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• ffmpeg transcoding stop after few seconds

  9 avril 2018, par Salem F

  Hi i’m trying to do this over week now with no success ,
  What’s i’m trying to do is transcoding video from live streaming source and downscale it with FFmpeg , but every time I start transcoding it broadcasting fro 11 Sec and stop . here last command I tried

    ffmpeg  -re  -i 'http://source.com/1034.ts' -preset ultrafast http://localhost:2052/feed1.ffm

  I tried to download the .ts file with IDM and it finish downloading the file on the exact 12 Sec that FFmpeg stop trans coding on it .

  does that means that FFmpeg download that file as one segment and not continued reading the source video As what video players does usually . BTW I tried with source with VLC player and it didn’t stop playing the the same source video .

  Edit :- I decide to pass FFmpeg command via FFserver config file ffserver.conf

  Launch ffmpeg -i 'http://source.com/1.ts' -copyinkf -codec copy   

  The stream works fine for a while but after testing couple sources I notice it’s struggle to trans-coding HD videos .

  I guess the issue with my VPS KVM server being very limited CPU and RAM ( 128MB only ) ! Since I tried using ultrafast preset but din’t solve the issue , another thing , I notice when I enable AVOptionVideo crf setting on ffserver.conf trans-coding runs bit smoothly without frame-rate dropping .
  Las my server uses Xeon L5520 CPU which is outdated CPU specially I gout 1/4 power of V single core (if they count HT it will be 1/8 of the real core ) :(

  Edit 2 :-

  # vlc -I dummy 'https://source.com/1034.ts' --sout '#standard{access=http,mux=flv,dst=localhost:2052}'
  
  VLC media player 2.2.8 Weatherwax (revision 2.2.7-14-g3cc1d8cba9)
  
  [09d3fdf0] pulse audio output error: PulseAudio server connection failure: Connection refused
  
  [09d279c0] core interface error: no suitable interface module
  
  [09c9b8f8] core libvlc error: interface "globalhotkeys,none" initialization failed
  
  [09d279c0] dbus interface error: Failed to connect to the D-Bus session daemon: Unable to autolaunch a dbus-daemon without a $DISPLAY for X11
  
  [09d279c0] core interface error: no suitable interface module
  
  [09c9b8f8] core libvlc error: interface "dbus,none" initialization failed
  
  [09d279c0] dummy interface: using the dummy interface module...
  
  [b5e04ae0] access_output_http access out: Consider passing --http-host=IP on the command line instead.
  
  [b5e38ab8] ts demux: MPEG-4 descriptor not found for pid 0x101 type 0xf
  
  [b5e90ae0] packetizer_mpeg4audio decoder: AAC channels: 2 samplerate: 48000
  
  [flv @ 0xb5e33b40] dimensions not set
  
  [b5e06360] avformat mux error: could not write header: Invalid argument
  
  [b5e88ef0] core decoder error: cannot continue streaming due to errors
  
  [b5e90ae0] core decoder error: cannot continue streaming due to errors

  Here output with -loglevel verbose

  :~# ffmpeg -i http://source.com/1.ts -copyinkf -codec copy  -loglevel verbose  http://127.0.0.1:8090/feed1.ffm
  
  ffmpeg version 2.6.9 Copyright (c) 2000-2016 the FFmpeg developers
  
    built with gcc 4.9.2 (Debian 4.9.2-10)
  
