Dune HD

Dune HD Max

Current firmware: 111122_0159_beta

Official Links:

• http://dune-hd.com/hd_players/current/135-dune-hd-max.html
• http://dune-hd.com/firmware/ (more than just firmwares...)
• http://dune-forum.com/index.php/?index

Forums:

• http://www.hdlandforum.fr/viewforum.php?f=25
  • http://www.hdlandforum.fr/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=789 for thread specific to Dune HD Max
• http://mpcclub.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=145 and http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=76
• http://forum.hdtv.ru
  • Dune (media player, flash, FAQ)
  • Dune Themes
  • IPTV / VoD / Radio playlists / services for Dune HD players
  • Applications for Dune HD players

News:

• http://www.hdfever.fr/tag/dune/

Misc Links:

• http://scottjohnson.org/wiki/Dune
• http://www.lundman.net/wiki/index.php/Dune_HD_Center
• http://dunebaseprime.hu

DSF

See http://scottjohnson.org/wiki/Dune/Hacking for:

• packing/unpacking DSF
• compile your own software
• make your own binary DSF

See here for misc utilities

optware

Why not being able to do sth like apt-get on the Dune to install many packages? (not tried yet)

• http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fforum.hdtv.ru%2Findex.php%3Fshowtopic%3D3188&act=url

Telnet

telnetd binary is already in the firmware, you just need to activate it, e.g. by using dune_service_telnetd.dsf

To start always telnetd at startup:

touch /config/telnetd

You should see now on bottom right of the screen /setup/information: DEBUG MODE

Login root, no password

IP control

No UPnP controllable, but much better IMHO, a specific HTTP protocol easy to implement and very complete.
More info on media_url features.

See below for an Android application implementing it for a remote control.
Here is an HTML file implementation for controlling from any browser.
here is a Chrome extension doing the same.
Here is a pretty complete application for Windows.

Finally, one can use YAMJ combined with a skin compatible with the DuneHD IP protocol, which is now my favorite way.

dune_folder.txt

This is a mechanism allowing easy UI customization.
Third party softwares exporting to that format:

• Zappiti, see my specific wiki page
• All My Movies - use menu item "Tools-Generate catalog for Dune players"
• MyMovies
• YaDIS, see also on Forums in French and in English
• iDune
• Movienizer
• Musicnizer
• discodune
• pydun, on top of YAMJ
• UitzendingGemist4DuneHD

Android applications for DuneHD

• Dune Media Controller, supports the IP control protocol and the dune_folder.txt structures, a perfect complement to e.g. Zappiti.

Can work on remote index but much better if it has a local copy of the index (Zappiti indexes are huge)

• Dune Control, basic IP control protocol support

AAI image format

Official description: AAImageGen-README.txt and tool AAImageGen.exe
It works well with Wine and can even be called in command line:

wine AAImageGen.exe test.aai # and it'll generate a test.png
wine AAImageGen.exe test.png # and it'll generate a test.aai

Alternate project: aaimageviewer with read/write support, not working under Wine.

Quick Python script to convert AAI images to any other format

#!/usr/bin/env python

import os, sys
import Image
for infile in sys.argv[1:]:
    f, e = os.path.splitext(infile)
    if e != ".aai":
        raise IOError, "Sorry I only accept .aai files"
    try:
        data=open(infile).read()
        size = int(data[:4][::-1].encode('hex'),16), int(data[4:8][::-1].encode('hex'),16)
        # No BGRA so we'll take it as RGBA then swap channels
        im = Image.fromstring("RGBA", size, data[8:], "raw", "RGBA")
        r, g, b, a = im.split()
        im = Image.merge("RGBA", (b, g, r, a))
        # Just change the extension to save under another format
        im.save(f + ".jpg", quality=95)
    except IOError:
        print "cannot convert", infile

Renaming harddrive

By default the internal HDD gets a name based on a UUID à la DuneHDD_6db00183_3f29_4474_ae8a_6b27fbf24304, which is not easy to handle when you want to access it via e.g. Samba.
Drop a dune_folder.txt file on the root of the HDD with as content the shortcut name you want, e.g.:

storage_name = DuneHDD

Then reboot, the shared drive will now be seen as DuneHDD

Internal storage

Some functions and BD Live require an internal storage. This can be defined on a specific partition of the HDD but it's easier to keep a separate disk for that and be able to swap HDDs without worrying about the internal storage. The Dune HD Max has an extra USB port on the main board under the HDD rack metallic plate so we can plug a small 2Gb flash drive there and forget it.
Make sure it's empty otherwise the system will refuse to use it for internal storage (you can still erase everything from the UI then try to reconfigure it as internal storage)
Internal storage is mounted as /permanentfs

Video

See http://hdlandforum.fr/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1049
My TV supporting all modes, I've setup mode 1080p 50Hz and auto framerate 24/50/60Hz

FlashLite apps

• http://dune-hd.com/support/flash
• http://dune-hd.com/firmware/flash/flashlite_info.txt
• http://dunebaseprime.hu/letoltes/150-flash-demo-jatekok a few games as examples

Streaming TV

• Hungarian TVs using MMS
• Using VLC to transcode sopcast streams
• UitzendingGemist4DuneHD
• IPTV: http://dune-hd.com/firmware/iptv/

