Living Room Media - HTPC - PLEX - XMBC
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Tech9ine
Nov 15, 2012, 9:52:56 AM11/15/12
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What does everybody else do?
I keep seeing all the Tech Blogs stating how to use Plex or XMBC and then I read the comments and I am dumbfounded as they do things that are unneeded or not done right in my opinion.
To me it was simple and I am not an IT expert. (I am pretty close to a Tech expert though:) I started off using XMBC on a Jailbroken Apple TV 2. It started off good, but the more movies I got, the slower it seemed to get. It also took forever to update and scan for new titles and add them. It was still better that using my Air Server as it pulled in Album Artwork and etc and made everything pretty. Even my wife could figure it out. Anyway after getting tired of the slow scans looking for new titles I decided to try Plex. I had a spare Mac Mini laying around. I hooked up my Mini, in my networking room, and downloaded the Plex Server to it and created a TV section and Movie section and linked it to my 2 NAS's. I then added Plex to my 2 Jailbroken Apple TV's, Roku, and my 2 Google TV's. Works like a charm! The Mac Mini acts like a server and does all the background work while my "smart boxes" in the living rooms and bedrooms are the clients. All my video formats work flawlessly (.mkv, .avi .MP4, .divx and etc.. I never have to worry about updating titles on my client side. That is done automatically on the server side. My wife loves it as she can figure it out really easy! I have been running Plex for a year now and I have never had a problem. I do encode and store my Blue-Ray movies in H.264 to save NAS Spave. An 8GB movie can be put down to about 1.4 to 1.8 Gb's and still look like HD quality.
These blogs keep telling people to Handbrake everything. Well folks....I have never had to Handbreak 1 movie or TV show. If I did....none of this would be worth it. Handbreaking a movie takes forever!!!! I know because I did this for my iPad a year ago. it totally sucked! They also keep telling people to have an htpc attached to your PC. I find this wrong and expensive. This is what you needed to do before all the "smart boxes" existed. If you want to do it right, use that money and buy a nice powered computer that can be used as a server and other things that is located in your basement or closet. Use a "smart box or x-box/playstation" as your clients.
A lot of people also get stuck on Plug-ins. My suggestion would not to use Plug-ins. If you have an Apple TV, Google TV, or Roku....then just use the Netflix App built in. If you really need Hulu...then just purchase a Roku for $50 to $99.
I also see this guy putting XMBC on a Rasberry Pi and I wonder why? The Pi is $35 and the Starter kit he uses is $65. You can buy a "smartbox" for $50 to $99. His Raspberry PI will also bog down over time....hence why it is better to have a media server doing the hard work.
My thing with hacking is ....why hack if something has already been done and it is not equal to or better than another hack or product? Save the Rasberry Pi and do something useful and creative with it. TO have it act as a Media Server with just XMBC seems very wasteful to me.
Ross Larson
Nov 15, 2012, 10:54:31 AM11/15/12
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I think that the phrase "my 2 NAS's" probably explains why you don't see much point in running XBMC. XBMC can be run either as a lightweight frontend on things like the Raspberry Pi, or it could be installed on a beefy Linux box that serves as both NAS and HTPC.
Coming up with a living room media solution is a little complex, because there are a few factors to keep in mind.
Do I have a wired or wireless network available?
Will I be streaming from the internet, locally, or both?
Where is my local media stored? How is it available to the network?
How many screens am I trying to broadcast to?
Do I need my solution to work with Apple products?
How much money is available for this project?
How flexible do I want the hardware to be?
How much hacking do I want to do to get it working?
Will this work for my wife (AKA Wife Acceptance Factor, or WAF)? Could my kids use it?
How easy will the solution be to maintain?
