Build a quick boot/play BR HTPC?

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karkas

Weaksauce
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Oct 28, 2008
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I was reading about Sony BDP-S360 booting in 6 seconds.

It got me thinking, I know a lot of peeps have already built some pretty fast booting HTPCs (under 10 sec?).

So what kind of equipment, software, and setup would it require to match or beat this?

I assume some linux distro, maybe an SSD with a 2nd HDD for storage?

Also, could there be a way to somehow load the BR movies much faster (I'm sure its the ODD is the bottlenexk here, maybe no way around?)

What do you guys think? If money were little to no obstacle how would you do it?
 
Are you talking about booting up the entire computer from off or just the loading off the BR movie itself?
 
Mostly boot up, the load times was kind of an afterthought because I'm not sure anything can be done about it...
 
Personally, I would love to have a HTPC where you were looking at the interface and able to choose a movie from the HDD in ~5 sec.
 
While putting the rig to sleep would work, I'm more interested booting from an "off" position utilizing specific hardware and software tricks & hacks.

Thanks for the suggestion though :D
 
why? sleep works so well nowadays with s3 and s4 that you dont have to worry about shutting down. the pc can use next to nothing for power when in sleep, and physically the entire board is shut down besides the ram. all fans, lights, drives, all shut down.

and with hybrid sleep, even if you lose power you dont lose your saved state... i use sleep on my htpc all the time, it works perfectly especially since the pc will wake up if there is a scheduled recording to do. if you shut it down completely you won't get any new tivo shows when you come back
 
karkas said:
While putting the rig to sleep would work, I'm more interested booting from an "off" position utilizing specific hardware and software tricks & hacks.

Thanks for the suggestion though :D
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Depending on the sleep mode you select, nothing is being powered except the RAM which maintains your OS state. That way when you turn on the computer, it will resume in a few short seconds.

What you want is an embedded system which would require booting the OS from fast ROM. The only thing like that would be Popcorn Hour, WD TV Media Player, or other crippled devices like that. If you can sacrifice hardware/software/codec diversity, that would suit you much better.
 
What you want is an embedded system which would require booting the OS from fast ROM. The only thing like that would be Popcorn Hour, WD TV Media Player, or other crippled devices like that. If you can sacrifice hardware/software/codec diversity, that would suit you much better.
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No, I'm not talking about buy soemthing like PH or TIVO. I am really just trying to spark a discussion on what steps it would take to create a real HTPC that can boot into a completely usable state from a completely off state in seconds.

I don't want leave the idea as unexplored "just sleep it." I'm not even saying I want to do it for myself. I just thought it was fun to think about how to go about creating something faster.

But if I'm the only one interested in exploring steps to creating a quick booting HTPC then just let the thread die. I'll try talking about it in a less specific PC section where fast boot times are more sought after.
 
Hehe, too late I'm already a Doctor of Pharmacy:p.

Come on, we are all tech enthusiasts aren't we. I'm shocked no one else thinks this is an interesting subject.

Thanks for the input anyway.

Oh well:D
 
karkas said:
Hehe, too late I'm already a Doctor of Pharmacy:p.

Come on, we are all tech enthusiasts aren't we. I'm shocked no one else thinks this is an interesting subject.

Thanks for the input anyway.

Oh well:D
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Dream all you want but it's not going to happen. I don't see the point anyways, nearly all CE devices nowadays all go into "standby" which creates the illusion of a quick boot time. Just fucking sleep the system. :rolleyes:
 
CrimandEvil said:
Dream all you want but it's not going to happen. I don't see the point anyways, nearly all CE devices nowadays all go into "standby" which creates the illusion of a quick boot time. Just fucking sleep the system. :rolleyes:
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Great, I see the the Dick with the heart of ego has joined the thread:rolleyes:

Seriously, do you ever actually have something of value to contribute?

Now go bug your mom for some meatloaf...
 
seriously though, you want to have windows up in 5 seconds or under? and from off mode? My phone can't completely boot up in 5 seconds. Maybe with a custom OS that is stictly made to operate the bluray drive; thats gonna take some time to write.
 
thelead said:
seriously though, you want to have windows up in 5 seconds or under? and from off mode? My phone can't completely boot up in 5 seconds. Maybe with a custom OS that is stictly made to operate the bluray drive; thats gonna take some time to write.
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Why not? I know I've read of some guys that have gotten tweaked linux distros to boot in less than 10 seconds and that was before the availibility of SSDs. Express gate on ASUS mobos boot in 5 seconds.

Again, this isn't something I care to argue about.

Just let the thread die... I'm the only one that thinks it would be cool.
 
karkas said:
Why not? I know I've read of some guys that have gotten tweaked linux distros to boot in less than 10 seconds and that was before the availibility of SSDs. Express gate on ASUS mobos boot in 5 seconds.

Again, this isn't something I care to argue about.

Just let the thread die... I'm the only one that thinks it would be cool.
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No, I think every single one of us would kill for this; but realistically, it is not currently feasible for windows. As far as linux goes, I am useless for commenting on it's htpc capabilities. I am not trying to give you a hard time, just trying to state what I believe/know.
 
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