    configuration: --prefix=/usr --extra-cflags='-g -O2 -fstack-protector-strong -Wformat -Werror=format-security ' --extra-ldflags='-Wl,-z,relro' --cc='ccache cc' --enable-shared --enable-libmp3lame --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --enable-libvorbis --enable-pthreads --enable-libfaac --enable-libxvid --enable-postproc --enable-x11grab --enable-libgsm --enable-libtheora --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libx264 --enable-libspeex --enable-nonfree --disable-stripping --enable-libvpx --enable-libschroedinger --disable-encoder=libschroedinger --enable-version3 --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-librtmp --enable-avfilter --enable-libfreetype --enable-libvo-aacenc --disable-decoder=amrnb --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libaacplus --libdir=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu --disable-vda --enable-libbluray --enable-libcdio --enable-gnutls --enable-frei0r --enable-openssl --enable-libass --enable-libopus --enable-fontconfig --enable-libpulse --disable-mips32r2 --disable-mipsdspr1 --disable-mipsdspr2 --enable-libvidstab --enable-libzvbi --enable-avresample --disable-htmlpages --disable-podpages --enable-libutvideo --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libx265 --enable-libiec61883 --enable-vaapi --enable-libdc1394 --disable-altivec --shlibdir=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu
  
    libavutil      54. 20.100 / 54. 20.100
  
    libavcodec     56. 26.100 / 56. 26.100
  
    libavformat    56. 25.101 / 56. 25.101
  
    libavdevice    56.  4.100 / 56.  4.100
  
    libavfilter     5. 11.102 /  5. 11.102
  
    libavresample   2.  1.  0 /  2.  1.  0
  
    libswscale      3.  1.101 /  3.  1.101
  
    libswresample   1.  1.100 /  1.  1.100
  
    libpostproc    53.  3.100 / 53.  3.100
  
  Invalid UE golomb code
  
      Last message repeated 2 times
  
  Input #0, mpegts, from 'http://source.com/1.ts':
  
    Duration: N/A, start: 30472.768167, bitrate: N/A
  
    Program 1
  
      Metadata:
  
        service_name    : Service01
  
        service_provider: FFmpeg
  
      Stream #0:0[0x100]: Video: h264 (High) ([27][0][0][0] / 0x001B), yuv420p, 960x540 (960x544) [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 50 fps, 50 tbr, 90k tbn, 100 tbc
  
      Stream #0:1[0x101]: Audio: aac (LC) ([15][0][0][0] / 0x000F), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 105 kb/s
  
  [graph 0 input from stream 0:1 @ 0x971f2c0] tb:1/48000 samplefmt:fltp samplerate:48000 chlayout:0x3
  
  [audio format for output stream 0:0 @ 0x9844de0] auto-inserting filter 'auto-inserted resampler 0' between the filter 'Parsed_anull_0' and the filter 'audio format for output stream 0:0'
  
  [auto-inserted resampler 0 @ 0x97115e0] ch:2 chl:stereo fmt:fltp r:48000Hz -> ch:1 chl:mono fmt:fltp r:22050Hz
  
  [graph 1 input from stream 0:0 @ 0x96f5d00] w:960 h:540 pixfmt:yuv420p tb:1/90000 fr:50/1 sar:1/1 sws_param:flags=2
  
  [scaler for output stream 0:1 @ 0x96f5e80] w:352 h:240 flags:'0x4' interl:0
  
  [scaler for output stream 0:1 @ 0x96f5e80] w:960 h:540 fmt:yuv420p sar:1/1 -> w:352 h:240 fmt:yuv420p sar:40/33 flags:0x4
  
  Output #0, ffm, to 'http://127.0.0.1:8090/feed1.ffm':
  
    Metadata:
  
      creation_time   : now
  
      encoder         : Lavf56.25.101
  
      Stream #0:0: Audio: wmav2, 22050 Hz, mono, fltp, 64 kb/s
  
      Metadata:
  
        encoder         : Lavc56.26.100 wmav2
  
      Stream #0:1: Video: msmpeg4v3 (msmpeg4), yuv420p, 352x240 [SAR 40:33 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 256 kb/s, 50 fps, 1000k tbn, 15 tbc
  
      Metadata:
  
        encoder         : Lavc56.26.100 msmpeg4
  
  Stream mapping:
  
    Stream #0:1 -> #0:0 (aac (native) -> wmav2 (native))
  
