Advice Streaming media at 'ome

[Darthshearer]

Evening chaps

Right I want to be able to watch movies And TV shows etc on my Nexus and the girlfriend on her iPad mini anywhere in the house.

I have a couple of external HDDs and was thinking of putting my movies, TV progs and music on them so I can watch them on the Nexus and IPad.

Now, the placing them on the HDD is the easy part for me. How do I stream them etc now is over to you guru's

 

[Krazeh]

https://plex.tv/

 

[caLLous]

Another vote for Plex. It's better than XBMC at all the server-y stuff and the only other competition for me was MediaPortal, which is Windows only.

 

[Trem]

In my experience XBMC > Plex.

 

[MYstIC G]

In my experience XBMC > Plex.

That is because you're wrong a lot However external hard drives won't do streaming by themselves so more information is required

 

[Moriath]

Nas and wdtv. Or external drives and wdtv

 

[soze]

If you have a powerful machine beside your TV XBMC owns all. Plex is brilliant and not I have changed my media to be MP4's it is brilliant but I never had to change my media with XBMC. For a set up and forget system XBMC. If you want a slightly better library Plex, you can share the library across devices very easily but you need mysql to do the same with XBMC. If you want separate library's on each device XBMC wins.

But as you want it on Mobiles as well go with Installing Plex on one of your machines that you can leave on then index the external hard drives and you are away. Think about if you want one or two library's or if you don't mind sharing a watched / unwatched status.

 

[MYstIC G]

You don't have to change your media with Plex. It's transcoding abilities are one of its best features as it enables multiple devices handle file types they normally wouldn't be able to touch with a barge pole. What's the NAS @Darthshearer

Basically breaking it out simply, if you want something to read files off a folder on a drive then XBMC is easier and more effective. On the other hand if you want something that pushes out video from a central device to everywhere then Plex is the better route.

 

[Hawkwind]

Synology NAS, has apps on Google and Apple to view the streams easily. Simple setup, can't recommend it enough. Great piece of kit. Works great on Apple iPad and iPod Touch etc.

 

[soze]

You don't have to change your media with Plex.

I have had to dramatically increase the power of my Server to allow the change with 4 devices streaming and transcoding the NAS and Micro Server could not keep up. So rather than running the server hot I re formatted my librabry now 4 devices stream without the need to transcode.

 

[DaGaffer]

Synology NAS, has apps on Google and Apple to view the streams easily. Simple setup, can't recommend it enough. Great piece of kit. Works great on Apple iPad and iPod Touch etc.

This, and if you have a device that doesn't have a Synology App, it supports Plex as well. XBMC has a better UI and a lot of whistles and bells (very few of which I ever used) but the Synology apps are much less of a faff.

 

[MYstIC G]

I have had to dramatically increase the power of my Server to allow the change with 4 devices streaming and transcoding the NAS and Micro Server could not keep up. So rather than running the server hot I re formatted my librabry now 4 devices stream without the need to transcode.

I've got the original N36L with its piddly AMD based chipset running FreeNAS and that manages to power through all the transcoding. I can watch content in the office being pushed out from home full screen with no issues?

What were you running on the MicroServer?

 

[soze]

I've got the original N36L with its piddly AMD based chipset running FreeNAS and that manages to power through all the transcoding. I can watch content in the office being pushed out from home full screen with no issues?

What were you running on the MicroServer?

I tried FreeNas, Windows and Linux. Anything more than two connections caused it to start all the connections stuttering. Changing the media was a doddle on a work station in the office so it made sense to get it done and avoid the issue altogether.

 

[Darthshearer]

Thanks guys.

So if I got one of these I could just leave this on with my stuff on?

 

[MYstIC G]

Pretty much, though I'll leave those who own a Synology to advise on which ones are any good.

 

[DaGaffer]

Thanks guys.

So if I got one of these I could just leave this on with my stuff on?

