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Video Appliance For a Large Library On a Network?
devjj writes "For the past year or so I have been trying (and failing) to figure out a reasonable solution for bringing my large media library to my living room. All of my media lives on an Ubuntu server that sits on my network. It's been very reliable and it's fast enough for streaming purposes. My content is exposed via SMB. It's the living room side where I keep running into problems. I am currently using Windows 7 and XBMC, but the case is too big and noisy, I don't particularly care for Windows, and the whole thing just seems overkill. What I want is a device that can present a decent UI that the non-Slashdot crowd would be able to use, but that is still powerful enough to stream full-fidelity 1080p. I dream of a small box that can transcode video over a network, but that's probably a pipe dream. The new Apple TV would be great if it could connect to network shares. What say you, Slashdot? Is what I'm looking for possible, or should I just give in to the iTunes/Amazon/whatever juggernauts?"
No transcoding but it plays close to all formats
http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/
Get a Western Digital HD Live box. It's cheap, tiny, quiet and plays videos with a large variety of codecs. Also does music of course, plus Pandora, Flicker, etc.
I've been using Tversity on my windows machine for 3 years now and I can honestly say it's the best solution I've ever seen. Transcoding to multiple devices with different codec/format requirement has never been simpler. I can stream to all the iPhones and computers in the house, as well as my 360 with minimal configuration.
You will want this: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=735
And this: http://b-rad.cc/wdlxtv-live/
Simple, effective and above all...cheap.
MythTV, do all the processing on the backend server and have a lightweight (quiet) frontend it should bolt onto your existing ubuntu server
check out the nvidia ion based boards and systems.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856158009&cm_re=asrock_ion-_-56-158-009-_-Product
enough muscle for 1080p, all packed into a tiny, quiet package
I run PS3MediaServer on my fileserver. Streams (and trancodes when necessary) over the network to my PS3. Works well.
Karma: Can only be portioned out by the Cosmos.
I researched this long and hard. I wanted what is known as a "Networked Media Tank," but I didn't have the bucks to make a poor decision and try again. I just plugged the PS3 into the receiver I already had, plugged it into the network, and pointed it at the folder on the server which had all of my music/photos/movies. On the server I installed "PS3 Media Server," which is freeware, pointed it at my media folder, and that, literally, was all it took. Plus the PS3 will play your Blu Rays, and as it is Sony, the firmware updates for new releases will always be available... unlike with the dedicated BD player I had from Samsung. Over a year later and I have never regretted the decision.
I run an AppleTV and have done the following non-standard things with it:
-Hacked it to enable SSH and read/write FS
-Installed Mplayer and XBMC
-Made it so a folder called ATV on my desktop computer automatically syncs with the ATV using rsync regularly so whatever I have downloaded is always on the ATV
-Ordered and installed a Broadcom CrystalHD mini PCI card that renders video and takes processing that away from the ATV's limited CPU
-Installed kexts that support the above and a nightly build of XBMC so I can now play 720 and 1080p media using XBMC
Works perfect for me. I could install Linux on it but both myself and my partner love Apple's movie rental system and the iTunes integration for our music. So by applying the above hacks we get everything we need.
It does also support network shares with a bit of hacking.
If you want to roll you own, use XBMC on an Acer Aspire Revo R1600 ($200). It uses the Nvidia ION LE chipset that supports h264 offloading. I would use these myself, but I already have three Popcorn Hours.
PCHs are nice, quiet, and cheap, but the UI is awful. It will require some tinkering to make nice. YAMJ is your friend (Yet Another Movie Jukebox).
A Mac Mini is just way too expensive to be abused as a streaming media player.
Option 1: ReadyNAS Duo (built in torrent client) + WD TV Live (simple remote)
Option 2: Ubuntu server on network + PS3MediaServer + Sony PS3 (enable HDMI CEC for use with TV remote)
Option 3: Fritz!Box 7270 + USB HDD + PS3 as DLNA client / built in DLNA client on TV
Option 4: ASRock ION330 + Ubuntu
Option 5: Mac Mini + Apple Remote + Plex / XBMC + NAS/USB HDD
The key bottle neck is the network, if you can run LAN cables no worries, if you decide to go wireless 802.11n will do fine for 720p, 1080p is pushing it
The beauty of a PC is that it's no big deal if a new codec comes around, and if you don't like the interface you have others to choose from.
Appliances have limitations, may not allow new codecs to be installed etc.
Find a quiet PC
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I spent a couple hundred bucks on Newegg, put together a MicroATX box in a home theater case (looks like a DVD player, virtually silent.) I've run Linux on it and played videos with Xine, and I've had XP on there with the Mega Codec Pack's Media Player Classic. Plays everything I've ever thrown at it, including Quicktime videos (hell, it even plays Real's media, as if anyone still uses it.) I used a $35 ATI Radeon with HDMI out, and plugged it into a 65" Samsung DLP TV. Plays everything in 1080p, smooth as silk. Better even than the upsampling Samsung DVD player I bought with the TV.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The Shuttle XS35GT is a fanless box with the new NVIDIA ION2 GPU, if you put a SSD drive in it it's 100% silent. It should be able to handle H.264 1080p without a problem. You can run Linux (e.g. XBMCbuntu) or Win7 with XBMC on it. It also supports a DVD, DVD-RW or Bluray drive.