    Stream #0:0 -> #0:1 (h264 (native) -> msmpeg4v3 (msmpeg4))
  
  Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
  
  Invalid UE golomb code
  
  *** dropping frame 3 from stream 1 at ts 1
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  [msmpeg4 @ 0x970f060] warning, clipping 1 dct coefficients to -127..127
  
  *** dropping frame 4 from stream 1 at ts 2
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 5 from stream 1 at ts 3
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 5 from stream 1 at ts 4
  
  *** dropping frame 6 from stream 1 at ts 4
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 7 from stream 1 at ts 5
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  [msmpeg4 @ 0x970f060] warning, clipping 1 dct coefficients to -127..127
  
  *** dropping frame 8 from stream 1 at ts 6
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 8 from stream 1 at ts 7
  
  *** dropping frame 9 from stream 1 at ts 7
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 10 from stream 1 at ts 8
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 11 from stream 1 at ts 9
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 11 from stream 1 at ts 10
  
  *** dropping frame 12 from stream 1 at ts 10
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 13 from stream 1 at ts 11
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 14 from stream 1 at ts 12
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 14 from stream 1 at ts 13
  
  *** dropping frame 15 from stream 1 at ts 13
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 16 from stream 1 at ts 14
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 17 from stream 1 at ts 15
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 17 from stream 1 at ts 16
  
  *** dropping frame 18 from stream 1 at ts 16
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 19 from stream 1 at ts 17
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 20 from stream 1 at ts 18me=00:00:01.33 bitrate= 270.3kbits/s dup=0 drop=39
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 20 from stream 1 at ts 19
  
  *** dropping frame 21 from stream 1 at ts 19
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 22 from stream 1 at ts 20
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 23 from stream 1 at ts 21
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 23 from stream 1 at ts 22
  
  *** dropping frame 24 from stream 1 at ts 22
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 25 from stream 1 at ts 23
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 26 from stream 1 at ts 24
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 26 from stream 1 at ts 25
  
  *** dropping frame 27 from stream 1 at ts 25
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 28 from stream 1 at ts 26
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 29 from stream 1 at ts 27
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 29 from stream 1 at ts 28
  
  *** dropping frame 30 from stream 1 at ts 28
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 31 from stream 1 at ts 29
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 32 from stream 1 at ts 30
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 32 from stream 1 at ts 31
  
  *** dropping frame 33 from stream 1 at ts 31
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 34 from stream 1 at ts 32
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 34 from stream 1 at ts 33
  
  *** dropping frame 35 from stream 1 at ts 33
  
  *** dropping frame 35 from stream 1 at ts 34
  
  *** dropping frame 36 from stream 1 at ts 34
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 37 from stream 1 at ts 35
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  Invalid UE golomb code
  
  *** dropping frame 38 from stream 1 at ts 36
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 38 from stream 1 at ts 37
  
  *** dropping frame 39 from stream 1 at ts 37
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 40 from stream 1 at ts 38
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 41 from stream 1 at ts 39me=00:00:02.73 bitrate= 311.7kbits/s dup=0 drop=88
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 41 from stream 1 at ts 40
  
  *** dropping frame 42 from stream 1 at ts 40
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 43 from stream 1 at ts 41
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 44 from stream 1 at ts 42
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 44 from stream 1 at ts 43
  
  *** dropping frame 45 from stream 1 at ts 43
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 46 from stream 1 at ts 44
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 47 from stream 1 at ts 45
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 47 from stream 1 at ts 46
  
  *** dropping frame 48 from stream 1 at ts 46
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 49 from stream 1 at ts 47
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 50 from stream 1 at ts 48
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 50 from stream 1 at ts 49
  
  *** dropping frame 51 from stream 1 at ts 49
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 52 from stream 1 at ts 50
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  *** dropping frame 53 from stream 1 at ts 51
  
