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Plex Server supports QNAP, UnRAID, Synology, Drobo, Netgear, and Asustor NAS boxes. Transcoding HD video requires at least a 2.4gHz Core2 Duo, so you'll have to make sure your media is in a format supported by your players. http://www.plexapp.com/connected/ goku chewbacca fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Dec 2, 2013 |
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Dec 2, 2013 05:36
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CaptCommy posted:Could I trouble you to list out the specifics of your build? Because that sounds to be exactly what I'm looking for. Case Room for 6 HDDs + one optical, and it looks like a home theater component CPU with integrated graphics good enough for 1080p playback and transcoding for mobile devices Motherboard with 6 sata III ports and 2x USB 3.0, 6x USB 2.0 plus headers for additional 3.0 and 2.0 Memory just generic DDR3, 8gb is probably overkill for what it'll be used for. 4gb was only ~17 less so I felt like I'd be wasting money by not buying 8. You'll need hard drives if you don't have them. I like running Raid 5 (for n-1 drives of storage space). Don't buy green drives because they will spin down frequently to save power, which sucks if you are frequently accessing media, and I think they have shorter life span or something...I don't remember. WD Red drives are made for HTPC/NAS, or you can just get whatever. E: Looks like there were some good comments on enhanced NAS that can do stuff like steaming. I will always prefer a PC because it can be upgraded, expanded, I can do more with it (mumble server, game server, firewall, usenet downloader) and it's priced at or below most single-purpose appliances. Like Alton Brown, I hate unitaskers. (okay, it sounds like they can do two or three tasks, but still)
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Dec 2, 2013 08:19
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Plex has a FreeNAS / FreeBSD port available. The primary issue still hurting it from being viable for a lot of people is that soft subtitle writes are completely broken at the moment. I do not advise using an HP Microserver N*L for a general purpose Plex server to transcode to a bunch of clients around the house. However, the Gen 8 can do the job fine, and you can just run XBMC or Plex local to the box itself and tack on a fair GPU for hardware accelerated decoding. I ran that setup with only USB IR and sleep hiccups for my primary XBMC box for a couple years. Richard M Nixon posted:The only upside to a NAS is the small form factor, noise, power, and you can hot swap drives, none of which really justify the cost IMO. And of course, there's the whole Wife Acceptability Factor that has probably cost me thousands to deal with because media PCs and the software interfaces and ecosystems are terrible for people that really, really, really suck badly with technology UX made after 1990 (DVDs and Blu-Rays have the same UX workflow as a VCR, don't count).
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Dec 2, 2013 18:13
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My 50' HDMI cable showed up, and is likely way longer than I actually need, we'll see once I get around to actually running the cable where it should go, and not just through doorways for testing. 26AWG cable rated for full 1080P, and it displays the one or two HD movies I have without issue. Add in remote mouse and I'm happy! Only issue I ran into was that when outputting at 1920x1080 the picture on the TV was not filling the screen - about a 1" black bar on the sides, and about 1/2" on the top/bottom. After digging through the catalyst control panel (Jesus loving Christ it is the most horribly designed piece of software I can remember) I found the custom HDTV support thing. When the adjuster displays at 1080P it fills the screen, but if I accept that I just wind up with the black bars around the screen. However, running 1912xwhatever maintains the aspect ratio works perfectly. Very small bar of black pixels around the edge, but not noticeable unless I'm right up at the screen checking. I didn't even realize it was there at first. Anyone have an idea as to why it won't display at full 1080? Also I've got it set at 1080P/24fps display settings. Should I stick with this or switch to 1080P/60fps? I can get either to work using the method above.
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Dec 2, 2013 20:27
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necrobobsledder posted:Plex has a FreeNAS / FreeBSD port available. The primary issue still hurting it from being viable for a lot of people is that soft subtitle writes are completely broken at the moment. Which Gen 8 did you test? There's a Pentium & Two Celeron version available. If the Pentium can handle realtime transcoding I'd be all over that.
