garethEds Posted October 29, 2011 Author Posted October 29, 2011 Well I don't know what to do. Plenty of advice on here. I've decided that it is a media server I need to store everything. I've spent the afternoon ripping my old CDs and the wife has been sorting our photos on various storage devices (hard drives, usb hard drives, dvds etc). There are a lot out there but are so expensive - still I suppose you cannot put a price on personal items like photos. Arghghgh - what do purchase... I like the QNAPP devices - the QNAP TS-219P+ is reasonable but I do like the TS-419P+ but the price is what out of my league. It's the iTunes server that is bugging me the most. Yes it can play over the network, but I cannot see if I can drag and drop tunes from the server to my phone - or will I have to link the Library as well and transfer over the network? Decisions, decisions. Gareth
Gatt Posted October 29, 2011 Posted October 29, 2011 Another vote for XBMC - Just started the migration from MythTV to this Using XUbuntu 11.04 as its comes with the XFCE Window Mananger which is designed for low end systems meaning more RAM/CPU for XBMC.... XBMC doesn't need much config compared to Myth and recognises my MCE remote with only a quick edit needed for the Context Menu...
SimpleSi Posted October 29, 2011 Posted October 29, 2011 I use Serviio pn my main pc as my video server and have a sony blu-ray (BDP S370) in the living room as the playback device. I also playback videos to 'droid using UNPNP player Si
garethEds Posted October 29, 2011 Author Posted October 29, 2011 (edited) I've been looking at XBMC on my Mac and it looks pretty cool - and seems to be what I want - especially if it can be used as a media server across the network and somewhere to store things. So I need a machine to run it on - with backup. 2 x 2Tb drives that mirror each other? Connectable to my TV - TV has a VGA input, the two HDMI sockets are taken. Does it need to be a fast machine? I've not looked into running films yet, just storing music and pictures. All the better if they can he played across the network. Anyone ever bought from : http://www.mediacenter-tv.co.uk/full-size-media-centres.html Gareth Edited October 29, 2011 by garethedmondson
plexer Posted October 29, 2011 Posted October 29, 2011 I've just bought a revue from amazon.com £96 inc import duty. Ben
Sheepy Posted October 31, 2011 Posted October 31, 2011 Is that the new Logitech Revue? The one with the latest Android OS and Marketplace? I can't imagine how Android would work on a HTPC...Good luck with it... I've heard that those boxes are kinda limited outside the US.. I've been playing with XBMC on the weekend.. and managed to get BBCiplayer working on the box. Link : xbmc-iplayerv2 - XBMC Plugin for IPlayer - Google Project Hosting Also have live TV working on the box using TVCatchup.com. link : TVCatchup for XBMC - Never Miss A Show Again Now if Only I could get something like Sky+ but for TVCatchup.com Id be 100% sorted... As i've only been using this properly for about a day now(Sky Subscription run out on Friday) I am more than happy with it's results.. Will it stand the test of time? Maybe... It's a very hard transition to go from paid TV subscription with HD and record facility.. but I have to make some savings somewhere..
tommej Posted October 31, 2011 Posted October 31, 2011 Windows 7 media browser and meta - Overview - meta 2.0
fafster Posted October 31, 2011 Posted October 31, 2011 XBMC is lovely. They really need to recode the underlying system to be event driven, though, as the current game-loop architecture adds overhead that doesn't need to be there. I have an AMD Zacate (E350) system running XBMC under Windows7. I've set XBMC to load as the shell instead of Explorer, and auto-logon means that it boots straight into my media. If you're doing something like this from scratch it's probably worth looking at OpenELEC, which is kinda like XBMC-live but uses a custom linux build instead of Ubuntu. They have builds for different architectures (AMD Fusion included), and also have PVR functionality built in. OpenELEC - The living room PC for everyone You can run it off a flash drive, but when I did that I noticed freezes and other I/O performance issues (like scrolling through your library). Better to install it to HDD.
jinnantonnixx Posted October 31, 2011 Posted October 31, 2011 Has anyone compared XMBC with Boxee? As I understand it, Boxee is built on XMBC, but has more goodies.
cromertech Posted October 31, 2011 Posted October 31, 2011 No mention of this yet but I use PS3 Media Server on my Win 7 pc Decodes the vid on the fly so does need a fairly up to date machine, but it's very reliable and will stream movies,music(with Itunes library compatibility), and pictures straight to the PS3. I hoping to move this to a linux box solely for this purpose as the playback occasionally stutters if someone else is using the PC.
fafster Posted October 31, 2011 Posted October 31, 2011 Has anyone compared XMBC with Boxee? As I understand it, Boxee is built on XMBC, but has more goodies. I'm not sure whether Boxee still uses XBMC code, or if it forked off the project. It's pretty much XBMC with a social aspect. It also includes a lot of web content by default. Personally I prefer XBMC as I find Boxee too cluttered, though it has to be said it's more polished.