      Last message repeated 1 times
  
  [h264 @ 0x9844a00] error while decoding MB 58 12, bytestream -5
  
  [h264 @ 0x9844a00] concealing 1311 DC, 1311 AC, 1311 MV errors in B frame
  
  *** dropping frame 53 from stream 1 at ts 52
  
  No more output streams to write to, finishing.
  
  frame=   55 fps= 42 q=4.3 Lsize=     152kB time=00:00:03.66 bitrate= 339.6kbits/s dup=0 drop=119
  
  video:116kB audio:26kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: 6.760316%
  
  Input file #0 (http://source.com/1.ts):
  
    Input stream #0:0 (video): 174 packets read (220322 bytes); 174 frames decoded;
  
    Input stream #0:1 (audio): 156 packets read (36657 bytes); 156 frames decoded (159744 samples);
  
    Total: 330 packets (256979 bytes) demuxed
  
  Output file #0 (http://127.0.0.1:8090/feed1.ffm):
  
    Output stream #0:0 (audio): 72 frames encoded (73383 samples); 72 packets muxed (26712 bytes);
  
    Output stream #0:1 (video): 55 frames encoded; 55 packets muxed (119080 bytes);
  
    Total: 127 packets (145792 bytes) muxed

  Here input url file info After i download it to my PC with IDM

  General
  
  ID                             : 1 (0x1)
  
  Complete name                  : D:\1.ts
  
  Format                         : MPEG-TS
  
  File size                      : 256 KiB
  
  Duration                       : 2 s 520 ms
  
  Overall bit rate mode          : Variable
  
  Overall bit rate               : 788 kb/s
  
  
  
  Video
  
  ID                             : 256 (0x100)
  
  Menu ID                        : 1 (0x1)
  
  Format                         : AVC
  
  Format/Info                    : Advanced Video Codec
  
  Format profile                 : High@L3.1
  
  Format settings, CABAC         : Yes
  
  Format settings, RefFrames     : 2 frames
  
  Codec ID                       : 27
  
  Duration                       : 2 s 680 ms
  
  Width                          : 960 pixels
  
  Height                         : 540 pixels
  
  Display aspect ratio           : 16:9
  
  Frame rate                     : 50.000 FPS
  
  Color space                    : YUV
  
  Chroma subsampling             : 4:2:0
  
  Bit depth                      : 8 bits
  
  Scan type                      : Progressive
  
  
  
  Audio
  
  ID                             : 257 (0x101)
  
  Menu ID                        : 1 (0x1)
  
  Format                         : AAC
  
  Format/Info                    : Advanced Audio Codec
  
  Format version                 : Version 4
  
  Format profile                 : LC
  
  Muxing mode                    : ADTS
  
  Codec ID                       : 15
  
  Duration                       : 2 s 69 ms
  
  Bit rate mode                  : Variable
  
  Channel(s)                     : 2 channels
  
  Channel positions              : Front: L R
  
  Sampling rate                  : 48.0 kHz
  
  Frame rate                     : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
  
  Compression mode               : Lossy
  
  Delay relative to video        : -12 ms
  
  
  
  Menu
  
  ID                             : 4096 (0x1000)
  
  Menu ID                        : 1 (0x1)
  
  Duration                       : 2 s 520 ms
  
  List                           : 256 (0x100) (AVC) / 257 (0x101) (AAC)
  
  Service name                   : Service01
  
  Service provider               : FFmpeg
  
  Service type                   : digital television

• Saying Goodbye To Old Machines

  1er décembre 2014, par Multimedia Mike — General, powerpc, via

  I recently sent a few old machines off for recycling. Both had relevance to the early days of the FATE testing effort. As is my custom, I photographed them (poorly, of course).

  First, there’s the PowerPC-based Mac Mini I procured thanks to a Craigslist ad in late 2006. I had plans to develop automated FFmpeg building and testing and was already looking ahead toward testing multiple CPU architectures. Again, this was 2006 and PowerPC wasn’t completely on the outs yet– although Apple’s MacTel transition was in full swing, the entire new generation of video game consoles was based on PowerPC.