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Dec 2, 2013 20:32
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The G2020T Pentium at 2.5 GHz is overall faster than a Core2Duo E5200 and the clocking they have it at can suffice. I used to transcode in realtime with some BS like mediatomb on a E5200 for 1080P to play on an Ion 2 client 4 years ago, so the G202T should do it handily. If you had nothing else running besides the transcoder running it'd handle it fine without a problem barring some anomalies like that Planet Earth clip. With both hardware and software improvements, I'm pretty sure most non-prebuilt NASes could tackle realtime transcoding at 1080P. The Plex transcoder barely does anything to the i3 4130 NAS I run on FreeNAS, so Benchmarks (it's rough but even a ballpark number says it all): http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+E5200+%40+2.50GHz&id=1097 http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?id=1838 http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Celeron+G1610+%40+2.60GHz Basically, Intel's low-end CPUs trash their mid-end CPUs from 4 years ago and for half the TDP, so even if software didn't improve at all, all the Microserver Gen 8 CPUs should be able to handle 1080P transcoding and serving some files sans heavy dedupe and decompression.
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Dec 2, 2013 22:24
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necrobobsledder posted:And of course, there's the whole Wife Acceptability Factor that has probably cost me thousands to deal with because media PCs and the software interfaces and ecosystems are terrible for people that really, really, really suck badly with technology UX made after 1990 (DVDs and Blu-Rays have the same UX workflow as a VCR, don't count). You have solved the WAF? Would you mind giving some suggestions on what interfaces do work? Is it Plex? (I have no experience with it.)
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Dec 2, 2013 22:34
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aerique posted:You have solved the WAF? Would you mind giving some suggestions on what interfaces do work? Is it Plex? (I have no experience with it.) Plex + Roku works pretty drat well in terms of WAF.
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Dec 3, 2013 04:55
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aerique posted:You have solved the WAF? Would you mind giving some suggestions on what interfaces do work? Is it Plex? (I have no experience with it.) I could deal with it via alcohol or by buying a Kaleidescape system ($50k+) and a house to put it all in, but even a Kaleidescape doesn't do Internet content at all nor live TV. Plex is helpful for streaming crap to mobile devices around the house with consistent media description across devices and for transcoding stuff for offline use, but it can be finicky and may stutter on certain codecs with obscure codecs (I have a lot of videos that can't be found anymore even online), which immediately fails the WAF test because unless technology is superior in every way, the Old Way must be better by definition (somewhat agreeable point). It doesn't handle cable TV use cases at all though and then comes the need to switch channels a bunch (because as much as TV is dying, it's still watched a crapton). But it has really anemic social features and you still have to go to a Youtube channel or Vimeo channel or whatever and is another thing to break and make you look like an idiot instead of a vendor. If the FiOS box acts up and lags like crazy, wife blames Verizon, not me. In this respect, I've learned to test the hell out of anything before even putting it in the living room to see and you'll need to check your network for stability, and it basically becomes a part-time job of QAing and evaluating solutions. But WAF has a lot of variables including SO's tolerance for inconsistent UX (mine has almost none), quality acceptance, content latency demands (wife demands to watch shows as they air still), and content source demands (live TV is still preferred because you get immediate feedback). My wife is a particularly tough user because she literally has OCD on top of a pretty serious technology phobia that's mostly only solvable through paid solutions, so I've got the worst of cord-cutting, Red Box use, Netflix, Amazon, and paying for cable TV with tons of channels. The only thing I haven't messed with so far are Cablecards and Tivos, which might be next on the list because the Verizon FiOS DVR is really pissing me off with ads and menu interruptions constantly. You see, the holy grail of UX in HTPC software is a single pane of glass that lets everyone have access to all the content you both subscribe to and own, and anybody that tries to do that is stopped by competitors or through lawsuits basically. Microsoft is technically closest with WMC but developers don't write crap for WMC and is an extra cost on top of running a Windows PC. It is not just a hard technical problem but a high-level business one with multi-billion dollar stakeholders that don't want to become the next newspaper industry. Stuff like MythTV and XBMC can bridge it from one direction, but the content providers need to provide some muscle on their end to make it happen (see: Silverlight dependencies, DRM demands, Time Warner v. NBC BS, etc.). I dunno about anyone else but I've spent enough time on this crap I might as well start some company doing it and I spend more time building solutions than enjoying the content. I think it's possible but XBMC and Plex are not going to do it in the long term given their technically focused direction.
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Dec 3, 2013 14:44
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For someone still at the "oh hey, lets put a Rapsberry PI + XBMC in the living room that will solve everything"-stage: thanks for the extensive description. My GF seems to be similar to your wife so it is good to know what to try and what to avoid.
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Dec 3, 2013 14:51
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necrobobsledder posted:
For what it's worth, when I said Plex + Roku, I should have specified a Plex server than can transcode + a Roku (preferably a 3), which solves the incompatible files issue. Your other issues are still valid, but we dropped cable TV years ago so the lack of cable integration/dvr isn't an issue for us.
