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Ask Slashdot: What's Your Media Setup?
An anonymous reader writes: There's no dearth of media technology today. Not only do modern console emulate set-top boxes, but there are dozens of tiny appliances that bring TV shows and movies to your screens with varying levels of convenience and cost. So, what setup do you use? I'm curious about the hardware you use to collect, transmit, and display the media, in addition to the software running it, and the services you use or subscribe to that provide the media. I imagine there are a lot of cord-cutters in this crowd — if that's the case, how do you acquire the shows you want to watch? What problems still need to be solved in this area?
A library card and a comfortable chair. Though I've been using the same chair for a long time so I probably need to upgrade the firmware.
MythTV for OTA an Dish distributed around the house.
Chromecast for simple things
Xbox One for Amazon/Bluray
It's a little heavy on electricity draw, but I use a 2006-era dual-core Opteron machine with a bunch of disks running Debian 7 and MiniDLNA for the media server duties.
I have a Linux box with a RAID array full of media. I run Plex server on it, and stream to a couple Rokus running the Plex client on a couple different TVs, as well as the Plex app on phones/tablets/laptops.
I sound like a Plex app, but it really is fantastic software.
I've got a Mac Mini pluggued to my HDTV with 3 tv tuners hooked to it. It runs EyeTV from Elgato, I pay about 20$/year to get the program list automatically. The tuners are hooked up to an antenna in the hattic. The thing can record 3 shows at once. The software lets be watch recorded shows and live TV on my iPad/iPhone if I whish so. The media library is also shared to my other computers in the house. I've been using the setup for years and it's a joy to use.
Menzoberranzan Networks
For my personal media, the server is a VM running ubuntu 14.04 and plex, connecting to a 4TB Raid 1 iSCSI, the clients are smart TVs and RasPI's with various Kodi releases, Sony PS units, and XBox units. For streaming services I have Netflix and Sling. Sling is the only problem child
nexusplayer with kodi and netflix. I did buy an ethernet adapter for it. works much better.
6TB NAS with movies/tv shows.
HD Homerun with tvheadend for local stations/recording/live tv on kodi.
PS3 for Blu-Rays and DVD's
Network is all wireless AC/wired 1GB with router and switches.
Can stream to any TV/computer/phone in the house.
Plex to roku, android, browsers...
Plex Plex Plex
Bought the lifetime pass for, I think it was $100.
If you have a large media library, Plex is the way to go.
Did I mention Plex?
I use VPN to get access to US netflix, and to cover my tracks when using torrents.
I use Kodi on a linux machine as my primary media center. From there I can launch Chrome to watch netflix (thought sadly I can't control netflix with my IR remote). I also use a Kodi plugin called PseudoTV Live to bring back the experience of "Channel Surfing". It works so well, that I've started downloading shows I would only, ever watch, if I was just channel surfing (A&E/TLC/Discovery type shows).
I use QBittorrent as my torrent client, and have built a very simple plugin for Kodi in order to view the status of my torrents.
I plan to replace the computer with a powerful gaming rig, and replace linux with windows, but only because of games. Linux is by far, a better OS for this kind of setup, as it is relatively painless to administer remotely.
I use Sonarr to download TV shows from USENET shortly after they're aired, store the data in a DrivePool, and access it anywhere via Plex on tablets, PCs, and my phone. It's a big improvement on commercial offerings.
Pirate Bay, BitTorrent, and stacks and stacks of poorly labeled, mislabeled, and unlabeled DVD-R.
I have a laptop and a PS3 that share a hdmi cable, one end of which is connected to the TV. I swap them out depending on what I'm doing. Gaming and Netflix is through the PS3. The laptop doesnt get connected that often but when it does, I play old school games.
Lear 8 track in the car, Nakamichi cassette at home. Chick magnet 24x7.
For video, it's Plex + a Roku 3 at both TVs. Plex handles the metadata centrally, and streams high bitrate media files, even with DTS audio through the Roku boxes. Plus I have Plex on my tablet, and can pick media from my library to be saved on it for watching offline. The plex interface is excellent, and it can run clients on nearly any device you can imagine. I can browse my video library on my tablet and tell it to play something on either of my Rokus. It's as close to the perfect video system as I've been able to find.
For audio, I have a marantz receiver with built-in airplay, but even an airport express will get the job done. I run JRiver media center on a windows box (ugh), I use Airfoil for Windows to stream bit-perfect audio directly to my receiver, and have all my audio stored as FLAC files. And I can browse my audio library on my tablet, and pick what I want to play from there. Best quality and convenience I've been able to muster in one system.
I use Netflix DVD service, then use Handbrake to "format shift" and "time shift" those rentals so that I can view them on my Apple TV and/or phones/iPads at my leisure. (with 2 DVD's at a time, I can process 4-6 discs a week). A few stubborn DVDs need MDRP first.
Being mostly an Apple household, that's all served up from a 6TB RAID on one Mac, through iTunes, to devices across my home. It seems to work pretty well.
Synology DS415Play to store and transcode my media library, backed up to Amazon Glacier.
Plex Server to manage the media and serve it.
Plex Client on either XBox One, my TV, Fire TV Stick or a device (tablet etc) to view.
Sonarr to grab stuff as its published, no manual intervention required.
Works a treat.
I've an ITX chassis with 5 HDDs in RAID6 for storage. It runs Kodi (formerly XBMC) and plays any 1080p content I throw at it , syncing the TV to the same Hz as the content, which is nice.
I mostly listen to free podcasts from around the world, buy DVDs from the artists themselves (then they get 1/2 the money instead of 0.001 percent), and the rest is that old shibboleth Comcast.
Once 40 Gbps Internet rolls out in Seattle, I'll ditch them. Got used to that at work. We even have 3 100 Gbps ports, but those are more expensive.
Been downsizing the physical screens, going for higher energy efficiency 32 inch LCD HDTV and monitors.
If I could get a $20 a month 20 Gbps package like most first world nations, with basic soccer TV and use HDTV antenna for local broadcasts (higher resolution over the air signal than cable), I'd do it.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I get to watch maybe 2 shows a week when I'm paying attention. 0 when I have other things to do.
It's not a case of being able to access specific shows, it's a case of whether or not there is something to watch in the vast number of shows available to me. There usually is.
Currently half way through Salamander on Netflix.
There are plenty of places to pay for movies online if that's your bag.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
I use Sonarr and Couch Potato to grab TV Shows and movies through NZB/Torrent and use Plex via consoles and Chromecasts throughout the house. I cancelled cable 6 months ago and haven't missed it one bit.
I have a Plex Server on my network along with the requisite Plex Home Theater on a PC tower connected to the TV. I use this for movies and TV shows I own. Chromecast for those streaming services that support it, i.e. Netflix, Pandora, etc. And the PC for the other streaming services and hard copy movies, DVDs & Blu-Ray. I also occasionally use an XBox 360 with the Plex App or different streaming services.
Boxes connected to TV(I only have 1 TV, but test various devices), Nexus Player/FireTV/FireStick, ATV2, and others. Running Plex or Direct to my NAS. HP Microserver G7 running OPENMEDIAVAULT(OMV) On the NAS I have SICKRAGE going out to grab the .torrent files. Torrent Client on OMV to download those TV shows. I then have a script running with FILEBOT to move the downloaded files into their own directory.
Devices above also run KODI.
I also have a HDHOMERUN
Gear: I have a Nexus Player / Blu-ray player / Receiver in the Living room and a Nexus Player for the bedroom.
Control: I use a Logitech smart hub to control the living room and the included remote for the bedroom.
Software: I run KODI (ala XBMC) for file viewing, a NAS (w. MySQL) for shared files and KODI shared viewing history. There's Youtube / Netflix built-in and anything else I need, I use the Nexus Player's built-in chromecast support.
Cable: None! Woo!
I've literally tested dozens of media viewing solutions over the years and I've finally reached the point where there's essentially no pain points. It still requires some marginal level of instruction for guests, but its very minor.
Bye!
I've been using XBMC since XBMC was first a thing... so there's is some level of inertia here. But nonetheless I still use xbmc/kodi based solutions.
I've been using rpi's with openelec for many years now, all content sourced from smb shares on a central box. It does 1080p on all displays, with no issues co-sharing the same content. Usually gigabit, but when I have to use wifi for the display-attached unit, I use the network settings tweaks in advancedsettings.xml for Kodi in order to let the device buffer. The buffering does tend to wear down microsd cards faster than normal, but for devices with physical drives it's a non-issue.
The only problems I would like to see solved in my solution that I've been using for well over a decade... is the lack of DRM-required plugins. Which is to say, I would happily throw money at Netflix or Hulu or HBO Go if I could make them work with kodi/openelec. I wouldn't mind the ability to record those streams to be watched at my convenience either.
Big screen TV. No connection to the intertubes.
XBox 360. No connection to the intertubes.
BluRay player. No connection to the intertubes.
Yamaha amp. No connection to the interubes.
PVR from cable company (bought outright).
Apple TV connected to my desktop machine, haven't used it in months except to play music through my amp. Paired bluetooth keyboard so I don't have to type with tiny little remote.
Building a media center in a kit and maintaining it really isn't something I can muster up enough interest to give a damn about.
I pay for bandwidth, so the cable company's streaming service (included in my bill) makes sense, whereas something like NetFlix doesn't.
