Video Appliance For a Large Library On a Network? 516
Posted
by
timothy
from the wants-it-all-in-one-place dept.
from the wants-it-all-in-one-place dept.
devjj writes "For the past year or so I have been trying (and failing) to figure out a reasonable solution for bringing my large media library to my living room. All of my media lives on an Ubuntu server that sits on my network. It's been very reliable and it's fast enough for streaming purposes. My content is exposed via SMB. It's the living room side where I keep running into problems. I am currently using Windows 7 and XBMC, but the case is too big and noisy, I don't particularly care for Windows, and the whole thing just seems overkill. What I want is a device that can present a decent UI that the non-Slashdot crowd would be able to use, but that is still powerful enough to stream full-fidelity 1080p. I dream of a small box that can transcode video over a network, but that's probably a pipe dream. The new Apple TV would be great if it could connect to network shares. What say you, Slashdot? Is what I'm looking for possible, or should I just give in to the iTunes/Amazon/whatever juggernauts?"
Mac Mini + Plex (Score:2, Insightful)
XBMC + Asrock ION (Score:3, Insightful)
check out the nvidia ion based boards and systems.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856158009&cm_re=asrock_ion-_-56-158-009-_-Product
enough muscle for 1080p, all packed into a tiny, quiet package
Re:Mac Mini + Plex (Score:3, Insightful)
A Mac Mini is just way too expensive to be abused as a streaming media player.
Appliances may not be upgradable (Score:4, Insightful)
The beauty of a PC is that it's no big deal if a new codec comes around, and if you don't like the interface you have others to choose from.
Appliances have limitations, may not allow new codecs to be installed etc.
Find a quiet PC
Re:XBMC + Asrock ION (Score:3, Insightful)
Seconded. An Ion system with xbmc is what I use and so far we haven't found anything it can't play... case isn't much bigger than a DVD player and even with the optional CPU fan installed it doesn't make much noise.
Re:Popcorn Hour (Score:5, Insightful)
I just looked all over their website and I can't make head or tail of what the thing really does.
Do I have to load data on it or is a just controller and link manager? Does it have native wireless capability (the spec pages say no, the comparison page says yes)? How many boxes do I need to handle 2 PCs , 1 dual-tuner satellite dish/PVR, a BD player, and 3 TVs?
I will never understand why anyone tries to sell a product the customer can't visualize. I will never understand someone who buys something the seller can't explain simply.
Re:Mac Mini + Plex (Score:2, Insightful)
Or as a personal computer.
Re:Mac Mini + Plex: TRANSCODING SUX (Score:5, Insightful)
SO I CAN WATCH IT ON MY HANDHELD!!!
(why are we shouting?)
Seriously, there's lots of reasons to transcode. Not all movies are available for download in friendly formats. I recently got a beautiful DVD set of the silent film Greed by Erich von Stroheim and I wanted to watch it on something that didn't have an optical drive, away from home.
How else but to transcode?