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Dec 3, 2013 15:14
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My fiance is quite technically competent, but she still claims xbmc is too complicated. I don't blame her cause I'm still figuring out stuff myself, but stuff she won't really need. My plan is too eventually have most of the stuff she would want in the favorites menu. I already have that mapped to ctrl+f and plan to make a few other shortcuts/hotkeys. Then my eventual (ugly) plan is to have a little paper taped to the back of the wireless keyboard we use that has all the basic controls+hotkeys.
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Dec 3, 2013 15:19
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Gozinbulx posted:My fiance is quite technically competent, but she still claims xbmc is too complicated. I don't blame her cause I'm still figuring out stuff myself, but stuff she won't really need. My plan is too eventually have most of the stuff she would want in the favorites menu. I already have that mapped to ctrl+f and plan to make a few other shortcuts/hotkeys. Then my eventual (ugly) plan is to have a little paper taped to the back of the wireless keyboard we use that has all the basic controls+hotkeys. My wife was struggling really badly with the keyboard on our main XBMC box. I ended up grabbing the PS3 remote that I haven't been using for a few months, hooking up a bluetooth adapter, and handing that to her. It's straightforward enough that she's had no problems with it since. Might want to look into something like that.
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Dec 3, 2013 15:25
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You can get a media center remote and IR receiver for under $20 on ebay.
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Dec 3, 2013 15:37
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My girlfriend has no problems managing XBMC with a Harmony remote and I setup a separate profile on the PS3 for Netflix. We're using OpenElec on a little Zotac box so the odd time a problem occurs she just reboots it. The WAF is quite high if you stick to the basics with familiar input controls.
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Dec 3, 2013 15:40
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TrueChaos posted:Only issue I ran into was that when outputting at 1920x1080 the picture on the TV was not filling the screen - about a 1" black bar on the sides, and about 1/2" on the top/bottom. After digging through the catalyst control panel (Jesus loving Christ it is the most horribly designed piece of software I can remember) I found the custom HDTV support thing. When the adjuster displays at 1080P it fills the screen, but if I accept that I just wind up with the black bars around the screen. However, running 1912xwhatever maintains the aspect ratio works perfectly. Very small bar of black pixels around the edge, but not noticeable unless I'm right up at the screen checking. I didn't even realize it was there at first. Anyone have an idea as to why it won't display at full 1080? I fixed this, my video card defaulted to a 15% underscan by default. Set that to zero and don't need to deal with funky resolutions. I had forgotten how good even 720P content looks.
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Dec 3, 2013 16:46
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G-Prime posted:My wife was struggling really badly with the keyboard on our main XBMC box. I ended up grabbing the PS3 remote that I haven't been using for a few months, hooking up a bluetooth adapter, and handing that to her. It's straightforward enough that she's had no problems with it since. Might want to look into something like that. I did something similar. I still keep the the wireless keyboard in the coffee table for when an emulator hangs or something, but other than that the GF has learned to navigate the XBMC library + various streaming plugins using the Xbox 360 controller I bought. I did catch her using the wireless mouse in XBMC the other day, I guess that's fine if she prefers it.
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Dec 3, 2013 18:08
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:I did something similar. I still keep the the wireless keyboard in the coffee table for when an emulator hangs or something, but other than that the GF has learned to navigate the XBMC library + various streaming plugins using the Xbox 360 controller I bought. I did catch her using the wireless mouse in XBMC the other day, I guess that's fine if she prefers it. Get rid of the keyboard. install google chrome remote desktop.
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Dec 3, 2013 18:15
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Don Lapre posted:Get rid of the keyboard. install google chrome remote desktop. Huh? That would let me remotely log into my HTPC, which is fine and all, but I can already do that using SSH or VNC or whatever, it's a Linux box. And I would have to leave the room and go to my PC to do so (assuming the PC is on). Wireless keyboard seems so much easier, especially since I already have it. Maybe I'm missing your point?
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Dec 4, 2013 00:02
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I feel like this might fit into the discussion. it's been posted a couple of times before but, in xbmc point your browser (kylo) homepage to symbaloo.com and set up all of your commonly accessed sites as icons... should meet the highest WAF criteria in terms of web-access services on XBMC like netflix or youtube...