Oh, and I still buy physical copies of movies so I can play them as many times as I want without involving the assholes from the media companies.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
My personal media is on a 24TB (6x4TB in a ZFS RAIDZ2) FreeBSD server that runs Plex server and I use a variety of Plex clients to watch it. I cut the cord years ago and haven't missed a thing.
I started with an XBMC build for the RaspberryPi long ago. It was slow and the interface was painful to use due to the limited hardware in the Pi, but it ran movies flawlessly. An upgrade to the RaspberryPi 2 and switching from RasBMC (XBMC) to OpenELEC (a different build of XBMC or now as it's called KODI) and I have a smooth as butter interface.
Media is stored on a NAS and all TV series and movies are cataloged on OpenELEC.
To interface with the media centre I use an app called Yatse. It stores an offline catalog as well so at any time I can open up my phone, browse through what I want to watch, click the show, the RPi automatically turns on the TV and start playing. It also supports CEC so once the TV is on I can use the TV remote to control the media centre and play / pause etc.
Because the RPi 2's CPU has enough grunt I also added a DIY ambilight style system using the Hyperion plugin. For those who don't know what Ambilight is here's an example. It may look weird but in my opinion it enhances the movie experience quite a lot.
OpenELEC also acts as a good UPNP target and supports Airplay too, so with the RPi attached to my sound system I can stream music to it from any device without having to turn on the TV. Works great at parties.
We cut the cord long ago. So our big TV is only for YouTube and our gaming machines.
We have an HDMI auto-switcher in between the TV and the Wii U, PS3, and PC.
My PC is in the living room and is often used to watch YouTube and whatever we download. I got a small Logitec wireless keyboard+trackpad combo to use the PC when not at the desk.
I don't own a television nor do I want one. I tell all of my friends and neighbors at detail about my lack of owning a television. I also do not own a cell phone, land line phone or any other sort of phone. I expect any attempts to communicate with me to be done via certificate postal mail only. Any non-certificate postal mail will get returned to sender.
Also I do not own a computer and I am whistling Bell 202 tones into a payphone(that I redboxed kthx) to my mother in laws AOL account.
The server runs minidlna, and the media players are connected to "dumb" TVs. The house is wired with Cat 5.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
A separate server runs Sonar and Couchpotato that download using nzbget and transmission. This feeds into Plex (non-subscription). I tend to watch everything in the browser on plex to make use of the watched functionality. All of the above runs on the same server, its also a NAS mounted via samba so if a video is fucked I can try it with VLC from my windows desktop. Besides this, I also have Netflix. Both to pay of my moral piracy debt, and because it is sometimes useful to watch things on (especially netflix exclusives are much easier to watch)
Primary TV: Windows Media Center PC with Ceton CableCARD tuner
Secondary TV: XBOX360 as Windows Media Extender + Chromecast (for Netflix)
Yes, I'm one of the 1% that actually ran WMC and am really disappointed that Microsoft discontinued it. I understand why it got discontinued - getting the setup right isn't easy if you're not technical, which does take out a significant portion of the user base. But man, I find that WMC was unrivaled (with perhaps the exception of MythTV) in what it could do.
I pay my cable provider for *one* CableCARD. That is already a savings of half the price of what their HD DVR would cost. On top of that because the XBOX 360 can act as an Media Center extender I don't have to pay for a secondary cable box (pain point: the 360 needs a reliable network connection, so if your house isn't wired for it this could be a potential issue).
Since the WMC is a PC I can upgrade my storage to as large as I want, when I want. No need to go get a TiVo specific hard drive. And I don't have to pay to subscribe to Hulu or Spotify because to them I'm using a computer, not an Apple TV or other specialized devices where, because I'm using their app I have to be a subscriber. If I need to look something up I can launch a true web browser, not a gimped up version where I have to use a directional pad to navigate.
oh man, discussion has really been stifled.
Plex on a win box, 12TB of storage on a linux box, some combination of rokus, firesticks, ATVs, Chromecasts, and portable devices strewn about the house willy nilly.
Plex managed to out-Apple Apple on the just works front. Just works at home. Just works on the road (okay - not quite, my LG G3 on Verizon stutters annoyingly, but everybody elses shit works fine). I spend almost zero time managing it.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
We subscribe to Amazon because Prime is worth it for all the benefits in total; we subscribe to netflix because it's cheap, and worth it for all the content available on netflix and nowhere else. If it's not available on Amazon or Netflix, then screw it, I fall back on torrenting still. (I have a private torrent tracker that's particularly good for tv, and also fairly good for movies.)
If I'm just watching by myself, I'm happy just watching on the computer, so I can multitask. If I'm watching with my wife, we've completely joined the Roku fan club - we have a Roku 3 in the living room, and Roku 2s in both bedrooms (and we're thinking of upgrading those to Roku 3s too, next time we see them on sale).
Netflix and Amazon obviously have direct apps; for shows I torrented, I just use Plex, as it's the easiest to set up. The new Plex interface is awful, but meh, it still works. I just save the files to a local external hard drive attached to my laptop, the same one I'd be watching from directly if I were by myself, that has all my local media on it. I tried setting up a cheap old laptop as a permanent media server, but turns out, I suppose not terribly surprisingly, Plex needs a faster machine and more RAM than that crappy old computer had, to run particularly effectively, so now I just run it from my primary machine.
Windows 7 media PC using VLC and a samba share as one way of playing my library (iTunes for music), or alternatively using a web browser and PLEX to peruse the media library. Netflix/Hulu/Amazon streaming video via web browser. Easy-peasy. I don't dare upgrade to Windows 10 yet. And while Linux could satisfy 99% of my media needs, there's a slim 1% that it can't and Windows still wins. *sigh* Oh, the back-end server runs samba and plex on a 20 terabyte RAID-Z ZFS pool. Blu-ray rips sure eat up space...
I cut the cord a while back, but since I only have one decent spot in my house where I get decent reception, I use an HD HomeRun Connect and then use either VLC or the PS3/PS4, depending on what display device I'm closest to when I want to watch something.
For streaming media, I ostensibly have access to stuff via Amazon Prime Instant Video through my Amazon Prime subscription, but I hardly ever use it. I've never been a big movie watcher, and there's more than enough free TV around here that I can find something to watch if I'm in the mood. I used to keep a Windows 8.1 computer around just for Windows Media Center, but got rid of it when I realized I was just recording stuff I wasn't getting around to watching. My video game backlog is big enough, I don't need a DVR backlog, too.
http://crummysocks.com
FTW!
FlexGet -> Transmission -> Serviio -> Samsung D-series Plasma TV. Serves me quite well.
We started using a FireTV sideloaded with Kodi (SPMC build to be specific). Have a network share from our server that stores our library and any downloaded media. Loving it. Have not used any of the actual apps on the FTV, just use it to host and run Kodi.
While I still subscribe to AT&T Uverse TV, we've been watching less and less TV on it and instead using our Kodi appliance more and more. Going to be picking up another FireTV or 2 for same purpose soon.
I highly recommend Kodi, and the FTV makes a great platform to run it from, quad core, very small form factor, low power draw, etc.
I have a mac mini that acts as a media server running Plex. Then I have 2 rokus (1 Roku 3 in the bedroom, and 1 roku tv in the living room) that stream my personal media via Plex, and whatever else I want through their apps. A 2TB NAS that sits on the network for storage, and that's about it. That's all I need.
All that I watch are old Naruto episodes, so either just a small Android tablet or a TV with Chromecast. No need for anything else.
Why store anything when I can get it on demand?
70' 4K Vizio runs >4 hours per day and comes with built in apps that allow for Amazon Prime Instant video, YouTube, Netflix, UltraFlix... 4K and 1080p content is gorgeous! You can get small amounts of 4K from Amazon and YouTube(nothing worth watching). UltraFlix is all 4K but a small library. GoPro 4K home videos.
Cable TV service with HD DVR. I don't use the on demand or pay per view, but they are available.
PS3 For games, Blueray discs(RedBox FTW!) HBOGo.
Cord cutting is not an option for people who what a lot of TV. The choices are shit, the prices are absurdly high and the video quality is pathetic. The very best deal other than cable is RedBox. $2.50 for a Blueray movie! Amazon wants $10 for the same movie streamed.
Connected to my TV. It's clunky and unintuitive, but it works. I can connect to local shares on my lan and run netflix. Good enough and I don't have the time, or the will in my old age, to setup something more fancy.
I store my iTunes library on a 20TB (~19TiB)Pegasus array today. /Volumes/Pegasus/iTunes/ -type f -a \( -name \*.m4v -o -name \*.mp4 \) -ls | awk '{tot+=$7}END{printf "Total size: %.4f Gig\n",(tot/(1024*1024*1024))}'
Video size currently:
MigiMac (OSX) [~ (master)]$ find
Total size: 6802.7659 Gig
Mix of ripped movies and TV shows, but I also purchase a few season passes from the iTunes store... it's close to a-la carte cable and ends up being cheaper than getting all the channels required would be. I do actually purchase most movies on blu-ray (3d if avail.. it's fun sometimes). If it comes with a digital copy that works in iTunes.. great. If not, I rip a copy. Ultraviolet can go screw itself. Rips are done via makemkv/vobcopy -> handbrake -> iTunes.