Yes. I'd recommend a dual drive (I have a 212J - I think the latest is the 213) because you can back up to the second drive automatically - I had a disk failure recently and it saved my bacon; but if you're going to keep original content on a PC somewhere than a single drive is fine.

 

[Trem]

That is because you're wrong a lot However external hard drives won't do streaming by themselves so more information is required

No, I tried both and Plex was shite compared to XBMC, Plex took an age to update any new stuff added to the library whereas XBMC is instant. I tried Plex and thought it was awful. In what way is it better than XBMC?

 

[Hawkwind]

Thanks guys.

So if I got one of these I could just leave this on with my stuff on?

http://www.synology.com/en-global/products/spec/DS213j

213J has an up rated processor compared to the 112 or 212 models. I've tested it running 6 streams of HD video (720p MKV & MP4) to iPAD, iPOD Touch, Nokia Lumia and multiple laptops using the web login and interface. Works brilliantly. There is also the 214 which has upgraded trancoding capability, FAQ here.

 

[leggy]

I usually agree with the Trem on most things but I second the vote for Plex. Got it running on a HP microserver and never have problems with it updating (after I changed the setting to actively watch folders). Never got round to replacing my old popcorn hour so I'm using the Plexconnect fix for the ATV3 trailers app. Works a treat and no transcoding/converting needed.

 

[Poag]

My Plex library picks up new additions within a couple of mins, as leggy says, you need to turn on directory watching.

Runs on a 2Ghz Dual Core 2GB Mac Mini running Ubuntu, streams to phone, chromecast and my tv simultaneously without slowdown, the first two require transcoding, the last one does not.

I signed up to PlexPass and dont regret any of it

 

[Trem]

I usually agree with the Trem on most things but I second the vote for Plex. Got it running on a HP microserver and never have problems with it updating (after I changed the setting to actively watch folders). Never got round to replacing my old popcorn hour so I'm using the Plexconnect fix for the ATV3 trailers app. Works a treat and no transcoding/converting needed.

It sounds like I have the exact same setup as you leglar....well, Micro server and stuff but I found Plex really clunky and slow to refresh itself and I hated the online manager interface thing. Also you asked me a while back to let you know about that Minix mini PC I got and if it was any good for streaming video etc, here's my verdict - It is utterly shite at doing anything of any use and watching a video on it over a stream is migraine inducing hell. Avoid them like the plague luv, my Popcorn Hour is still the best media streamer I have had......when it doesn't crash.

 

[Edmond]

can I run plex through the ps3

 

[MYstIC G]

can I run plex through the ps3

Not sure what you mean by "through" but Plex acts as a DLNA server and will serve content to your PS3

 

[Edmond]

ah, so its a replacement for ps3 media server?

 

[Edmond]

just tried installing it but it cant see my server, it needs me to configure a port???????????????????????

 

[MYstIC G]

ah, so its a replacement for ps3 media server?

That is a reasonable comparison.

just tried installing it but it cant see my server, it needs me to configure a port???????????????????????

try their wiki if you're having problems

 

[babs]

Plex here too, and a thumb down for them and his WRONG opinion

Same as leggy, no problems with updating the library if it's set to active watch. Its matching of TV series and names beats xbmc for me, which is probably just my age making me lazy and not wanting to install addins etc.

Plex home theatre us a really nice front end too, I run it on my laptop to a TV, and rasplex on an aging Pi which looks and acts the same.

 

[leggy]

Its matching of TV series and names beats xbmc for me

I love this feature and it has only been wrong on 1 occassion (and it was easy to fix remotely from the plex web interface)

Thanks for the heads on that minix thing @Trem ... I'll probably be looking for a media player soon.

 

[babs]

It's not perfect, but if you've got 20 quid floating about a raspberry pi with rasplex / openelec / raspbmc are very capable with 1080p streaming.

 

[MYstIC G]

It's not perfect, but if you've got 20 quid floating about a raspberry pi with rasplex / openelec / raspbmc are very capable with 1080p streaming.

This @leggy absolutely this.