The answers to the questions will determine the solution for you. One new-ish Linux PC with a large hard drive running XMBC and Plex or samba can be the solution for a one screen household. Smart boxes and game consoles can be a big part of these solutions, but that assumes that you already own them, or have purchased hardware that works with your setup. I have a WDTV set top box that works great for local media but has no support for networking. There also is the question of vendor lockdown with some of these dedicated boxes. If you don't like the performance of your Raspberry Pi, you can format the SD card, install Raspbian, and use it as a thin client or emulation station. A roku box, however useful in its current form, will always be a roku box.
I agree with you that it's odd to brag about using a $35 PC for a solution if you had to spend an extra $150 to make the solution work for you. The nice thing about the Raspberry Pi is that you may already have a usb keyboard, mouse, HDMI/composite cable, and be able to make a case out of cardboard. This means that you could actually put XBMC on an old tube TV that had previously been gathering dust in the corner for less than the price of a dedicated box, many of which no longer have composite output (like Google TV).
The solution has to match the problem, and not every problem is the same.
Ross
LetUsPrey
Nov 15, 2012, 10:57:14 AM11/15/12
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Here's the setup I use. In my living room I've got a PI running
raspbmc. In my bedroom and computer room I've got atv2's running xbmc.
All three pull from a NAS.
Over the years I've gone through various setups. It started with XBMC
on an Xbox, but as HD quality became more common in my collection I
moved to a mac mini with plex, then a cinematube box, then a boxee box,
then to a WMC, XBMC and atom based HTPC (infinitv tuner, drm, windows,
bleh), and then to my current setup.
Basically what I've come to realize is I want something that just works,
is quick to boot up, and is low power usage. When it comes to "just
working" XBMC is about the only thing I've found. It handles a myriad
of formats, doesn't require endless amounts of time configuring, and has
a nice set of useful plugins.
The cinema tube player worked well enough, but it's interface was
painful to use hence its retirement. The appletv's with xbmc work
except they're very limited on what they can play back ... and that's
the reason they'll be retired in favor of PI's if the PI ever gets DTS
hardware decoding.
Plex on an HTPC was frustrating to no end. For one, if it locked up or
there was a power outage you had to get up to boot the thing back up
(yes I am that lazy). You also had the delay in boot times. Being that
the mac mini has a traditional HD you also had the risk of it failing at
some point. All things I don't want to deal with. The plex on osx
setup also had the issue of any time there were system updates it'd put
plex in the background requiring me to get out a keyboard and mouse to
deal with it. On initial boot you'd also get the popup of "no mouse
connected." I know there's hacks to get around those issues but that
all breaks the "just works" principle.
The PI running raspbmc is, by far, the best setup I've encountered since
the days of XBMC on the xbox. It just works, It will play anything you
can throw at it, it uses nothing for power, boots up fast, and through
CEC can be controlled by my harmony remote without needing a dongle.
Just plug it in, stick it behind the tv and it works. The two issues I
have run in to it have not been deal breaks for me. Number one the
interface is kind of slow, but 99% of the time I using XBMC remote from
my phone or ipad to pick what to watch. Number two was the lack of DTS
decoding making bluray rips unwatchable. That just ended up making a
good exuse to upgrade my receiver to something that had HDMI (TX-NR818)
which in turn let me get rid of a couple of hdmi switches and a lot of
cabling. Now it's at the point where it really just works which is what
I have been looking for.
On the library updates you mentioned. Personally, that's a feature I
absolutely abhor. The data is inconsistent and inaccurate at best and
it really fails on anything semi-obscure (ie: 20-30 year old syndicated
tv shows). The way I have my NAS organized it's in the format I want
anyway so that works just fine for me. When I have messed with the
library scanning I can say it has just been buckets of slow and fail
on every setup (boxee, xbmc, and plex).
On the boxee, for the sake of covering my thoughts on all the setups
I've had. It's about the most disappointing, overpriced POS I've run
across. Not only was there bait and switch when it first came out (it
was initially suppose to allow xbmc to replace boxee), but it's violated
GPL repeatedly, and has been horribly buggy. Forced updates to buggier
software are also a problem. If that thing ever gets "opened up" the
hardware would make for a nice XBMC setup, though.