I use AppleTVs to watch stuff probably 90% of the time. Another 8% or so is watching disks via my PS3... the remainder is Cable and streaming (I tend to not use netflix/hulu very often and cable TV only as background noise from time to time).
For backups (you do back up, right?)...
Tier 1 is scripted rsync to a Synology DS2413 with ~18TB of disk
Tier 2 is rotated 2x6TB striped disks in 2 identical Lacie 2Big Thunderbolt external drives. I rotate every couple weeks so one is locked in my desk at the office for "off-sites". I also rotate a disk in a static bag at the same time for my linux box's data backups (email/web/photo gallery).
My MBP (iTunes on it has my master music library for syncing to iOS dev due to history) is also backed up to it's own Time Capsule but I also use rsnapshot on my linux server to back it up to the disks rotated out at work in the static bag so I have off-sites for the MBP as well.
- My favorite error message: xscreensaver, running on an old Sparc 5 w/ 8bit color: bsod: Couldn't allocate color Blue
I have 3 apple TVs in my house. All connect to the iTunes library on my iMac. I have two users - myself and my wife. We each have our own iTunes library hooked to our Apple TVs. My wife's is also tied to the tv in the kids play room.
All the media is stored on a 1TB external drive connected to the iMac through FireWire.
I torrent what shows/movies I want, dump them into iTunes, set the Show and Season and off we go.
I used to keep EVERYTHING, but now I will delete a season after it is done unless I really like it (Rick and Morty, Venture Bros., etc.)
I haven't ran into a space issue with this setup.
I have looked at plex and other similar setups, but this works great for us. We are an Apple house and everything works seamlessly. I spend all day working on computers at work, at home it is nice to not have to mess with it.
I was previously a Windows Media Center guy, with a nice Ceton cable-card tuner. MCE had a nice, high wife acceptance factor, and made for a better DVR than any of the big guys -- although consumer DVRs have caught up nicely in the last few years.
Times have changed.
Because I still enjoy games in my living room, the primary device now connected to my television is an XBox One, and nearly all television is watched on Plex. Plex is, in a word, fantastic. It was worth the $100 I shelled out for a lifetime pass.
In the closet is a QNAP 4-bay NAS. It's running a suite of Sickrage (choose your own Sickbeard fork), sabNZBplus, Transmission, and Plex. I've purchased a pair of block Usenet accounts on competing backbones, and I download about 25 gigs a month from them to get the number and quality of shows that I want. I keep them forever on the QNAP.
I rip or download any movies I want into Plex -- I converted my entire physical library some time ago -- and they're watchable anywhere, in part because I have Cox's Gig service in Phoenix.
On Sundays I still turn on the cable feed to watch the NFL, and a couple Saturdays a month I turn on the cable feed to watch a UFC PPV, although I expect to watch their next game on the UFC app on the XB1.
[A TB Usenet block is available on sale for another 10-15 hours at NewgroupDirect for $40 right now...]
I've got a laptop running Kodi connected to an external hard drive where I store my media. I can access Kodi via my Roku right now, but I want to hook it right up to my TV.
My problem right now is that my DVDs are holding me back. We have so many DVDs and no place to put them other than in the cabinet under the TV. While in there, they are difficult to look through and just take up space. I want to store them somewhere but don't want to put them in a place that will ruin them. (For example, the heat in my attic would make them unplayable after one summer.) I'm not sure if putting them in a Rubbermaid bin in the basement would ruin them. (The basement doesn't tend to be overly damp.)
The second problem is that our living room TV is an SD set. Yes, I know that HD is much better, but money is tight and we're using this SD set until it dies. So I need to figure out the best way to hook a laptop up to a RCA input.
Any suggestions on DVD storage or laptop-to-RCA converters would be appreciated.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Not being a linux guy, there's a bit of a learning curve when I set it up, but now that it's running, it's pretty amazing.
If you're unfamiliar with unRAID, it's pretty slick. I no longer worry about drives failing, or running out of space.
Clients are Plex apps on phones and tablets. TV's either have Roku or Amazon FireTV sets running Plex apps.
Plays everything. Looks great. Not sure what else you'd want.
it can stream from any computer running itunes or put a USB flash into an xbox and play from there. plus all the streaming services out there. simple to use
I use dumpster-found comptuers, networked with cat5 stapled to the walls. Bitorrent everything. Cost is minimal.
Where's fisted's non-existent code http://slashdot.org/users2.pl?... or is he just a windbag blowhard as he has evidenced himself to be in his post history?
I'm cheap, and always have been, so it's an easy choice. Google has made this immeasurably easier.
There are a number of TVs in the house, and I have this thing called "wifi".
I picked up a couple of the Google Chromecast dongles for $25 each, and they go in the TV. We have Android phones in the house, so we use Chromecast to stream pretty much everything to the TV - Amazon Prime, Netflix, or the local Plex server.
Local media (movies and audio) are kept on a FreeNAS box, and Plex is one of the trivially configured plugins available (through the FreeBSD jail system).
I also have wireless HDMI adapters, so that solves the "I want an extra monitor while I'm working from the living room" problem.
I also have a rooted Wii (with eg. dlna client) and a Blueray/DVD player, so there are alternative means of streaming if an Android phone isn't available... but there are at least 6 in the house...
If I had a stereo to speak of, I'd just use something like the Chromecast Audio dongles for the same functionality (or maybe, this: http://www.amazon.com/Kinps%C2%AE2-Switch-Splitter-Input-Output/dp/B00NNHWRGW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1445449981&sr=8-2&keywords=hdmi+switch+2+out)
Conveniently, all my media is also available through Plex wherever I go with Internet access.
Really, the only limit for full home automation is your budget, at this point. it's trivial to do with ubiquitous home automation kits... My favorite is Ubiquiti brand.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
So Roku is just a simple platform for Netflix, Amazon and some weather channel. I have Amazon by accident. Most of the other "channels" are junk or play things that i have zero interest in.
The entire process on Roku of "stop adding the channel and go to the channel's internet website and create an account and then log in and promise to pay us money" is a buzzkill joke - after two years on Roku I have never added another channel. Also Roku needs a hard reset every couple of days.
Also, and this is from a purely practical standpoint, but why Roku does not have porn is one of the dumbest marketing things I've ever seen.
Also, ever since the download/install of Windows 10 - all my laptop media players are now junk with bad latency un-synced on video/audio Microsoft likely forced obsolescence on my hardware - so Windows 10 is the last Microsoft OS I'll ever use.
I dumped DirecTV after 10+ years - just too expensive and the propaganda flowing from CNN, Fox, CNBS MSNBC was nauseating.
Mac Mini running Front Row with a RAID box containing four 3 TB HDs in a RAID 5 configuration.
For media, I rip my CDs, DVDs and BluRays (on a separate PC) and also download shows from various on-line sources.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
emby backend, kodi front end for media. Ripped from DVD and blu rays using makemkv and handbrake (the former I've found to be needed after trying to use only handbrake for a while)
mythbackend, and I still use myth frontend. Tried to use the kodi frontend but it would never shut the hell up about notifications and it seems not to be configurable, and kodi's seek to a video from mythtv is terrible compared to mythfrontend.
There's also a netflix subscription in play, though increasingly less time is spent. It's frustrating as shows disappear in the midst of being watched, or a season is unavailable, or if I want to revisit a series again. It's all you can watch renting which is sometimes nice, but getting as close to 'owning' as the media companies allow is better (at least having something they cannot 'revoke' my ability to watch).
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
We use the AppleTV connected to a fifty-something inch Sony. We pay for Netflix, and two or three shows on iTunes. We also have a modified all-region Blu-Ray/DVD player for discs we picked up in Europe when we lived there. This also comes in handy when Downton Abbey is released in the UK a couple of months before it is available in the US. That seems to happen every year around my wife's birthday, so I pre-order it to get it asap from the UK Amazon portal.
The AppleTV is really convenient for most stuff though. I can play bounce anything to it from an iPad or the iMac - for example my wife also watches a couple of shows from Prime, access for which is not built in to the AppleTV, but we just spin it up on the Mac and hit the little share icon to see it on the TV. I did that with the debate on CNN recently too. We don't have cable, so we don't get CNN, but they streamed the debate and it was more comfortable to watch it on the larger set than the computer monitor. And they politely blocked the commercials!
I didn't see TIVO mentioned, so 'TIVO'
The Roamio I have cost $300 with lifetime service and I have an antenna. The TIVO combines my Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus, and Netflix down in to one interface.
If I want to see episodes of (say) Stargate SG-1, it'll show me what's available from my streaming sources. If an episode isn't available, it'll record it for me when it comes on the air. It's really a fantastic solution and keeps all of my services in one spot instead of having to bounce between them. The software on the TIVO is really the killer app.
Before that, I had a Mac Mini & HDHomeRun with EyeTV software. That handled all of my recording needs, but I still needed Safari for Netflix or Amazon Prime.
Each TV at home has a small computer running OpenELEC or similar XBMC/Kodi distributions. The bigger computers are nettops like the Acer AspireRevo series. The smaller one is a Raspberry Pi 2B.
They all connect to a NAS share that contains all my videos. I rip DVDs and BluRays that I own (several hundred) and more recently rent (via Red Box).