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Dec 4, 2013 01:43
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Plex + Roku is the easiest solution. I have it set up for my mom who can barely use any sort of technology. She lives in Northern California and I live in Southern and she just streams from my plex server over the internet. She uses an iPad app and the roku remote to control the roku, but it really is easy to use once you have it set up. It takes a minute for it to buffer (but thats on her end, she has slow DSL) I use Plex + Roku in my bedroom, and it works perfect streaming over WiFI. If you have all the artwork, its easy to see what the show or movie is and you its 2 clicks to watch it. It really can't get much easier.
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Dec 4, 2013 04:56
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After dicking around for a long time with tons of different setups, GF+Rpi+Raspbmc+Flirc works really well, combined with a Humax STB from our cable vendor.
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Dec 5, 2013 12:15
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I'm rebuilding my Linux HTPC and I could use a better media management utility. Right now I'm just opening folders and playing videos with either Xine or VLC and Banshee for music. My media is organized into folders for movies and tv shows (with subdirectories for series). I would like something I can run with a comprehensible UI that will let me select a category (movie, show, anime, music, etc.) and select a readable description of the content being played. For example, a movie will give the title and year, not just a filename.mkv, and a TV show will give me season selection, maybe even episode titles. Cover art would be a plus, especially if it can be pulled automatically. I am exploring XBMC and MythTV but I don't know if they will suit my needs yet, or if I'm even reasonable in my expectations.
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Dec 5, 2013 19:00
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Dude. Dude. XBMC does all that you want times a thousand. If your media is already organized in a tidy fashion, your implementation of XBMC will be painless.
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Dec 5, 2013 19:23
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You will probably have some renaming to do but definitely XBMC. I could never go back to doing the folder thing.
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Dec 5, 2013 19:57
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Yeah I'm pretty ashamed of my current setup. To be fair, most of the time I would watch shows, they would be over the network so I figured I'd have to browse folders anyways, but sitting on the couch double-clicking for a minute was pretty tiresome. Especially when guests came over and saw what I had done. Good to know that XBMC will give me just what I need. I'll try assembling my new PC and configuring XBMC over the weekend. Trip report to follow. Thanks for the thumbs up.
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Dec 5, 2013 20:11
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I'd also suggest picking up an MCE remote or Harmony sometime, it makes a big difference too. I hate using a KB/M on the couch, I have a wireless one but it only gets pulled out for looking at Youtube or something. Getting everything setup, making sure all of your media scrapes correctly and whatnot is a pain in the rear end the first time but the end result is so worth it.
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Dec 5, 2013 20:17
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The Gunslinger posted:I'd also suggest picking up an MCE remote or Harmony sometime, it makes a big difference too. I hate using a KB/M on the couch, I have a wireless one but it only gets pulled out for looking at Youtube or something. This, and to add get yourself an app if you have a smartphone your mind will be blown. Yatse is pretty incredible.
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Dec 5, 2013 20:34
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I was considering one of those little $100 'media center' keyboard/mice combos. I didn't know how well remotes would work for non-windows setups. I found the XMBC wiki page on configuring them and I'll definitely take a look. It looks like I can get a good MCE remote for $30-40, which would be a nice savings. I assume they're all pretty much identical in terms of features? Now that I think of it, having a universal remote that could control my receiver's volume and power the TV on would be pretty awesome. I don't think my motherboard's HDMI port does CEC...
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Dec 5, 2013 20:52
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Richard M Nixon posted:I was considering one of those little $100 'media center' keyboard/mice combos. I didn't know how well remotes would work for non-windows setups. I found the XMBC wiki page on configuring them and I'll definitely take a look. It looks like I can get a good MCE remote for $30-40, which would be a nice savings. I assume they're all pretty much identical in terms of features? Depending on the distance, look at the Logitech K400 for a keyboard/mouse. They run like $25, and I have great results with mine within about 15 feet with line of sight. Beyond that it's a little more spotty, but not terrible. This would be in addition to a remote, because the overwhelming majority of stuff can be done with just the remote.
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Dec 5, 2013 20:57
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Richard M Nixon posted:I was considering one of those little $100 'media center' keyboard/mice combos. I didn't know how well remotes would work for non-windows setups. I found the XMBC wiki page on configuring them and I'll definitely take a look. It looks like I can get a good MCE remote for $30-40, which would be a nice savings. I assume they're all pretty much identical in terms of features? If you can swing it, the logitech smart control is pretty drat nice. Battery lasts a year, and if you have a smartphone you can just get a xmbc remote app like I said above. I would personally do that instead of getting a keyboard, since I rarely ever use my k400.