On why XBMC over hulu, netflix, etc. that's a pretty simple answer.
Their selection blows and there's monthly fees. The monthly fees
wouldn't be so bad if there was stuff worth watching, but they by and
large do not carry any of the stuff I'd be interested in which I don't
already own on DVD or Bluray or have recorded and archived off to my
NAS.
One thing I've been wondering/meaning to look up... what would it take
to set up live streaming to XBMC from my Tivos. Essentially turn them
in to networked cable boxes. That would be a nifty feature to have, not
to mention live streaming off tivos would be a good timesaver for
archiving recordings.
> I also see this guy putting [1]XMBC on a Rasberry Pi and I wonder why?
>
> Visible links
> 1. http://www.element14.com/community/groups/raspberry-pi/blog/2012/11/08/build-a-raspberry-pi-media-center
raspbmc. In my bedroom and computer room I've got atv2's running xbmc.
All three pull from a NAS.
Over the years I've gone through various setups. It started with XBMC
on an Xbox, but as HD quality became more common in my collection I
moved to a mac mini with plex, then a cinematube box, then a boxee box,
then to a WMC, XBMC and atom based HTPC (infinitv tuner, drm, windows,
bleh), and then to my current setup.
Basically what I've come to realize is I want something that just works,
is quick to boot up, and is low power usage. When it comes to "just
working" XBMC is about the only thing I've found. It handles a myriad
of formats, doesn't require endless amounts of time configuring, and has
a nice set of useful plugins.
The cinema tube player worked well enough, but it's interface was
painful to use hence its retirement. The appletv's with xbmc work
except they're very limited on what they can play back ... and that's
the reason they'll be retired in favor of PI's if the PI ever gets DTS
hardware decoding.
Plex on an HTPC was frustrating to no end. For one, if it locked up or
there was a power outage you had to get up to boot the thing back up
(yes I am that lazy). You also had the delay in boot times. Being that
the mac mini has a traditional HD you also had the risk of it failing at
some point. All things I don't want to deal with. The plex on osx
setup also had the issue of any time there were system updates it'd put
plex in the background requiring me to get out a keyboard and mouse to
deal with it. On initial boot you'd also get the popup of "no mouse
connected." I know there's hacks to get around those issues but that
all breaks the "just works" principle.
The PI running raspbmc is, by far, the best setup I've encountered since
the days of XBMC on the xbox. It just works, It will play anything you
can throw at it, it uses nothing for power, boots up fast, and through
CEC can be controlled by my harmony remote without needing a dongle.
Just plug it in, stick it behind the tv and it works. The two issues I
have run in to it have not been deal breaks for me. Number one the
interface is kind of slow, but 99% of the time I using XBMC remote from
my phone or ipad to pick what to watch. Number two was the lack of DTS
decoding making bluray rips unwatchable. That just ended up making a
good exuse to upgrade my receiver to something that had HDMI (TX-NR818)
which in turn let me get rid of a couple of hdmi switches and a lot of
cabling. Now it's at the point where it really just works which is what
I have been looking for.
On the library updates you mentioned. Personally, that's a feature I
absolutely abhor. The data is inconsistent and inaccurate at best and
it really fails on anything semi-obscure (ie: 20-30 year old syndicated
tv shows). The way I have my NAS organized it's in the format I want
anyway so that works just fine for me. When I have messed with the
library scanning I can say it has just been buckets of slow and fail
on every setup (boxee, xbmc, and plex).
On the boxee, for the sake of covering my thoughts on all the setups
I've had. It's about the most disappointing, overpriced POS I've run
across. Not only was there bait and switch when it first came out (it
was initially suppose to allow xbmc to replace boxee), but it's violated
GPL repeatedly, and has been horribly buggy. Forced updates to buggier
software are also a problem. If that thing ever gets "opened up" the
hardware would make for a nice XBMC setup, though.
On why XBMC over hulu, netflix, etc. that's a pretty simple answer.