Remote controls are Logitech Harmony One remotes for a couple of the boxes and an old iPad running an XBMC/Kodi remote control app on one of them.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Small Linux server, raid-1 drives. Bittorrent download all TV (no ads). Plays through Serviio to Sony Blueray player to HD TV, or just on my Linux laptop. I'd pay a couple bucks each for the shows if I could download them just as conveniently within a few days of broadcast with no ads or DRM, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
My desktop computer is my media setup. I've got two monitors and I might add a third. I might use a Fire TV or Fire TV stick to watch video while I play and record gameplay footage (I would need a TV/monitor with headphone out and pass the wire to a mixer so that I don't record the video audio).
TV: 46" Sony Bravia 1080p from like 2006 Amp: Marantz PM8004 (stereo only, don't need surround) Turntable: Denon PM-3 with Ortofon 2m-Red cartridge PC: Intel NUC running HDMI out, raspberry Pi with hifiberry DAC OS: Openelec on the NUC, Runeaudio for the Pi Storage: 4TB USB3 for NUC serving video, 2TB USB2 for the Pi serving FLAC Pi is headless, controlled from phone or tablet NUC is controlled via Flirc/harmony remote
made the switch from from Win media center over a year ago to kubuntu desktop/server with 4TB of media running kodi; wired to 2 other Pc's/Tv's also running kubuntu/kodi, much happier with linux once i figured out NFS...also have minidlna dameon running which works well for smart tvs, but prefer kodi interface. would like to build a r-pi box, but have two spare htpc's from my previous windows htpc days that also allow web browsing on the tv's great for FF football!
That's it, a Mac Mini G4
Have gnu, will travel.
Netflix and Amazon subscriptions + rip anything worth owning for me. Not bothering with OTA stuff at the moment.
In terms of the ripping/encoding, I use a combination of MakeMKV and Don Melton's transcoding scripts for my blu-rays and DVDs, since they allow me to preserve full surround sound and a high quality video image while encoding in a format that I can use across all of my devices without additional or on-the-fly transcoding (a la Plex) being necessary. I used to use Handbrake for the encoding, but I find that Don's scripts work much better for me and are a lot less fiddly in terms of their output. For now, I'm serving them up from a Mac Mini via iTunes Home Sharing to an Apple TV (and any of the Apple mobile devices in the house), since I found iTunes Home Sharing to be significantly more reliable and easier to manage and use than DLNA or other methods I've tried in the past, but I'm not averse to switching media servers in the future as my needs change, and since the files aren't DRM-encumbered, it'd be trivial for me to do so.
Otherwise, as far as the media hardware goes, I have my PS4, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, Dreamcast, and Apple TV all in a closet and hooked up to an Onkyo A/V receiver (TX-NR609) that then goes to my TV. I use the Onkyo AVR's remote for both the AVR and the Apple TV (since the Apple TV can be trained to recognize other remotes in its Settings). Because I keep all of that equipment in the closet (i.e. not in line of sight for IR signals from remotes) I use a Next Generation Battery Transmitter Remote to transmit the IR signals via RF into the closet. Such an awesome product, since, unlike most IR transmitter/receiver devices, it effectively turns your IR remote into an RF remote, meaning that you don't have to have an ugly box sitting next to your TV to catch and retransmit the IR signal. Don't ask me how the thing works, since all I know is that you put the provided RF transmitter in place of a AAA or AA battery in your remote, and somehow it knows what to transmit to the receiving end. And the thing barely ever needs recharging, plus it even has a standard battery size you can buy at Walgreens for the user-replaceable, rechargeable battery it uses.
Sorry for shilling out, but in case it wasn't already obvious, I really do love the little thing, even if it does look like a UFO.
As for OTA TV, meh. My wife has already told me she'll need the Olympics whenever they come around next summer, but NBC just launched a channel on the Apple TV, so I figure we'll just use that, or else we'll stream it via AirPlay to the Apple TV from one of the Macs or iPads in the house.
Content restriction impedes consolidating equipment. It's really annoying.
Can't serve DirecTV dvr content via DLNA to other renderers--only use their limited mobile app to *stream from the internet* *some* limited subset of their content--not access all of the content you have paid to access via their receiver and have already recorded.
BD+ - can't easily serve blu-rays off a media server w/o pita ripping procedures that often must discard menus and/or transcode content.
HDCP - can't use mythtv or other home grown dvr solutions to consolidate media libraries from proprietary sources.
I see no advantage to any of these technologies for the consumers--they instead literally force the consumer that wants true ease-of-use to circumvent them via "illegal" means. I don't know how you would source the data to run the math, but I'd wager it actually costs the content producers more revenue than it saves them in the long run.
Living Room: nVidia Shield TV with Kodi (XBMC)
Bedroom: Asus O!Play Air (yeah, it's old, but it streams all local media)
Work-out room: Boxee Box
To take on vacation: Roku stick + Pico Projector + Klipsch bluetooth speaker (and Asus Transformer tablet for 2TB of local media connected to projector)
Living room 40" TV HP dc5750 with low power video card. Win7 w/Media Portal, Bluray used with amazon video and Plex DLNA
Bed room 1 50" TV HP dc5750 with low power video card. Win7 w/Media Portal, Bluray and TV used with amazon video and Plex DLNA
Bed room 2 20" TV HP dc5750 with low power video card. Win7 w/Media Portal and a Roku (amazon video and Plex) The roku get used the most.
Server is a old monster with dual 3.8 GHz Xeon (Irwindale) CPUs, 16GB ram, Svr2008R2, 6 3TB drives in RAID 5 - Plex server and Shares for the Media Portal systems and Media Portal TV service. Also the Torrent server.
One HD Homerun dual TV OTA Tuner
All of the network is gigabit.
I tend to use the Plex system more as it less power hungry than the dc5750s
My current setup is as follows,
1 media center pc custom built for low power consumption, using windows 7 / WMC and a hook to go straight to Kodi in WMC.
1 HDHomeRun Duel to sync with both my WMC machine, and get live tv on my RaspPi2 in my bedroom using Kodi and a Mpeg2 license
1. Amazon Fire Stick. I just got a prime membership, and also it runs my netflix.
1. Xbox 360 slim, because Im not ready for the Xbox 1 yet
1 Nintendo Wii
Media center was set to go to sleep mode, but I found that it ran into issues powering back up to record TV, so I leave it run 24/7. The box according to my UPS sucks only 18 watts of power. PC also has an USB Blueray player for whenever I want to rent something from Redbox.
Bedroom PC which is used rarely has an Raspberry Pi 2 running openelec and WMCClient for live TV (TV is an old HD Ready TV without a built in ATSC tunner) and a Roku 1 for Netflix or Amazon instant video. Also using Green power strips that turn off non critical devices when the TV isnt running on both TV's.
TV is addictive, if you have it you watch it. If you don't have it you don't miss it.
Youtube
Netflix
Videostream playing files for computers on the network accessed from the app
If it plays on my android it plays on the chromecast
I schedule recording of over the air broadcasts, strip commercials, and archive. I buy blu rays or DVDs of shows when they are released as full collections of all seasons for $40 or under and archive those on my NAS as well and serve to the house. I don't always watch the latest things right away but I get most of the popular stuff. My library also carries many TV series and films and I can borrow them for free. Also swap with friends.
Twinstiq, game news
You can put any layers of NAS, media center interface, dedicated boxes, transcoders, receiver and so on but in the end you're only "encaspulating" the data in some way and there's nothing more simple than navigating a directory with a file manager and launching movies and video in VLC or similar.
I once had files served by a NAS (always on seedbox), that were transcoded by the dekstop PC (around 170% CPU use) to be read by a friend's PS3 and its incompatible player software. The PS3 connected to an old-style TV at least.
It was fairly ridiculous to use three machines for a task that would be perfectly done by a single one, and at 10% or 20% CPU use. When the NAS developed a problem I went back to all data on one machine. I you need data over the network there's e.g. sshfs.
Music is best serve by a massive private collection on the HDD too, and a player like Winamp, Audacious or Deadbeef (did you know : Audacious even has a Windows version nowadays, if you find yourself on someone else's PC) although there's "frustration" if it doesn't contain something you want/need, and it's all stolen music anyway. But hey, you can dump a thousand tracks from youtube and that'd be 100% technically legal (because I reasonably suppose youtube has some sort of agreement and I cannot judge if the albums and tracks are legit or not?)
To expand my collection of stolen movies and music adding a 6TB RAID 1 or similar would do wonders. That costs many hundreds of dollars though. A desktop PC is free (for most media consumption something like a Pentium III 700, 128MB RAM and a 2D graphics card would do. I like big stereo speakers but don't care much for a 60" TV or monitor. Stuff still is released in xvid)
40" TCL 1080p 60hz dumb tv (got it for $250 on sale).
Roku 3 ($99)(1st version, no voice search)
Philips 2.1 sound bar w/ virtual surround. $80
I have a fairly small living room and this setup does the trick.
Certain videos and shows (mainly youtube stuff) have a strange "laptop speakers" effect through the sound bar unless I disable the virtual surround. It must have something to do with the way the soundbar encodes the audio into separate channels?
I also have an old dvd player that I use once in a blue moon for library rentals
On occasion I will move my PC across the living room to the tv and do some couch gaming when the wife isn't around. She always lets out a distinct *sigh* whenever I make a move to my computer desk, as she knows once I've started the machine there will be no netflix&chill for the remainder of the evening.