  
  

  

  Click for larger image

  
  

  I remember trying to find a Mac Mini PPC on Craigslist. Many were to be found, but all asked more than the price of even a new Mac Mini Intel, always because the seller was leaving all of last year’s applications and perhaps including a monitor, neither of which I needed. Fortunately, I found this bare Mac Mini. Also fortunate was the fact that it was far easier to install Linux on it than the first PowerPC machine I owned.

  After FATE operation transitioned away from me, I still kept the machine in service as an edge server and automated backup machine. That is, until the hard drive failed on reboot one day. Thus, when it was finally time to recycle the computer, I felt it necessary to disassemble the machine and remove the hard drive for possible salvage and then for destruction.
  

  If you’ve ever attempted to upgrade or otherwise service this style of Mac Mini, you will no doubt recognize the pictured paint scraper tool as standard kit. I have had that tool since I first endeavored to upgrade the RAM to 1 GB from the standard 1/2 GB. Performing such activities on a Mac Mini is tedious, but only if you care about putting it back together afterwards.

  The next machine is a bit older. I put it together nearly a decade ago, early in 2005. This machine’s original duty was “download agent”– this would be more specifically called a BitTorrent machine in modern tech parlance. Back then, I placed it on someone else’s woefully underutilized home broadband connection (with their permission, of course) when I was too cheap to upgrade from dialup.

  
  

  

  Click for larger image

  
  

  This is a small form factor system from VIA that was clearly designed with home theater PC (HTPC) use cases in mind. It has a VIA C3 x86-compatible CPU (according to my notes, Centaur VIA Samuel 2 stepping 03, flags : fpu de tsc msr cx8 mtrr pge mmx 3dnow) and 128 MB of RAM (initially ; I upgraded it to 512 MB some years later, just for the sake of doing it). And then there was the 120 GB PATA HD for all that downloaded goodness.

  
  

  

  Click for larger image

  
  

  I have specific memories of a time when my main computer at home wasn’t working correctly for one reason or another. Instead, I logged into this machine remotely via SSH to make several optimizations and fixes on FFmpeg’s VP3/Theora video decoder, all from the terminal, without being able to see the decoded images with my own eyes (which is why I insist that even blind people could work on video codecs).

  By the time I got my own broadband, I had become inspired to attempt the automated build and test system for FFmpeg. This was the machine I used for prototyping early brainstorms of FATE. By the time I put a basic build/test system into place in early 2008, I had much faster computers that could build and test the project– obvious limitation of this machine is that it could take at least 1/2 hour to build the entire codebase, and that was the project from 8 years ago.

  So the machine got stuffed in a closet somewhere along the line. The next time I pulled it out was in 2010 when I wanted to toy with Dreamcast programming once more (the machine appears in one of the photos in this post). This was the only machine I still owned which still had an RS-232 serial port (I didn’t know much about USB serial converters yet), plus it still had a bunch of pre-compiled DC homebrew binaries (I was having trouble getting the toolchain to work right).

  The next time I dusted off this machine was late last year when I was trying some experiments with the Microsoft Xbox’s IDE drive (a photo in that post also shows the machine ; this thing shows up a lot on this blog). The VIA machine was the only machine I still owned which had 40-pin IDE connectors which was crucial to my experiment.

  At this point, I was trying to make the machine more useful which meant replacing the ancient Gentoo Linux distribution as well as simply interacting with it via a keyboard and mouse. I have a long Evernote entry documenting a comedy of errors revolving around this little box. The interaction troubles were due to the fact that I didn’t have any PS/2 keyboards left and I couldn’t make a USB keyboard work with it. Diego was able to explain that I needed to flip a bit in the BIOS to address this which worked. As for upgrading the OS, I tried numerous Linux distributions large and small, mostly focusing on the small. None worked. I eventually learned that, while I was trying to use i686 distributions, this machine did not actually qualify as an i686 CPU ; installations usually booted but failed because the default kernel required the cmov instruction. I was advised to try i386 distros instead. My notes don’t indicate whether I had any luck on this front before I gave up and moved on.