Their selection blows and there's monthly fees. The monthly fees
wouldn't be so bad if there was stuff worth watching, but they by and
large do not carry any of the stuff I'd be interested in which I don't
already own on DVD or Bluray or have recorded and archived off to my
NAS.
One thing I've been wondering/meaning to look up... what would it take
to set up live streaming to XBMC from my Tivos. Essentially turn them
in to networked cable boxes. That would be a nifty feature to have, not
to mention live streaming off tivos would be a good timesaver for
archiving recordings.
> The Pi is $35 and the Starter kit he uses is $65. You can buy a
> "smartbox" for $50 to $99. His Raspberry PI will also bog down over
> time....hence why it is better to have a media server doing the hard work.
>
> My thing with hacking is ....why hack if something has already been done
> and it is not equal to or better than another hack or product? Save the
> Rasberry Pi and do something useful and creative with it. TO have it act
> as a Media Server with just XMBC seems very wasteful to me.
>
> References
> "smartbox" for $50 to $99. His Raspberry PI will also bog down over
> time....hence why it is better to have a media server doing the hard work.
>
> My thing with hacking is ....why hack if something has already been done
> and it is not equal to or better than another hack or product? Save the
> Rasberry Pi and do something useful and creative with it. TO have it act
> as a Media Server with just XMBC seems very wasteful to me.
>
>
> Visible links
> 1. http://www.element14.com/community/groups/raspberry-pi/blog/2012/11/08/build-a-raspberry-pi-media-center
Tech9ine
Nov 15, 2012, 11:16:40 AM11/15/12
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Zoot - Explain this - "One new-ish Linux PC with a large hard drive running XMBC and Plex or samba can be the solution for a one screen household. "
I run 5 TV's off of Plex Media Server. All 5 tv's have either a Google TV or ATV2 as the client. That is why I never use a computer for a client. It is a waste of a valuable resource that could be used as a media server for all your TV's. I have never had a problem with multiple TV's using Plex at the same time. Most of the clients handle the encoding/decoding themselves. Maybe if I had 2-3 TV's watching different shows from my Plex with the server doing the encoding/decoding then I would have a problem but that never happens. The Server usually does the back-end work like pulling artwork/meta data and organizing while the client does the decoding.encoding. This is why I went with Plex over XMBC. I got tired of XMBC taking forever to update any new media and being slow and laggy. Plex manages this flawlessy using a server and client. Google TV also supports DTS now for the Plex Client.
As far as Plex goes....both work with PC and Apple. Plex and XMBC are basically free. You may have to pay for an APP which is $4.99 at the most. The only cost would be $50 to $99 for a client like an ATV2 assuming everybody has a computer laying around that they can run the Media Server off of. Before you do any of this...I would expect you to have your house networked and have an unmanaged switch or 2. You could go wireless....but if I am streaming a movie....I want to make sure it is high quality at all times so I make sure all my rooms with TV's are networked with Cat 6.
Tech9ine
Nov 15, 2012, 11:31:33 AM11/15/12
to dhmn-di...@googlegroups.com, LetUsPrey
Ross Larson
Nov 15, 2012, 11:45:58 AM11/15/12
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I think your solution is a good one, and I'm jealous of the setup. However, your solution doesn't work as well for me.
I don't own any screens that have HDMI inputs. My setup is positively stone age in comparison. Any solution that only has HDMI out (such as Google TV or the Apple TV 2) means that I either need to convert the signal or purchase new screens. I have about 15 computers sitting around, so a spare computer is slightly less of a "valuable resource" to me. My computers that were previously serving as NAS for my home network have been on the fritz, so restoring that setup is priority one for me, when I have time to address those issues.
I've been meaning to wire my house with ethernet, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
Have you ever created a network topology to display your setup? I'd be interested in seeing diagrams of the different topologies that people have.