Home server downloads and stores the torrents, and serves a Samba share containing a neatly organized library of symlinks to the media files. I can play these back on any general-purpose computing device. One of them is a dedicated HTPC in the living room.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I'm currently using a FireTV Stick with sideloaded Kodi, once the folks at Silicone Dust finish their client I plan to add one of the new HDHomeRun boxes and a NAS for OTA and use Kodi to front end that and finally cut the cord since I find myself mostly watching streaming content these days but it would be good to have some way to get the locals.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Windows 10
VCD
MicroATX i3 w/ 4gigs of memory
250g solid state drive
CD/DVD/Blueray drive
All mounted in a custom build frame inside of a 1930's style cathedral wood radio.
That connects to a 500w head unit with 4 sets of speakers (12",6",tweeter, each) and a 48 LED flat screen.
Youtube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, DVDs, and low intensity video games all play wonderfully.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
When my Comcast bill steadily crept up and reached $250 with all the bundling (internet, cable, phone - which I didn't even hook up after a year), I got fed up and seriously looked at cutting the cord. Plus, the customer service was so frustrating that I just wanted to shake off the whole bundling and customer service mess so I could breathe a little better.
I first solved the internet problem by hooking up with a local vendor - a setup that I ran in parallel with Comcast's internet for a month or so. I live in a building and my local vendor has hooked up her pipe directly to the Ethernet switch in my building, so all I have to do is to hook up my wireless router to the Ethernet port in my living room. Quite elegant actually. Cabling is Cat5, but really, for my needs (~30-50mbps), that really is quite sufficient. The only downside is that the local vendor is not fiber or even copper all the way through. They have a wireless connection before they reach my building, which means that in really bad weather, connectivity is sometimes spotty. And sometimes, the wind is so strong that it moves the dish that they use for transceiving. So a tech has to reposition the dish, and I lose internet connectivity when that happens. Has happened a few times last year, but all in all, the service is decent and support is actually quite nice and human.
Next problem: OTA. I was really tempted by options like Simple TV. I especially liked its Roku integration - which meant that I could have used Roku as my one stop shop for all TV content - on-demand or live. However, the reviews also indicated that it did have some drawbacks. So I ended up buying a Mohu Leaf indoor antenna (powered), a ChannelMaster+ DVR without storage, and a 256GB pen drive for $80 to act as storage. Antenna positioning was a bit finicky but in the end, the setup worked. Channelmaster was quite decent actually in terms of user interface, and would even get programming info from the internet for free. I didn't go for a Tivo because I hated paying a monthly fee for channel info and for their service - in my mind, the whole point of cord cutting was to reduce these monthly payments.
I already had Netflix and Amazon Prime, but the Roku2 XS was hanging fairly often. So I replaced it with a Roku 3 (about $90) and boy, did it make a difference. I also added Hulu and Sling subscriptions. Sling really represents the future of television broadcasting. The only downside was their sports coverage - while they show ESPN, I was unable to get football. I was getting football on OTA but due to several storms etc during last winter, the coverage was often spotty. In a couple of cases, I had recorded football games and was avoiding seeing the score so I could watch it later not knowing the outcome. However, a significant part of the match was unwatchable because the screen was totally pixellated or too flickery. It is interesting to see how much we have taken reliability for granted. A nice thing about Sling though is that it allows you to see all programs in all channels "on demand" that were aired in the last 48 hours. In other words, it acts as a DVR that records everything in every channel for the last 48 hours. Something that no DVR currently does today. Well, scratch that. Comcast allows us to see a lot of content "on demand", but it often takes them a few days to make the content available on demand after it has aired.
Finally, I also got Google Chromecast so I could throw or cast non-youtube content on to my TV. Roku finally has a youtube channel and also has a couple of other apps but there are often limitations. I did a A/B comparison of youtube over Chromecast versus youtube via Roku (directly via Roku as well as streaming from my phone - but casting into Roku's youtube channel instead of casting into Chromecast). The funny/ironic thing is that the quality of video and audio on Roku's youtube channels (direct streamed as well as cast from my phone) was significantly superior compared to Chromecast. Ironic because Google's Chromecast is inferior for Goo
Currently I use: Services: Netflix and Spotify. Tried Apple music but dumped it due to having no web player for use at work, or Sonos interface (yet). Kit: HP ML115 server running Windows 10 and Plex (for media collected before my streaming days) Samsung Smart TV and PS4 Cambridge Audio stereo amp with Monitor Audio Silver speakers Sonos x 3 And there is the rub. Sonos. I have no way of piping the TV/PS4 sound to Sonos (ok, maybe somehow with a lag). Spotify provide a crap API (I think), while Sonos refuse to allow Spotify Connect to directly send music to my speakers. The worrying thing is, the more of these walled garden, monthly fee charging companies that are around, the more likely you'll need to subscribe to many of them to watch what you want. This encourages piracy by making stuff difficult. Similarly, when a service provider decides to not play ball with another, it leaves the user no choice but to switch to a different service. Not so difficult with music, as most of them see to claim millions of songs these days. So, I'm tempted to sell Sonos and see what happens with Google Chromecast Audio, or one of the Spotify Connect devices which will no doubt be much cheaper than Sonos.
Proliant Microserver with Synology software on it, so I can access my media on all my devices at home or on the road.
I just plug a laptop into an external monitor and some bookshelf speakers for Netflix/Hulu streaming. The monitor sits on an old piano bench in front of my bookshelves. When I want to use the monitor for my desktop computer, I unplug it and carry it across the room to my desk. I also have an old Android phone that I use just for music from Pandora/Spotify. I switch the speakers between the phone and the laptop by unplugging the audio cable from one and plugging it into the other.
is how I get most of my content, using get-iplayer and connected via unotelly, as I don't live in the UK. Anything appearing on ITV (i.e. not BBC) I can usually torrent from torrenting.com.
I have a mintbox in the basement with appx. 30TB of disks attached containing all my video and music.
Video is watched in the "media room" via a Dune BD media player connected via HDMI to a Samsung smart TV, although the sound goes through my main stereo system (Linn pre-amp and power amp, poweing Apogee Stage ribbon speakers, Sony power amp for the Jim Rogers subwoofer).
I also have a no-name Android box powering a 12-inch TV in the living room, although we hardly ever watch that.
Music played via a Logitech Transporter (no longer manufactured) served by their media server running on the mintbox.
I stopped paying for cable about 8 years ago. I switched to Netflix for dvds and buying a season pass on iTunes 4-6 times a year. Not long after I was able to get netflix streaming, and a few years ago amazon prime. More recently we added HBO now. This itunes/netflix/hbo arrangement is still how I consume most of my movies and tv today.
My setup includes a 6tb hdd connected to my router that serves as my iTunes library on my desktop for "legacy media" ( i.e. ripped dvds that all sit in the attic now ). Out of the three rooms with tv's in the house two of them have xbox ones with an apple tv plugged into the hdmi in, the third tv only has the apple tv. All movies and tv shows from the past 5-6 years are all digital and recently with games we switched to all digital starting with steam and then later switching to digital on console with the xb one.
I use a Roku3 for everything on my living room TV with Plex/Netflix mostly. Then I use my parents DirectTV login and a friends Brighthouse login in order to use WatchESPN, HBO, TBS, FOX, etc. etc.
I run a PLEX server on my gaming PC and also connect to a few friends that also run PLEX. I then have a laptop connected via HDMI in order to stream some sports that I dont get in my area.
I don't mean to sound insulting, I just don't understand why people have that much storage at home for tv shows/movies? Maybe its just me but I rarely watch something more than once.. There are only a few select movies that I have watched more than once.. Star Wars, LOTR, just to name a couple. So to have that much space holding on to things i'll never watch again, I just don't get it.
On top of that, i've run custom setups and I just got tired of maintaining it. Now with Netflix, US Netflix, Shomi and my PVR I have a long list of content I have to watch. I have been eligible for a new PVR for quite awhile now but I can't seem to clear the backlog.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
Do you have a music streaming rig?
I really like Clementine as a front-end.
On the back end, I do have a little shoebox ION server with a RAID1 library. But I don't really enjoy maintaining all that myself; I really prefer having streaming music playing from some human-curated feed. http://somafm.com/ has a lot of great streams, as does http://di.fm/ and http://sleepbot.com/ is also quite unique.
I'll occasionally use streamripper to record and m3u tag streams for, uh, time-shifting on the car or subway. It also makes a good icecast proxy, so I can have several clementine players around the house connected to my central box, so the house is just consuming one stream from the site, but I can walk from room to room and have everything playing at just about the same place.
Diskstation has been a great user friendly alternative for someone not Linux literate (gasp). Very plug and play and intuitive software.
You can use Plex with it, or its own native phone apps / Roku channel.
Streaming everything both from the internet and our server through a Roku accounts for 90% of our TV now. The kids love it.
Raspberry Pi 1 in Living Room, 3TB hardrive. Adding old 2TB as other is full.
Raspberry Pi 2 in Office, 5 TB hardrive. Content from KAT.
Dish TV for broadcast. 4 TVs.
An MPD server for music, either stored locally some hard to find stuff, or a lot of online radios organized in playlists.
The server has a dedicated sound card connected to a nice sound system.
I can fully control it from anywhere in the house, either from a laptop, tablet or phone.
As an output, you can easily add an icecast stream to play anywhere else.