Another option is the Xtreamer, I don't know much about it but it's cheap ($99, that's without a HD) and according to the site it can play 1080p (the new Apple TV only supports 720p). It has an option ("SideWinder") to attach external heat sinks to make it fanless.
A good place for more information is the XBMC hardware forum.
I have been using SageTV and their Media Extenders for a couple of years now, and I am very happy with it.
The basics:
1) You set up a "server" PC loaded with hard drives and tuner/capture cards, running the SageTV software.
2) At the TV, you connect a small, low-power Media Extender, which presents an identical user interface to the SageTV software.
I am using this to record broadcast TV from an antenna, watch DVD and Blu-ray rips, and (with the addition of PlayOn) watch Hulu and Comedy Central streaming.
Their website: http://sagetv.com/
I used to use MythTV, and I find that SageTV has pretty much identical functionality, but I could remove a computer from the living room and use the small extender device instead.
Reading Slashdot is ruining my spelling and grammar.
As a heads-up, I just tried this and ended up having to return the system. There appears to be some bug with their HDMI which can cause the machine to kernel panic, apparently when powering on either the display or receiver it's plugged into*. A damn shame, as it's otherwise very well suited to that kind of use. A compact, quiet, and fairly cool system that doesn't use a whole lot of power but still has no problem playing back HD video. Hooking the tower back up to the TV just sucks, as it uses about 50x the energy** and is massively overkill for that kind of use, and is certainly not compact by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe I'll dig out an old unused laptop instead.
* I'm not 100% sure that's the cause, but it was as close as I ever got to diagnosing the issue. And this was after exchanging the system for a full replacement. If only only happened to one machine I'd blame the hardware, but two systems with identical problems tells me something else is at play. Of course, it could be specific to my TV+receiver combo too.
**Which only bothers me because of the power bill. Effing hippies.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
That really sucks, but I've never run into that problem and I've had this setup going for several months now (got the mini as soon as the hdmi ones were released). I'd guess it's your TV+receiver combo then - I don't have any problems with my Kuro and Pioneer something or other receiver (the mini plugs into the receiver, the receiver goes to the TV).
SO I CAN WATCH IT ON MY HANDHELD!!!
(why are we shouting?)
Seriously, there's lots of reasons to transcode. Not all movies are available for download in friendly formats. I recently got a beautiful DVD set of the silent film Greed by Erich von Stroheim and I wanted to watch it on something that didn't have an optical drive, away from home.
How else but to transcode?
You are welcome on my lawn.
No shit, He can get a 1080p player from WD for about $120 that'll play just about any format thrown at it, uses something like 12w, and as a bonus is small and light enough he can easily take it and a USB drive anywhere he wants.I have set up a couple of these systems for those with kids and the WD boxes are pretty solid, no noise, and make a great replacement for the family DVD player. Blowing the money on a Mac Mini (or hell any PC unless he has an old SFF P4 laying around he isn't using) for a streaming player is just nuts.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
for the non-*crowd, set-top ready.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/home-entertainment/d3fe/
Native 1080p video output at up to 1920x1080 resolution (check)
- Analog recording of your favourite TV shows from Cable or Satelite (check)
- Time-shift and scheduled recording (check)
- Incredible variety of video and audio codec support including MKV (check)
- Built in BitTorrent client for sharing and downloading video files (check)
- HDMI, composite or component video output (check)
- Optical SPDIF 5.1 Channel Dolby Digital audio output (check)
- Takes up to 2.0 Terabyte SATA hard drive (check)
- Built in samba server with UPnP implementation (check)
- Oh and a completely sweet price! ($169, plus $35 for 1 to 3 week coming wireless N USB adapter4, plus you supply the SATA drive up to 2TB, and an external DVD burner if desired).
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
I just installed XBMCLive on a en Eeebox, the eb1501 handled bluray level playback without an issue. It's an Atom 330 so it's already kinda dated as the 510s with Ion2 will actually handle flash in full screen without the benefit of the crappy 3d acceleration now offered in Flash 10.1. It's based on Ubuntu 9.04 so there are some issues with certain wireless controllers but it took me all of an hour start to finish to get the thing setup how I want it. That even includes being able to launch Firefox with the Launder app, coincidentally this method will work with Pandora too although sadly Netflix natively is a no go but a lot of people have Bluray players already with netflix so you just use XBMC as a uPNP client at that point and you can enjoy all the benefits. My whole setup complete with SSD so there is zero noise after the sound of pressing the button.