  I just made the connection that this VIA machine has two 40-pin IDE connectors which means that the thing was technically capable of supporting up to 4 IDE devices. Obviously, the computer couldn’t really accommodate that in terms of space or power. When I wanted to try installing a new OS, I needed take off the top and connect a rather bulky IDE CD-ROM drive. This computer’s casing was supposed to be able to support a slimline optical drive (perhaps like the type found in laptops), but I could never quite visualize how that was supposed to work, space-wise. When I disassembled the PowerPC Mac Mini, I realized I might be able to repurpose that machines optical drive for this computer. Obviously, I thought better of trying since both machines are off to the recycle pile.

  I would still like to work on the Xbox project a bit more, but I procured a different, unused, much more powerful yet still old computer that has a motherboard with 1 PATA connector in addition to 6 SATA connectors. If I ever get around to toying with Linux kernel development, this should be a much more appropriate platform to use.

  I thought about turning this machine into an old Windows XP (and lower, down to Windows 3.1) gaming platform ; the capabilities of the machine would probably be perfect for a huge portion of my Windows game collection. But I think the lack of an optical drive renders this idea intractable. External USB drives are likely out of the question since there is very little chance that this motherboard featured USB 2.0 (the specs don’t mention 2.0, so the USB ports are probably 1.1).

  So it is with fond memories that I send off both machines, sans hard drives, to the recycle pile. I’m still deciding on an appropriate course of action for failed hard drives, though.

• Saying Goodbye To Old Machines

  1er décembre 2014, par Multimedia Mike — General, powerpc, via

  I recently sent a few old machines off for recycling. Both had relevance to the early days of the FATE testing effort. As is my custom, I photographed them (poorly, of course).

  First, there’s the PowerPC-based Mac Mini I procured thanks to a Craigslist ad in late 2006. I had plans to develop automated FFmpeg building and testing and was already looking ahead toward testing multiple CPU architectures. Again, this was 2006 and PowerPC wasn’t completely on the outs yet– although Apple’s MacTel transition was in full swing, the entire new generation of video game consoles was based on PowerPC.

  
  

  

  Click for larger image

  
  

  I remember trying to find a Mac Mini PPC on Craigslist. Many were to be found, but all asked more than the price of even a new Mac Mini Intel, always because the seller was leaving all of last year’s applications and perhaps including a monitor, neither of which I needed. Fortunately, I found this bare Mac Mini. Also fortunate was the fact that it was far easier to install Linux on it than the first PowerPC machine I owned.

  After FATE operation transitioned away from me, I still kept the machine in service as an edge server and automated backup machine. That is, until the hard drive failed on reboot one day. Thus, when it was finally time to recycle the computer, I felt it necessary to disassemble the machine and remove the hard drive for possible salvage and then for destruction.
  

  If you’ve ever attempted to upgrade or otherwise service this style of Mac Mini, you will no doubt recognize the pictured paint scraper tool as standard kit. I have had that tool since I first endeavored to upgrade the RAM to 1 GB from the standard 1/2 GB. Performing such activities on a Mac Mini is tedious, but only if you care about putting it back together afterwards.

  The next machine is a bit older. I put it together nearly a decade ago, early in 2005. This machine’s original duty was “download agent”– this would be more specifically called a BitTorrent machine in modern tech parlance. Back then, I placed it on someone else’s woefully underutilized home broadband connection (with their permission, of course) when I was too cheap to upgrade from dialup.