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Dec 5, 2013 21:04
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I love the hell out of my Flirc units. And I've got a K400 for those hard-to-reach spots.
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Dec 5, 2013 21:24
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That K400 looks tempting. I was thinking about the old dinovo mini, which is miles more expensive. The logitech smart control would let me do the multi-device control that is oh so tempting, but the pricetag makes me wonder how worth it the thing will be. I'm looking at some of the cheaper Harmony models and trying to figure out what will work with a HTPC. It sounds like they'll all require an IR dongle like the Flirc, right? It's not a priority yet because the media center isn't set up or anything, but I want to have good ideas lined up for when I do add in remote functionality, probably sometime next month.
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Dec 5, 2013 22:12
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I'm running XBMC on an Acer Revo with Windows 7. I keep XBMC open full screen all the time. It works pretty well with one exception: I finish watching something, then turn off the tv and receiver. No screensaver, no power saving settings. When I turn the TV back on a few hours later, XBMC is still "full screen" as in no border or menu bar, but it only fills the top left 3/4 of the screen and I can see desktop underneath. I have to keep a keyboard around JUST to tap the "\" key twice to cycle out of full screen and back again. Any ideas?
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Dec 6, 2013 03:52
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The trackpad on the K400 is absolutely abysmal, and I would not recommend the thing to anyone who would use it more than maybe twice a week.
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Dec 6, 2013 04:38
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eddiewalker posted:I'm running XBMC on an Acer Revo with Windows 7. I keep XBMC open full screen all the time. I recommend you start using sleep mode and XBMC Launcher. XBMC Launcher will automatically restart XBMC on resume. If you need a way to wake/sleep your computer, I use iShutdown for that. Beware that some laptops won't Wake-On-Lan from shutdown/hibernate, only sleep (mine, anyway). If you need to have your computer download media, I set my computer to auto-wake using Task Scheduler. You can set a dummy task to auto-wake your computer at a certain time to perform your downloads. My computer auto-sleeps after the downloads are done. And finally, if your computer is having trouble auto-sleeping, you can run "powercfg -requests" in command prompt to figure out wasupwiddat. Signed, Resident "Eco-Friendly HTPC" Expert Rick Rickshaw fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Dec 6, 2013 |
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Dec 6, 2013 04:41
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The machine downloads and seeds RSS torrents, and host a few server apps that benefit from alway-on. I've installed enough LED light fixtures at home to feel OK about running a little ION nettop all the time.
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Dec 6, 2013 09:51
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:Huh? Maybe the idea was to do that from a laptop or tablet or something  But then it would be kind of awkward and Yatse is probably the best use case for a tablet I've seen anyway: http://yatse.leetzone.org/redmine/projects/androidwidgetBut really, I'm not sure what's difficult about using a wireless keyboard. I have a K400, and while neither the keyboard itself nor the trackpad is particularly brilliant (I really wanted a wireless version of this, though they have a BT version now with a messed up layout), I find that I prefer that to dicking around with the tablet. Plus you can actually use if for keyboardy stuff without wanting to immediately kill yourself. Rick Rickshaw posted:Signed, I let the computer sleep, but have to wake it manually. There's no Ethernet where it has to be located, and Wake on Wireless support is next to nonexistent, even though the 3945abg adapter used to support it 
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Dec 6, 2013 14:16
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mobby_6kl posted:Maybe the idea was to do that from a laptop or tablet or something Yeah, what I usually need is ctrl-alt-F1, and good luck doing that in Yatse. I know there are SSH clients in Android, but it's not very practical to type on my phone, plus my HTPC has a dynamic IP address (for various reasons to do with my ISP) so that's not really feasible anyway.
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Dec 7, 2013 11:28
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GokieKS posted:The trackpad on the K400 is absolutely abysmal, and I would not recommend the thing to anyone who would use it more than maybe twice a week. I like my K400r It works great for basic stuff. I surf from bed with it at times and the range seems to be pretty drat good for a cheap combo setup. And its smallish so it fits in a lot of places to store it. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA30R17V9683 Also available in white. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA30R17V9690 I totally recommend it for media center type setups where a mouse is mostly used to click something now and then. And the multi touch works pretty good for scrolling on webpages!
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Dec 7, 2013 16:11
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