To test streams, one can use the IP control protocol:

wget -O - "http://dune/cgi-bin/do?cmd=start_file_playback&media_url=http://stream02.gtk.hu/bptv"
wget -O - "http://dune/cgi-bin/do?cmd=start_file_playback&media_url=http://80.249.172.28/autonomia"
wget -O - "http://dune/cgi-bin/do?cmd=start_file_playback&media_url=mms://vipmms9.yacast.net/bfm_bfmtv"

One can create a bookmark such as this one to tell the Dune HD device to play the current URL:

javascript:document.location='http://dune/cgi-bin/do?cmd=start_file_playback&media_url='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)

If you use NoScript Application Boundaries Enforcer, you need to add an exception before "Site LOCAL" in the ABE preferences

Site dune
Accept ALL
Deny

This will work only if the URL is the direct link to the video file.
If you want it running with e.g. Youtube you need first some URL extractor.
One way is to use a Firefox extension such as Unplug.
So you can use first Unplug to get the media URL then use this javascript bookmark.
Hopefully Unplug is opensource so we can get the sources and patch them to add directly a "Open in DuneHD" method:

diff --git a/unplug@compunach/chrome/content/display/download.js b/unplug@compunach/chrome/content/display/download.js
index 6454d30..af644ab 100644
--- a/unplug@compunach/chrome/content/display/download.js
+++ b/unplug@compunach/chrome/content/display/download.js
@@ -580,6 +580,18 @@ UnPlug2DownloadMethods.add_button("open-tab", {
        group : "open"
 });
 
+UnPlug2DownloadMethods.add_button("open-DuneHD", {
+       avail : (function (res) {
+               return (res.download.url ? true : false);
+       }),
+       exec  : (function (res) {
+               UnPlug2SearchPage._win.location = "http://dune/cgi-bin/do?cmd=start_file_playback&media_url="+encodeURIComponent(res.download.url);
+       }),
+       obscurity : 100,
+       css : "open open-over",
+       group : "open"
+});
+
 UnPlug2DownloadMethods.add_button("open-new", {
        avail : (function (res) {
                return (res.download.url ? true : false);
diff --git a/unplug@compunach/chrome/locale/en-US/strings.txt b/unplug@compunach/chrome/locale/en-US/strings.txt
index 6356ced..b72e0a4 100644
--- a/unplug@compunach/chrome/locale/en-US/strings.txt
+++ b/unplug@compunach/chrome/locale/en-US/strings.txt
@@ -32,6 +32,9 @@ save_to_directory=Save to Folder
 dmethod.open-tab=Open in a new tab
 dmethod.open-tab.a=t
 dmethod.open-tab.tip=Open in a new tab.
+dmethod.open-DuneHD=Open in Dune HD
+dmethod.open-DuneHD.a=d
+dmethod.open-DuneHD.tip=Open in Dune HD.
 dmethod.open-new=Open in a new window
 dmethod.open-new.a=n
 dmethod.open-new.tip=Open in a new window.

IPTV

To test streams, one can use the IP control protocol:

wget -O - "http://dune/cgi-bin/do?cmd=start_file_playback&media_url=udp://@239.255.1.138:2276"

I get the BelgacomTV IPTV via a separate network so the idea is to access it via eth0 while the regular network remains the Wi-Fi one.
Once the Wi-Fi connection is active, we ca do the following to be able to use the multicast IPTV network on eth0:

route del -net 224.0.0.0 netmask 240.0.0.0 2>/dev/null
route add -net 224.0.0.0 netmask 240.0.0.0 dev eth0 2>/dev/null

Streaming radio

• http://dune-hd.com/firmware/inet_radio/
• Hungarian radios

Custom GUI skins

• http://dune-hd.com/support/skins

GUI skins can be switched via the setting "Setup / Appearance / Skin", or via "B" RC button on the main screen (and also via "ZOOM" RC button on any screen).

Plugins

• Youtube
  • mpcclub
  • forum.hdtv.ru

Multi-region

• http://www.mpcclub.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18187

I didn't try yet but by playing DVD iso files I got the following experience: a first message telling me that the region was not ok, a kind of mini-reboot and then the DVD file played properly. To be investigated.
dune_service_region_switch.dsf, to change: press 4 times on "Mute" then quickly on 1, 2 or 3 for region A, B or C

Codecs

To identify video files: Mediainfo, available in Debian as mediainfo & mediainfo-gui
MKV tools (mkvmerge, mkvinfo, mkvextract): mkvtoolnix & mkvtoolnix-gui in debian

I had issues to play some 1080p mkv. Remultiplexing them with a newer version of mkvmerge seems enough to fix the issue:

mkvmerge -o new.mkv old.mkv

Dune HD has no problem handling latest mkvmerge versions with metadata compression, the problem seems to be specific to some older versions of mkvmerge.

Still, there is one type of video codec apparently not supported, flagged as "VfW compatible" (Video for Windows) by mkvmerge, mediainfo tells us it's actually codec V_REAL/RV40 == RealVideo 4.0 aka RealVideo 9

To merge 2 avi files (e.g. if the movie was splitted in 2 CDs), use avimerge:

avimerge -o new.avi -i old-cd1.avi old-cd2.avi

Tests

Read tests:

Internal HDD: 79MB/s
External HDD USB: 21MB/S (write to internal: 13MB/s)

HDNetwork

It is available only if the player license includes “HDNetwork” option; this can be checked in the player menu Setup > Information. If the “HDNetwork” option is purchased, all the basic player functionality remains available.
This looks like what could be found in conference centers, controlling many screens at once. IMHO you can already achieve the same with the IP control protocol. Probably it's sold as an expensive bundle for those specific customers.