  
  

  

  Click for larger image

  
  

  This is a small form factor system from VIA that was clearly designed with home theater PC (HTPC) use cases in mind. It has a VIA C3 x86-compatible CPU (according to my notes, Centaur VIA Samuel 2 stepping 03, flags : fpu de tsc msr cx8 mtrr pge mmx 3dnow) and 128 MB of RAM (initially ; I upgraded it to 512 MB some years later, just for the sake of doing it). And then there was the 120 GB PATA HD for all that downloaded goodness.

  
  

  

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  I have specific memories of a time when my main computer at home wasn’t working correctly for one reason or another. Instead, I logged into this machine remotely via SSH to make several optimizations and fixes on FFmpeg’s VP3/Theora video decoder, all from the terminal, without being able to see the decoded images with my own eyes (which is why I insist that even blind people could work on video codecs).

  By the time I got my own broadband, I had become inspired to attempt the automated build and test system for FFmpeg. This was the machine I used for prototyping early brainstorms of FATE. By the time I put a basic build/test system into place in early 2008, I had much faster computers that could build and test the project– obvious limitation of this machine is that it could take at least 1/2 hour to build the entire codebase, and that was the project from 8 years ago.

  So the machine got stuffed in a closet somewhere along the line. The next time I pulled it out was in 2010 when I wanted to toy with Dreamcast programming once more (the machine appears in one of the photos in this post). This was the only machine I still owned which still had an RS-232 serial port (I didn’t know much about USB serial converters yet), plus it still had a bunch of pre-compiled DC homebrew binaries (I was having trouble getting the toolchain to work right).

  The next time I dusted off this machine was late last year when I was trying some experiments with the Microsoft Xbox’s IDE drive (a photo in that post also shows the machine ; this thing shows up a lot on this blog). The VIA machine was the only machine I still owned which had 40-pin IDE connectors which was crucial to my experiment.

  At this point, I was trying to make the machine more useful which meant replacing the ancient Gentoo Linux distribution as well as simply interacting with it via a keyboard and mouse. I have a long Evernote entry documenting a comedy of errors revolving around this little box. The interaction troubles were due to the fact that I didn’t have any PS/2 keyboards left and I couldn’t make a USB keyboard work with it. Diego was able to explain that I needed to flip a bit in the BIOS to address this which worked. As for upgrading the OS, I tried numerous Linux distributions large and small, mostly focusing on the small. None worked. I eventually learned that, while I was trying to use i686 distributions, this machine did not actually qualify as an i686 CPU ; installations usually booted but failed because the default kernel required the cmov instruction. I was advised to try i386 distros instead. My notes don’t indicate whether I had any luck on this front before I gave up and moved on.

  I just made the connection that this VIA machine has two 40-pin IDE connectors which means that the thing was technically capable of supporting up to 4 IDE devices. Obviously, the computer couldn’t really accommodate that in terms of space or power. When I wanted to try installing a new OS, I needed take off the top and connect a rather bulky IDE CD-ROM drive. This computer’s casing was supposed to be able to support a slimline optical drive (perhaps like the type found in laptops), but I could never quite visualize how that was supposed to work, space-wise. When I disassembled the PowerPC Mac Mini, I realized I might be able to repurpose that machines optical drive for this computer. Obviously, I thought better of trying since both machines are off to the recycle pile.

  I would still like to work on the Xbox project a bit more, but I procured a different, unused, much more powerful yet still old computer that has a motherboard with 1 PATA connector in addition to 6 SATA connectors. If I ever get around to toying with Linux kernel development, this should be a much more appropriate platform to use.

  I thought about turning this machine into an old Windows XP (and lower, down to Windows 3.1) gaming platform ; the capabilities of the machine would probably be perfect for a huge portion of my Windows game collection. But I think the lack of an optical drive renders this idea intractable. External USB drives are likely out of the question since there is very little chance that this motherboard featured USB 2.0 (the specs don’t mention 2.0, so the USB ports are probably 1.1).

  So it is with fond memories that I send off both machines, sans hard drives, to the recycle pile. I’m still deciding on an appropriate course of action for failed hard drives, though.