Books ... Calibre makes it dead simple. I just run a few headless servers for each library I use, and get anything I need over wi-fi.
Why would you need anything else.
I run a very simple (tomcat hosted) jsp based web page which reads my disk structure and renders a hideous html page which allows you to: 1) Play the movie in the browser (for the kids' iPads mostly, or 2) send a REST call to the Roku to play it on the roku (using a custom "channel" I wrote, which consists of about 5 lines of Roku's proprietary Brightscript.
The Roku channel I wrote can also parse an xml file that my hideous jsp can generate, which will build picture based menus on-screen on the roku. This was so my 4 year-old could find and play whatever the hell they wanted to play. My one design requirement "4 year old can use it"
For the grown-ups, we just have an amazon fire stick (17 dollars on sale) plugged in to the TV. Side-loaded XBMC (now Kodi or something) and pointed it to the same network fileshare that the tomcat server serves up.
My setup is a patchwork, but it works on Android, FireTV, Roku, iPad, and desktop, and it was free, and I have made barely any changes to it beyond adding content for the past 2 years. The biggest downside to all of it is when less techie people come over they always ask "can you set this up at my house?" and my answer is "um, uh, not really." If it were more portable and "standard" it would be better... but it works for me and my family.
I live in the rural third world. I pay 15 USD per GB for slow and flaky 3G mobile internet. So I ssh into an old laptop at my father's house in the UK to download media from iPlayer or usenet or bittorrent using his comparatively luxurious broadband. Then every couple of months he copies it onto micro SD cards and mails them to me. Then I mail them back. Not exactly instant gratification, but I get what I want eventually and it costs next to nothing.
To watch them I just use mplayer on my laptop with a Logic3 clock-radio for better sound.
And a DVD player.
There's almost nothing on worth watching anyway.
My setup is a bit excessive, but it sorta grew up over the years.
I've been downloading TV shows since like 2004 or something. They are stored on a Slackware box (LVM on MD). The current iteration is 48 TB (4 rows of 4x4TB drives in raid5).
Mostly I use eztv for downloading now, supplemented with pirate bay clones as needed. eztv is easy to parse, so I wrote a cron script to grab the magnets to feed into transmission. Transmission can then run a script when a download is completed, and that hardlinks the file into the incoming directory with a decrapified filename.
In the past I used a bunch of other sites and services, including tvtorrents, usenet (leafnode ftw), etc.
I also have a massive mythtv setup, with two backends, 3 HDPVR boxes (hooked up to digital STBs) and 2 HDHR boxes (3 tuners + multiplexing in each). I catch most of the local news, late shows, etc. Most things roll off after 2 or 3 weeks without ever having been watched, but it is nice being able to go back and watch a segment that you hear about later.
TVs are hooked up to a raspberry pi running OpenElec, or to a Zotac zbox running mythfrontend on Slackware, or to both. In my experience, the mythtv frontend doesn't navigate my video collection very well, so I use OpenElec for that. And of course, the myth plugin for XBMC doesn't seem to work well...
I had zero luck with mythbuntu. Actually, I had tried it several times through the years, never successfully, and had nearly given up on it forever. Getting it running in Slackware took a little effort, but works like a champ.
Oh, and I also have a windows box with a WinTV ATSC card in it that I use to stream Vikings games to my brother on the east coast. That's about the only thing that I normally watch close to real-time because we like to text during the game. I try to watch Wild games with about a 90 minute delay. That gives me enough of a buffer to skip the commercials and intermissions, without having to stay up too late. I don't like spoilers, and it is really hard to avoid them the next day.
My current complaint is metadata. The metadata grabbers in both Mythtv and XBMC are awful. And by awful, I mean fantastic 80% of the time, but shitting all over the other 20% of the time. The myth grabber will pop up asking for your input if it can't identify something, but the popup is awful. It gives you a list of possible choices, but no indication of what local file it is looking at. The XBMC grabber just takes the first guess and runs with it.
At some point, I'm going to write my own metadata database and interface, so that I can feed correct information into both of them directly. It will seriously be less work than cleaning up after the shitty grabbers included.
I use UR5L-9000L-IP remotes provided by my cable company to run everything. The TV part is programmed for whatever TV is in the same room. The AUX mode buttons are programmed (learned) from a MCE remote for XBMC, the DVD button is programmed for a STB that my cable company doesn't use, but has codes for most of the buttons I need, and the STB button is programmed correctly for the STBs. XBMC IR support is terrible, by the way.
easy, peazy
But where does the Plex content come from? Even if I was willing to use TPB the whole process of finding and downloading torrents to watch later is a pain that is not worth the effort for more than a few movies.The idea of downloading every TV show and movie that I watch, and then storing it on a media server for later watching is ridiculous. It's quicker and easier to get a Blueray from RedBox for $2.50 that it is to find a decent torrent of a decent rip and then download it.
I live by myself so this wouldn't work for anyone in a family.
I've got a 27" iMac on my coffee table which I use for watching a few shows I download. If there are any movies or TV programs that I really like I buy them. I use iTunes for listening to podcasts and music. I tried Vox and while it sounds great it keeps changing the default application for my MP3s to Vox even though I tell it not to. So I'd love to find another program like that which has great equalizer presets. It puts iTunes to shame for sound quality.
Backups are sent to a Synology NAS which also runs my torrent client, proxy server, and is connected to my VPN so all my Internet traffic is on there instead of having each computer/phone/tablet connecting to the VPN. I just mount a drive on my iMac to access any downloaded media. I also run the BitTorrent Sync server on there and my iMac to act as my own personal cloud. I store my books and magazines on there which I read on my iPad. It loads much faster since it's on the LAN instead of having to go out to Box or Dropbox.
I've been thinking about getting a speaker or two to connect to my iMac if I find a good music player. It'd be nice for shows too.
I've been using something like this for about the past five years now. Before I had a laptop which I was running the torrent client and watching shows. I haven't had cable or satellite since 2003 and don't miss it at all. And I've been using the iPad for reading for the past three years. Before that it was old fashioned paper.
1. A hosted server on OVH Kimsufi to run mldonkey (and a couple personal websites). tvu.org.ru and sharethefiles.com for link listings (mostly ed2k, the occasional torrent).
2. A home file server running some Linux (Arch at the moment). A dozen multi-TB drives as ext3/ext4 on an LSI PCIe card. Files downloaded direct through SSH to circumvent P2P throttling from ISP. Organized with a custom FUSE filesystem of symbolic links, which handle metadata and subtitles. Only metadata is backed up, files are retrieved (when disk fail) through stored ed2k hash. Appear as a single 31TB share on Samba.
3. A Windows desktop as client, running MPC-HC.
The files are also served from home as HTTP if I want to watch the occasional video remotely (MPC-HC handles that OK) or share some show to a friend.
I DVR what shows I care to watch off DirecTV as a figleaf to the media cartels, then frankly pull the commercial-free copies by torrent. I have a 2-bay Synology NAS running Twonky DLNA feeding Roku boxes in the two rooms with TV (grownups & kids). Netflix for streaming media, and I use a combo of MakeMKV and Handbrake to cook down optical discs (yes I still get them) to add to the NAS tank. And NO, I don't torrent the disc contents; why bother? I can stuff the MP4/MKV files onto a thumbdrive and carry them when I travel so I don't have to be concerned with pulling them from my home box over questionable bandwidth.
I have a Synology box, which performs its media server stuff. Anyone can listen to the few GB of music, or watch the several TB of videos thereon. We have several PCs and a TV which can do both. The teenagers are also gamers, but not hard core.
Other than that, we're old-school, as all of us have library cards and are hard-core bibliophiles, including the teenagers. We have at least 4000 real books in the house (last count was about three years ago, so it's probably increased by a few hundred since then), dead trees being the only way to read a book.
I've got a windows 2012 server (for storage) in the basement and run MediaPortal on my HTPC(s) (running Windows 10)
Also have Chromecasts for music & youtube.
Works well. Very flexible. No transcoding/indexing. I prefer the file system's directory structure.
Third generation Apple TV and Netflix. I don't have to waste any time managing it and it just works.
Apple made a stupid mistake by removing the optical audio output on the new model.
Kodi on Amazon TV, using a central NFS server.
Kodi on Raspberry Pi is also fine, but slower. Still amazing setup for the price.
Amazon TV brings other goodies in the same box, like Netflix.
Wirelessly connected to a TV.
You don't need anything more.
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
SickRage and Transmission to get media.
Synology NAS with NFS shares to store and distribute.
Raspberry Pi 2 connected to the TV with an IR receiver to play.
Used to be a WD TV Live and Serviio as the media server but it started struggling with some new codecs
For Cable TV DVR, I have a windows 7 MCE with Cablecard which takes care of recording everything including premium cable (HBO and Cinemax). The PC is directly hooked to my primary TV. It also run plex server which streams media to Roku box hooked up to my other TV
Linux server running PLEX server with 4, 4tb hard drives.
several nexus players running PLEX client.
Desktop with BDR drive, ANYDVD, and handbrake to "collect" the content.
Why? because fucking american internet sucks for uncompressed 1080p content with full surround. And when the internet is down, you want to watch a movie...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
TiVo does well for items I get through cable, but I don't like its interface to Netflix (it's an older Premiere box).