edutech4schools Posted October 31, 2011 Posted October 31, 2011 Been using XBMC for many many years. I have tested other like boxee but none hit the mark like xbmc. Get a remote for xbmc and a unit that supports hdmi out.
zag Posted October 31, 2011 Posted October 31, 2011 I have a nice little setup at home 2 x Qnap 419x 6gb NAS devices 1 x Lenovo htpc i5/ssd/4gb ram running windows 7 and xbmc/meedios 1 x Pioneer 420-K Amp with HDMI 1 x Logitech Harmony one remote 5.1 x Vibe Home Theatre Speakers
plexer Posted October 31, 2011 Posted October 31, 2011 Is that the new Logitech Revue? The one with the latest Android OS and Marketplace? I can't imagine how Android would work on a HTPC...Good luck with it... I've heard that those boxes are kinda limited outside the US.. There isn't a new one just an update to honeycomb for the old one in an update that's due any time now. I mainly want to use it to watch IP TV and some locally held media which I can do via DLNA for £100 it's a bit of a punt but we'll see. Ben
jinnantonnixx Posted October 31, 2011 Posted October 31, 2011 I have a nice little setup at home 2 x Qnap 419x 6gb NAS devices 1 x Lenovo htpc i5/ssd/4gb ram running windows 7 and xbmc/meedios 1 x Pioneer 420-K Amp with HDMI 1 x Logitech Harmony one remote 5.1 x Vibe Home Theatre Speakers [ATTACH=CONFIG]11847[/ATTACH] Like the angle. Very 'Batman'. Pow!
Rawns Posted October 31, 2011 Posted October 31, 2011 (edited) My sweet setup consists of: 1 x Acer Aspire Revo (Acer Aspire Revo R3700 Nettop - Revo Nettops | Ebuyer.com) ---Running Windows 7 Home ---XMBC Software (XBMC) - Bit more tricky to get up and running compaired to Boxee but IMO, a lot better! 1 x Netgear ReadyNAS Duo (Netgear RND2000 ReadyNAS Duo 2-Bay (no disks) NAS.. | Ebuyer.com) ---2 x Samsung 1TB HDD's (Wish I went for 2 though) 1 x Netgear DGN3500 N-Range Wireless Router (Netgear DGN3500 Wireless-N Gigabit ADSL Modem Router | Ebuyer.com) All the above are connected by 1Gbps eithernet, so no playback lag, buffering etc. If you have an Adnroid phone or iPhone, get the XBMC remote control app. It's GREAT! You can browse your movies, music, TV shows, pics etc on your phone complete with poster art, list of actors etc and start them playing on the TV. And if you get a text message or phone call, it pops up on the TV too! Edited October 31, 2011 by Rawns
fafster Posted October 31, 2011 Posted October 31, 2011 1 x Lenovo htpc i5/ssd/4gb ram running windows 7 and xbmc/meedios This is the first time I've heard of MeediOS. How does it compare to XBMC?
zag Posted October 31, 2011 Posted October 31, 2011 (edited) This is the first time I've heard of MeediOS. How does it compare to XBMC? It isn't really ready for the prime time yet (Only alpha version is released and its under heavy development) but its biggest advantage is being able to have multiple libraries so you can have Movies/Kids Movies/Music DVDs separate. XBMC drives me crazy with its one size fits all library approach. Edited October 31, 2011 by zag
fafster Posted October 31, 2011 Posted October 31, 2011 It isn't really ready for the prime time yet (Only alpha version is released and its under heavy development) but its biggest advantage is being able to have multiple libraries so you can have Movies/Kids Movies/Music DVDs separate. XBMC drives me crazy with its one size fits all library approach. That's something that would be great. Even a simple PIN that you can set based on the movie's guidance rating.
jinnantonnixx Posted December 11, 2011 Posted December 11, 2011 (edited) Quick update, currently building my HP Micrososerver by installing the 'live' spin of XBMC Downloads | XBMC I've used the supplied 250GB disk for /boot, /, and swap partitions. The firmware mirroring facility is 'fake raid' and needs OS drivers so I gave up on that idea. I'm building a software-mirrored LVM volume from the Ubuntu installer (the XBMC live distro is based on Ubuntu 10.04) using two 2GB disks I managed to get for 'only' twice the retail price after the floods. I was going to get a bluetooth keyboard but I found this: Official XBMC Remote for Android | XBMC So now I can control the XBMC server with my phone! Works like a charm from the live boot, so that's cool. The LVM build is taking forever, but it sounds like it's busy.... Looking forward to getting it up and running. Edited December 11, 2011 by jinnantonnixx
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