC with a Delta 1010LT sound card that allows me to run 4 feeds from one computer, plus one Teamspeak feed.

 

[KC1UA]

I am running Teamspeak and Edcast for each of the two feeds I run on my thin client. Both feeds stream to my commercially rented Teamspeak server, and to Scan America using Edcast. I expect I could probably run three with the thin client I'm using. I use a PC similar to what you describe for my main feeds. At some point I may find a little bit more of a beefed up thin client and move those feeds to it. There are three there, and one remote controlled PCR100 receiver. Remoting into it is a breeze, and with no moving parts it runs merrily along without a hitch thus far.

 

[alexmills]

The thing with thin client i an finding out LOL
the 1st one i got did not have XPE on it.
so i got another one t5710 that had XPE with 1.2 gig cpu 512 Flash 256 ram
ProScan would not work but i did get Teamspeak to work and i like ProScan
so i got another one, be here Fridy and the other part Tuesday this one is
a t5720 1gig cpu, 1gig flash 1gig ram this to get ProScan working I hope
this is do to net Framework 2.0 which will only work with 1gig Flash and 1 gig ram
the other part coming in a pci card M Audio 1010lt,Hope to get 4 scanners on it
let you all know next week if it does LOL

 

[Universaldecoder]

FYI (since it was mentioned in a prior method). Checkout www.logmein.com for remote control of your pc/laptop. The basic package will allow you to control remotely, but will not let you hear sound, or transfer files...etc.

A simple scenerio I tend to do is open Arc500 and or Arc246 to control my online streaming scanners via remotely.

 

[KC1UA]

Logmein is too large for my thin client; I tried but could not install it. So, if I have to access mine remotely, I use Logmein to access a PC on my LAN, and then use UltraVNC to jump over to the thin client.

Alex, I'll be interested to hear how you make out with your experiment.

 

[baybum]

I think I made a mistake ordering this 5710...my HP only has 256meg flash and I can't install encoder or logmein or anything.
Not enough room.
Can you buy flash for these things?

 

[alexmills]

baybum
you can buy ram and flash
you can only put in 512mg flash and 512mg ram in the 5710

here is a link for ram
http://www.pcmemorystore.com/HP_Compaq-Thin_Client_Series-T5710-ram.htm

have not check out flash as my 5710 has 512 and only one and it takes only one

 

[baybum]

OK, thanks for the info.
I'm having some luck with a 1gig USB flash drive.
I can install encoder if I could just get DirectX to install.
It wants to install it from the web, gets almost to the end and fails.
I need DirectX 9 or 10 by itself so I can install it.

I'll get there eventually.

 

[alexmills]

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...EnvOID=1058&swLang=13&taskId=135&mode=4&idx=0

 

[baybum]

And THAT'S why this is the best web site on the net!!

Thanks!!!