Things I can't get through cable I get through torrents. Those reside on local file system and get played on TV using Plex serving the stream to my Roku.
Roku is great for Plex, Netflix, and Amazon.
For music I have 6 SlimDevice/Logitech SqueezeBox players streaming from the Logitech Media Server on my desktop. That serves up Pandora and other internet streams, and gives me access to my ~2000 CDs I ripped to FLAC 10 years ago. I have in-wall or in-ceiling speakers in many rooms, and I can sync the various SqueezeBoxes if I want the whole house on one soundtrack.
Anything to screw **AA. Artists get compensated by me from concerts, merchandise, or direct contribution.
Mythtv, antenna, 3 ATSC tuners, 8TB raid storage, OTA Program Guide, no subscriptions to anything. Picture and sound are not degraded by cable company compression. Commercial skip in mythtv is pretty good. I don't know how I could watch TV without it as commercials are inserted at critical points in dramas. Live sports is great delayed at the start by an hour or more. I can skip right over half time and 30 second time outs too. I'll never run out of new (to me) programming. I have some series that I have never watched.
Multiple raspberry pi clients, one connect to main led tv.
Proximus settopbox
We went Apple. I have my media collection ripped to a home server (nettop box with attached storage) and logged in iTunes. AppleTV2 boxes on all the TVs. Subscription to Netflix and Hulu. This setup is wife-friendly and we haven't missed broadcast TV. If any TV series a family member wants isn't already on Hulu, we buy the season on iTunes. The only thing we really miss in this is sports. If it's streamed online, we stream to the TV via Airplay. If not, we will either hit a friends house or local sports bar.
Seriously.
Plex from a 2TB MyCloud drive (which I'm starting to hate; I'm running into an issue where Plex can't see the media but I can play directly from Windows Explorer) to assorted handheld mynocks. I also do streaming via PS4 and still like my Oppo BD player connected to a Pioneer SC-35 receiver. I also have a completely analog setup for my headphones: turntable feeding a ESS P06 phono stage to Bottlehead Crack headphone amp into Beyerdynamic DT 990 cans)
I'm running Kodi on a First Gen Intel Mac Pro 2x2 Xeon. Plenty for what I need. I've got a lot of hard drives plugged in for various libraries, some Firewire. I do all the ripping on my Linux system that has a bunch of optical drives and actually outperforms the Mac on that task.
I'm thinking about switching it over to Linux, a lot of the Kodi plugins don't work and I'm not sure if that's because it's on a Mac or the plugins just suck. I'm going to test them on my Linux box first.
I use the Yatse Remote for my phone, a Rii Keyboard as the "common remote", and I have the HTTP remote enabled so my wife can operate it from her fruit phone (I can't explain how the remote disappears so often).
Also my now elderly LG BluRay player with UPNP and DLNA support is on my desk in my office - it's not very reliable anymore but I can use it to play anything on the server on an extra HDMI monitor I have. It wasn't reliable enough to leave in the living room anymore, but okay tor occasional geek use.
I really need a new TV. I've still got a 36" Dimatron CRT with a VGA to S-Video converter box. At least the setup in my office actually does HD.....
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Bittorrent, Plex, a big USB stick, and an Amazon FireTV stick. Also some Netflix and Amazon Prime.
*(2) gigabit ethernet drops to each room. *A Ubiquiti Unifi AP on each floor. *NAS in central network closet. *Roku 2 on each TV. No 4K TVs so no need for a Roku 4. Don't use Roku remote, so no need for a Roku 3. *Tablo 4 tuner OTA PVR. *Mac Mini running Plex, UniFi, Simple Control Agent, Couch Potato, Sonarr, Handbrake. *Global Cache IP2IR units on TVs controlled by Simple Control (was Roomie Remote) on iOS devices. *iPads with Launchport magnetic inductive charging mounts on walls. *Squeezebox duets controlled by squeeze server on Rasp Pi for whole house audio. *Ceiling speakers powered by HTD amplifier controlled by Global Cache IP2Serial units. *Lighting/HVAC controlled by Mi Casa Verde Vera 3.
CentOS fileserver with ~16TB (4x2TB + 1x8TB) running Plex and Roku's attached to each TV (or projector). The new Roku 4 is available today, by the way, for $129 and supports 4k streaming.
I have a headless server running Debian Linux. It feeds out data over my local area network. Soon I'll extend a VPN beyond my home network into the wild.
I receive media on my phone, my laptop, and my desktop. If I want to, I can screencast media to my roommates 50" HDTV and take advantage of his sound system. That's pretty rad.
While I have a small collection of music and video, mostly I end up streaming Amazon Prime. I just watch Buffy and Star Trek. I am a strange person, I know.
I buy a lot of CDs and DVDs from thrift stores. I rip music from Youtube tracks and save videos from Youtube and open directories. I stopped using Bittorrent because my name isn't on the internet bill and that wouldn't be fair to my roommate. If I wanted to pirate media, I'd just pay for an external VPN service to mask my identity, but it isn't really worth the effort.
1 laptop connected to the big-screen TV, with internet connection for Netflix and ABC iView, and an external HDD for stored content.
1 blu-ray player connected to the TV for occasional discs.
1 eeePC with external powered speakers, exclusively connected to Live365 for music.
Other family members all have a laptop for school, work, and netflix.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
With volume like that, you might want to consider moving to RAID 6 or even RAID 10, though the latter would require you to purchase more HDDs. RAID5 isn't really reliable at those capacities.
Help protect civil rights from abuse by the TSA - visit TSA News Blog.
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Intel NUC running Debian plugged into 2 TVs and one additional sound card for 3 additional speakers throughout the house and bathroom. I use a pair of USB 5TB drives. The NUC is small, quiet and is mounted to the wall.
Mac mini as iTunes server, w/4TB storage for rips of discs I own. AppleTVs as clients w/accounts on iTunes store and Netflix. More crap than I could possibly ever watch.
I primarily use my desktop PC (running Lubuntu) to *ahem* "acquire" media content via torrents or blogs(which link to file storage sites), over my fiber optic connection (Japan, used to Speedtest at 100up/100down, now more like 80/80 on a good day). It's then copied to my USB3 3TB external hard drive (either directly, or over my network if I have the drive plugged into my RPi2). I really need to shuffle my storage around so videos and music are on my 2x4TB drives instead of the 1x3TB.
The RPi2 runs OpenElec/Kodi and pumps HDMI to a 42" AVOL plasma TV with a basic sub + 2 speakers sound system.. I hate this TV, really energy-inefficient but I bought it used, so...whatever...
Books are either read the old-school way or, if electronic, on an iPad Mini. I have a Kindle but it's often loaned out to friends.
I have a server to download/store my media with 8 external HDs. I bought a cheapo 10 port USB hub and kept buying HDs as they filled up. The player user to be wdtv live but now is Raspberry Pi 2 with OSMC on it, accessing the external drives as a share. No RAID, no expensive NASes, everything works. Cheap, effective.
isilon x210 3 node cluster 60tb nas running to my workstation with dual xeon 2697 and quad titan x connected with 10gbps fiber (500mbps infiniband to the cluster), i run 6 hdmi cables to the living room, pool room, guest toilet and a few rooms upstairs.
i access both on my phone/tablet to download/play content to a tv with nfs/cifs network mounted shares (on a 1 gbps fiber backbone).
3 HDTV tuners for OTA, Internet, etc. I don't do Netflix though since I don't like subscriptions.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Unraid server with Kodi for a client, using raspberry pi's as the HTPC client. Love it, I know there is a lot of unraid hate but I haven't had a single problem since I turned it on 4 years ago /shrug.
I've got a NAS in my 'office' room where I store my shows, movies and music. I have it set up to download new shows as they come out via RSS feeds. The bedroom has a simple netbook/HTPC setup with Kodi. Then there's the living room. I have an HTPC with a DVB-T card that serves channels over my network as well as serve as a couch gaming machine (depending on the game it will be run on there or over Steam in-home streaming from my dedicated desktop PC in the 'office' room. I also have a PS4. All connected to a Sony soundbar that acts as an HDMI hub itself. The output of said soundbar heads into an HDMI splitter which then sends all signals to both a 48" screen for day to day use and a projector that at the press of a button drops down over my media setup to reveal a 150" screen.
Gamer/Movie buff approved
well i'd _like_ to tell you but it would be unwise of me to describe the setup in a public forum. but i can say that the only reason i have a TV is because i am in a rented apartment which is set up nominally as a "B and B", and that i love tennis and you really have to have like Eurosport to get it. i did have USB-TV dongles as an experiment (an SDR one) but they're a bit of a pain.
50" 4K TV with PS4 and ChromeCast
Content is acquired through torrents (usually just 720p rips) and either streamed through ChromeCast, or moved on HD that is attached to the TV.
Even if you rent a DVD or BD, it still makes more sense to feed it through some sort of media server solution
Why? Seriously. Why is it better to rip, transcode to a more lossy format(truthfully if/when I rip it's a dd ISO no transcoding), store, stream a Blueray video than it is to simply pop it into the PS3(hope that Sony isn't yet again forcing an update) and hit play.
I really don't understand your assertion Unless the desire is to watch the same movie repeatedly. But, I have no interest in seeing the same show repeatedly. My kids are grown and I no longer have to endure a non-stop loop of whatever Disney video is in favor. I watch a film once and I'm probably done with it. By the time I'm willing to watch it again, it'll almost certainly be on cable where I can watch it at a convenient time with the DVR.