Ross
Tech9ine
Nov 15, 2012, 12:00:44 PM11/15/12
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As a physical networking guy....you should always do a Star topology or extended star. What I have at home is an extended star. This will make sure your not overloading any spoke on the star with Internal traffic.
Tech9ine
Nov 15, 2012, 12:07:28 PM11/15/12
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The biggest thing you need to remember when networking is not to make Homemade Patch Cables and when you terminate into an RJ45 Jack or Patch Panel....Make sure you are following either the TIA/EIA A or B standard and don't flip them around with each other. Also make sure that you try to maintain the twist of each copper wire so you get lets Cross Talk. And do not peel the jacket back more an inch from the termination. Back in the day...these things really did not matter...but in the last 10 years running high speeds on Copper Wire is a science. Just because a wire is specified to a certain speed does not mean it will work at that speed. The installer (terminator) needs to make sure he is following standards so so speeds can be attained. Keep you Cat 5e or Cat 6 cable away from power lines, microwaves, and florescent lights.
Tech9ine
Nov 15, 2012, 12:16:51 PM11/15/12
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Here is a picture. To create an extended star...attach a switch to a wall plate. Keep in mind....from Computer to switch should be no more than 100 meters long of Cat 5e or Cat 6 cable. Use Patch cables from wall plates to hardware appliance and from Patch panel to switch or Router.
On Thursday, November 15, 2012 10:46:20 AM UTC-6, zoot wrote:
On Thursday, November 15, 2012 10:46:20 AM UTC-6, zoot wrote:
Pete Prodoehl
Nov 15, 2012, 12:21:21 PM11/15/12
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On Thursday, November 15, 2012 8:52:56 AM UTC-6, Tech9ine wrote:
My thing with hacking is ....why hack if something has already been done and it is not equal to or better than another hack or product?
For the pure joy of hacking?
Making something do what it was not intended to do... Reviving old technology for something new... Doing it on the cheap... DIY, not using an established/closed solution.
Just to say that you did it?
So... many... reasons.
Pete
Mark Nickel
Nov 15, 2012, 12:22:47 PM11/15/12
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Agreed to the challenges of making your own cables.
part of it is the quality of the crimping tool... a bad crimp is tough to figure out without a testing device.
Do you have any recommendations on where to get a good crimping tool?
What about a good, inexpensive, line tester?
Tech9ine
Nov 15, 2012, 12:35:58 PM11/15/12
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I would not use a crimper at all. I would buy Cat 6 Cable and use a termination (Punchdown) tool into a Jack. A termination tool (Punchdown) can be purchased at a Home Depot or at a Distributor like Graybar (Nearest Graybar is in Green Bay). The only other thing you would need is UTP Stripper Tool to strip the jacket back. As far as testing tools...go with Fluke. You can find them at Home Depot or Graybar.
Punch Down Termination tool
Mark Nickel
Nov 15, 2012, 12:39:41 PM11/15/12
to dhmn-di...@googlegroups.com
ah ok. i understand... for your "long runs" you punchdown to a patchpanel/wall jack and then use a good patch cable between device/wall jack or patchpanel/router port
gotcha.
Thanks for the links!
Tech9ine
Nov 15, 2012, 12:40:49 PM11/15/12
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Using Crimpers is what a retail store would try to sell you. This way is not up to par with standards at all and result in great degradation. If you needed to do this....due to cost and timing....then by all means do it. Just remember when dealing with video going through those lines...lost packets are a nuance. When it comes to video...you do not want your NIC card/Routers/switches re-sending for lost packets. Video cannot afford lost packets because it is now.
On Thursday, November 15, 2012 11:22:49 AM UTC-6, Mark Nickel wrote:
On Thursday, November 15, 2012 11:22:49 AM UTC-6, Mark Nickel wrote:
Tech9ine
Nov 15, 2012, 12:43:22 PM11/15/12
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You betcha!!! Let me know if you guys would like to borrow any of these tools. I can loan them for a while minus the tester. I don't have one but do not rally need one.
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