Home Media Server (1 Viewer)

[HMD]

No. A HP.

I can't help you set it up them. @pete you know that shit on PC don't you?

 

[pete]

ah yeah RDP is grand and easy to set up, but i use teamviewer since it works from anywhere i've internet access rather than just on my own LAN

 

[Theseus Mock]

After years of going through crappy arm-based media boxes, here's how to roll your own TV pirate scooping system where you don't have to faff around with system administrating your setup or wasting time with downloading torrents (How many active TV shows do you track per year? 20 - 50? That's an enormous waste of time going to a torrent site, finding your specific show & appropriate quality, dealing with fakes/REPACKS, ugh, the idea gives me shivers, automate it.)

Storage - Get a NAS (i.e. Network Attached Storage). I have the Synology DS213+ (which is the 2013 version of their 2-bay NAS). Go get the latest and greatest version, the DS216play. The NAS is empty off-the-shelf so you can stuff it with up to 2 hard drives. Go for a WD RED 4TB (around 100 euro). Synology NASes have their own mini-web based OS which run a bunch of apps. Use Sonarr to manage your tv shows, it'll go out and search for any new show releases, download them using Transmission (bittorrent client) and then neatly sort them on your NAS hard disk. Enable the email option to receive an alert whenever a tv show downloads. (Sonarr ideally should be used with a Usenet server but it also support torrents. I don't like torrents as they put stress on the router, your IP is exposed and you can't saturate your connection consistently like with a direct connection like usenet.)

Playing the files - Get an Intel NUC. Get the DN2820. That's a barebones Intel Celeron box which are pretty much used as HTPCs as they're not overly powerful and perfect for a telly box setup. Stick 4GB of RAM into it, get a small SSD (I have 20GB in mine, just go for the cheapest you can find, you don't or won't use this amount of space.) Install OpenELEC on it (which is as easy as just downloading the ISO and sticking it into the NUC, the OS itself is only about 150mbs.) OpenELEC is a linux distro designed for tv boxes and its sole use is to run Kodi (Kodi is the new name for XMBC). Point Kodi at your NAS, let it index all your shows. Configure Kodi to scan your NAS every time you turn it on.

Remote - Get a harmony remote. Harmony have loads of fancy ones out with the last few years but the Harmony 650 still remains a work horse without any fancy touch interfaces or wifi hubs.

There's a bit of initial effort required (sticking HDs into the NAS, sticking RAM and an SSD into the NUC, configuring Sonarr & Kodi) but once that's out the way, the only reason why you'd need to go near the setup again is to add/remove a TV show you're tracking or if something goes awry with downloading a torrent (I know Sonarr does have failed download support so that should try to exhaust any problems there). The apps that run on the NAS are web based & Synology has one of those mysynology services where you can access your NAS (and its apps) remotely outside of your home network.

Plex or Kodi? That Synology DS 216play is fully capable of transcoding video so you could also set it up as Plex server. I've never been impressed with Plex, the fact it transcodes video files on the fly and then sends it over the network gives me the heebie jeebies. Where does one start banging their head if the video begins buffering unnecessarily? Or audio becomes out-of-sync? I avoid head banging if possible. The Kodi approach means it reads the video file from the NAS and plays it natively, Kodi will generally play any video file you throw at it. I can't actually remember the last time I've had Kodi problems.

tl;dr - Get a NAS to store your video files, an Intel NUC to play the files and a Harmony remote to point at the Intel NUC box.

 

[ann post]

My media server is a 9 year old mini Mac running vuze, vlc, iTunes.

Vuze is now controlled by my phone/tablet, they have a program for this. I've had it from new. I might upgrade the ram to 2gb this year.

 

[ann post]

Could probably just get one of those chrome TV / android boxes and ditch the Mac and just phone/tablet the whole thing

 

[Theseus Mock]

Could probably just get one of those chrome TV / android boxes and ditch the Mac and just phone/tablet the whole thing

Those android boxes are becoming more popular nowadays. I guess they're designed for the average user who used to watch pirated stuff from Chinese streaming sites on their laptops and now they want it on their TV. How they deal with the frustration of scrolling through dodgy listings in dodgy repos is beyond me.