I'm still trying to understand the "convenience" of downloading/streaming videos. Even streaming services like Netflix aren't as convenient as scrolling through the onscreen cable guide and stumbling onto/picking something of interest. With Netflix I have to pretty much know what I want in advance, at least a genre. I'll almost never find anything "new" to watch there and their suggestions of ancient B and C grade movies is pure shit that I will never be interested in.
File server in the dining room with 8x WD Red drives divided into 2 LVM volumes providing 28TB of storage. All movies and TV shows backed up using MakeMKV, music backed up using dBpoweramp. The server is hardwired to a router and each room has a switch also hardwired to the router.
In the living room is a HTPC running Windows 10 connected to a Sony receiver for surround sound which is connected to a Panasonic plasma TV. VLC is used for all media consumption, music and videos, and a MCE remote is used for controlling playback.
In the bedroom is a gaming system running Windows 10 connected to a 27" monitor. All media consumption using VLC as well. Games from Steam and GoG. There is also a 32" LED TV in the bedroom with and HDMI switch that an Xbox360 and PS4 are connected to for console games. An AppleTV is also hooked up to it and mostly used for the PBS and Crackle apps, as well as viewing previously purchased iTunes content (prior to having switch to backing up my own media).
The most recent upgrade to all of this was the addition of a PCIe Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy sound card to the HTPC to get 92/24 audio support for music purchased from Pono, and to provide an amp for headphone use over a long audio cable run.
All of the consoles and STBs used to be in the living room hooked up to the receiver but I found I spent more time on my main gaming system consuming content through websites like Twitch, Youtube, Vessel, and GiantBomb. So, I moved all those devices into the bedroom so I could multitask between media consumption and games.
I'm a single adult male living alone in an apartment. :) :| :(
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
I have a 2", 24 track Studer A820, which I run through a 32 frame D&R Orion into a Mackie Big Knob, selecting either a pair of KRK Rokit RP10-3s or a pair of tiny Denon speakers, powered by a NAD amp. The problems I still need to solve are mainly hooking up outboard gear: compressors, delays, reverbs.
Maybe
I cut the cord years ago. I have a DB4 antenna on the roof for receiving my local areas 15 full HD OTA channels. I have 2 HDHomeRun Dual network attached ATSC receivers plugged into the antenna, which serve OTA viewing to a dedicated PC running Windows Media Center. I have yet to find a better 10 foot interface for DVR / guide and TV viewing than WMC, plus it's included with Win 7 for free. I run a Plex server on the same box (the PC is hooked up to the TV, and that's it), which streams all my content stored on a NAS box. There's a Windows Media Center plug-in for Plex Home Theater, which gives you Plex streaming without having to use a mouse or put down the remote (Harmony 880). There's also an Amazon plug-in for WMC, and up until recently a Netflix plug-in. WMC is the best "dummy / girlfriend" proof interface I've found. It records scheduled shows through the guide perfectly, and has all the standard "cable box" type features including time shifting. An added bonus is the OTA streams are pure, vs the compressed HD you get from your cable shills. I've been on this setup for ~4 years, and I love it.
I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of a ruling class, especially since I rule.
Nowadays I'd do more with Chromecast or similar, but this is what I have:
Server - Fujitsu Primergy TX100S3 - 3,1GHz Xeon. Used for other stuff as well, but has 10TB of storage (of which there's maybe 4TB of video and half a tera of music). Also hosts a MySQL instance for Kodi (formerly XBMC), and QBittorrent opened up via the web interface).
Office Client - I7/4790 box which connects to the above using Kodi or VLC when I'm sick of work. Plugs into my 27" IIyama main monitor as well as a 42" widescreen. Audio via small NAD C715, good enough for a small room.
Downstairs media player - an AMD 350 based box I put together with a cheap 30GB SSD and Openelec. Connects to the server using SMB, manageable via SSH. Hooked up to the big stereo. Firewalled from internets, get updates from server.
Bedroom media player - an Acer R3700 I bought a couple of years ago. Runs Win7, but autoboots to Kodi as a shell so I rarely have to deal with admin on it. As with the downstairs box it's firewalled from the internets and gets WSUSOfflined once a month. Audio is via a Denon DM39 and Mordaunt-Short MS20s, which I'm thinking of moving into the office as they have a better sound.
Works for me pretty nicely overall. Haven't bothered with streaming solutions, would rather rip or torrent stuff and watch it when I get around to it. Most of the films/series I have tend to be older stuff anyway - not that long ago watched the 1950s version of On The Beach for the first time.
Canceled cable, set this up:
Linux (ubuntu) server setup with raid 5. It runs uTorrent web UI and SickBeard on it's web server. For watching I use Kodi on Amazon Fire TV, Zotac ZBox (one of the cheap ones), a Raspberry PI 2 and a regular PC i5 in the living room. My TV has Netfix and Amazon Prime. ... also running PseudoTV on Kodi.
How it works: You add a show to SickBeard. It knows when new episodes of that show come out. It looks online and finds a torrent of a new episode. Once it finds it, it drops the torrent file in a folder that uTorrent monitors to download. Once uTorrent downloads it, it moves it to 'finished downloads' folder, SickBeard watches that folder and renames that file and moves it to where it needs to be, i.e. /tvShows/The Simpsons/Season 21/ ... then it informs one of the Kodi instances that it added a show... you turn on the TV (and kodi) and your new episode shows up on top as "New Episode"...
Everything is automatic and works very well. Everything is controlled through a browser and you don't really have to log into the server ever...
Few things:
SickBeard: I don't really like sickbeard, it does it's job well, but you can't really add new places to look for torrents... what it has built in, is it and now it's not supported anymore. I have it search on kickasstorrents and it'll tell me "haven't found the episode", yet I go there and find it manually. It's not often, but enough so that I'm looking for something new: It also doesn't download data about an episode well enough. Sometimes I have to tell Kodi to update it.
I'm Testing Sonarr and SickRage as candidates for SickBeard replacement. I Installed Sonarr, it runs on Linux through mono. It crashed on me twice when I was doing too many things at once in it... but it looks like a good candidate to switch to. SickRage doesn't look as good, but I haven't really tested them fully.
Fire TV: Kodi on fire TV runs well, but it's a program that runs on the Fire TVs android. You can not turn off Fire TV, it only goes to sleep, and so Kodi needs to be restated once in a while, other wise it get's stupid slow. Once every month?... Settings -> Programs -> Kodi -> Force Stop -> Clear Cache (or something like that). ...
RPi 2: Is a bit slow. It runs well, but not as well as Fire TV. If you don't see Kodi running on the Zotec, you wouldn't complain and think it's fine.
I think the Fire TV is my favorite setup. It runs very well, as good as the Zotec mini PC and the remote is better. For the Zotec and RPi2 i use standard IR remotes. From pressing the button to seeing the selection move, it takes 1/4 a second. It doesn't seem like much, but if you are scrolling through a bunch of shows and click down a bunch of times, with that delay, you don't know where your selection is... nor how many times you clicked. So you go past your selection, and then you have to wait for the selection to catch up to what you pressed on the remote... so you watch things get selected although your not pressing anything... it's fine, you get used to it... however, with Fire TV, it's instant, no delay, no problems. You can hit the down button 5 times in a second and it'll keep up and you don't have to wait for it to catch up.
Dual hex-core 2.8GHz Opteron based server, running Debian Stable off a Samsung evo 850 SSD with 7 x 3TB 7200rpm drives in RAID 6 with a hot spare.
Media organised and served by Plex, FTA TV served by an HDHomerun dual tuner.
Streaming duties are shared by my Yamaha amp (Pandora), Roku 3 and Asus Nexus Player (YouTube and Plex to tv), and various android devices elsewhere in the house. The TV, xBox360, Ps3 and Ps4 offer alternatives for streaming in a pinch, and a separate DVD player (region unlocked) and Bluray player (purchased pre Ps4) round out the playback options.
Video - not bothered.
Music - no.
Is there anything else?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
MythTV backend - HDHomerun and a PCHDTV card for 3 OTA channels at once, plus a PVR250 fed by my Dish Network satellite box and a LIRC. So that's 4 simultaneous recordings at once. Front ends run the gamut - blueray players over UPNP, WesternDigital TV box, Fire TV Stick, Roku, PS3, several first gen Xboxes with XBMC - and then you have the Android tablets for TV-anywhere.
Phono cabinet with (from top to bottom) - Dual record player with an AC to DC and DC to AC converter so that I get 220V/50Hz - Aiwa tuner with time clock - Kenwood amplifier - Monarch equalizer - Grundig CD player - Technics tape deck - Aiwa dual capstan tape deck Next to that a really old midi tower PC running Windows with VLC player and hooked up to a Samsung 42" (ok, that is not that old school). Klipsch satellite speakers and subwoofer US Robotics analog audio remote transmitter and receiver so that I can send and receive audio signals between the living room and the office, rebroadcasts on FM Most of the gear is over 20 years old, but works the same as on day 1. My wife eyes that spot for another bookshelf and eventually the plan is to record all records and tapes and CDs to MP3 and use a Pi 2 (or whatever they will have by then) strapped to the back of the TV to replace it all....actually, more move the equipment to a different spot.