 

[pete]

Raspberry Pi is going to be a popular platform in THAT SPACE soon.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

Storage - Get a NAS (i.e. Network Attached Storage). I have the Synology DS213+ (which is the 2013 version of their 2-bay NAS). Go get the latest and greatest version, the DS216play. The NAS is empty off-the-shelf so you can stuff it with up to 2 hard drives. Go for a WD RED 4TB (around 100 euro). Synology NASes have their own mini-web based OS which run a bunch of apps. Use Sonarr to manage your tv shows, it'll go out and search for any new show releases, download them using Transmission (bittorrent client) and then neatly sort them on your NAS hard disk. Enable the email option to receive an alert whenever a tv show downloads. (Sonarr ideally should be used with a Usenet server but it also support torrents. I don't like torrents as they put stress on the router, your IP is exposed and you can't saturate your connection consistently like with a direct connection like usenet.)

Bought a NAS
This one from Best Buy

Seagate - Personal Cloud 3TB External Hard Drive (NAS) - Black

Now that I have time off, I'm finally going to get this together.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

Playing the files - Get an Intel NUC. Get the DN2820. That's a barebones Intel Celeron box which are pretty much used as HTPCs as they're not overly powerful and perfect for a telly box setup. Stick 4GB of RAM into it, get a small SSD (I have 20GB in mine, just go for the cheapest you can find, you don't or won't use this amount of space.) Install OpenELEC on it (which is as easy as just downloading the ISO and sticking it into the NUC, the OS itself is only about 150mbs.) OpenELEC is a linux distro designed for tv boxes and its sole use is to run Kodi (Kodi is the new name for XMBC). Point Kodi at your NAS, let it index all your shows. Configure Kodi to scan your NAS every time you turn it on.

I'm gonna get the bundle here with the 8GB option
BRBN INTEL|BOXDN2820FYKH0 R Configurator - Newegg.com
What do you think?

 

[ann post]

I think you'd get a second hand mini Mac for beans

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

I think you'd get a second hand mini Mac for beans

I dunno.

I'm already almost completely in the dark with the PC stuff.
Opening an entire new ecosystem of ignorance doesn't seem wise.

 

[ann post]

I dunno.

I'm already almost completely in the dark with the PC stuff.
Opening an entire new ecosystem of ignorance doesn't seem wise.

The thing about macs is you buy them and you plug them in. They do video on way less ram (my 1gb ram one is grand on movies up to about 3gb). It's a 1.8 GHz machine and I still record and mix music on it.
Intel processor, 4gb ram, make sure it has the ports you need and you are elected

 

[Theseus Mock]

I'm gonna get the bundle here with the 8GB option
BRBN INTEL|BOXDN2820FYKH0 R Configurator - Newegg.com
What do you think?

8GB would be overkill if using it just for a HTPC but if you *think* you might stick some form of Windows on it, I'd say for the 8GB.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

What is HTPC?

 

[pete]

What is HTPC?

Home Theatre PC

 

[pissypants]

How did this all work out, @7 - No tomorrow ?

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

How did this all work out, @7 - No tomorrow ?

Not great, Bob

Well, kinda sorta.
Like I said, I bought one of these
Seagate - Personal Cloud 3TB External Hard Drive (NAS) - Black
And I can download torrents directly to it and navigate around it through my TV.
It's not highly user friendly though; like if I want to pause an episode and come back to it, there's no 'resume' feature that I know of.
So it's clunky, but it works.

And there's no web access to the thing. Any laptop accessing it has to have the Seagate software. Which seems a bit cunty to me.

 

[Theseus Mock]

Not great, Bob

Well, kinda sorta.
Like I said, I bought one of these
Seagate - Personal Cloud 3TB External Hard Drive (NAS) - Black
And I can download torrents directly to it and navigate around it through my TV.
It's not highly user friendly though; like if I want to pause an episode and come back to it, there's no 'resume' feature that I know of.
So it's clunky, but it works.

And there's no web access to the thing. Any laptop accessing it has to have the Seagate software. Which seems a bit cunty to me.

Turn on the Advanced features and go look for 'Transmission' in the 3rd party apps. http://www.seagate.com/manuals/network-storage/seagate-personal-cloud/app-manager/ If it'll have any torrent client, it'll be that. (Transmission is the best cross-platform torrent out there at the moment).

Are you sure you can only access the Seagate management interface using their app? You should be able to navigate to it in your browser, most likely an IP of 192.168.1.* depending on your router setup.