Pimp my network (and entertainment center)

[HeK]

HeK mentioned a Raspberry Pi

I don't recommend it, I said it was am option. It is still slow as balls, even tho it plays everything that I have tried on it.

I wouldn't recommend a full HTPC, even running XBMCbuntu, which I have a hardon for. Too big, too pricey, too much.

I would possibly recommend a Boxee Box, if they were still sold.... but they aren't.

[Eightball]

I wouldn't recommend a full HTPC, even running XBMCbuntu, which I have a hardon for. Too big, too pricey, too much.

I would possibly recommend a Boxee Box, if they were still sold.... but they aren't.

Guess it's the Roku then. There are some Boxees on Amazon still, and the Boxee official site sells "boxee tv" which is apparently much more gimped feature-wise. But I think the Roku will be fine. If not, I guess I can ebay it and get back most of my investment, then turning towards a Boxee. Again I'll be able to test it out in a week or so with my desktop.

I don't know which server would be capable of playing without transcoding. It seems to max out the CPU on a DS212j just building the library. It still might playback fine, I won't know until it's done building. You would probably be safe on anything with dual cores though.

If you were to convert all of your media with Handbrake, it would take a very long time.

Hmm, maybe leaning towards the DS213 then, or maybe even a 213+ (which runs an Atom dual core rather than an ARM). Hopefully with some Youtube prowling I'll get an answer. And I've already started converting my library. It's not too bad right now; I only have about half a terabyte of media, of which less than half needs conversion. I expect it to double in size in about a week though, nyuk nyuk.

Thanks again for the advice so far everyone. Final exams will be hitting me for the next 7 days so I'm putting this project on hiatus. Will update again once I've got the Roku and some spare time.

EDIT: Whoa, 213+ is not an atom dual-core. It's apparently a "PPC 1.06Ghz CPU", which as of late 2012 was incompatible with Plex. So, a 213 or a 413j.
EDIT2: These are the models which are 2-bay, and will run Plex (ie either ARM or dual-core procs): DS212j, DS212+, DS213air, DS213, DS713+. Of these, only the 212+ is out of production.
EDIT3: Honestly? I'm probably going with the 213. Newegg reviews suggest it handles plex fine. Also, this review. Going 713+ means I'll be able to transcode 720p, but man those extra $250.

[Eightball]

lol, so much for 7-day hiatus.

Got the Roku today, played around with it for a while. Installed Plex, and was satisfied that everything was playing properly. "Wait a second..." Enabled "Direct Play Only", to mimic what it would be like to have a weak little fileserver distributing the media. Found out that literally everything in my library that I hadn't already re-encoded by hand(brake) was incompatible. Apparently .avi is no good? Jesus christ, I'll have to re-encode everything. Like, a terabyte's worth of stuff. Seems Mission was right.

So, what do?

1. Encode the whole library. I'll end up with files that are all consistent filetype, with working subtitles and can run off a 213. It'll take days of work and I'll have to suffer everytime something with UTF-8 subtitles pop up (for which the only hard-burning solution is to extract the subtitles, save them as an .srt, then use XviD to safe them (XviD is an order of magnitude slower than Handbrake)).
2. Buy a beefier fileserver. Synology 713+, should be enough to transcode at 720p. Will cost me an extra $250, but save me ridiculous amounts of effort. Won't know if it'll work until it's here.
3. Run PMS off my desktop. Desktop has to be on all the time, and the process has to be running too. Can cheap out on the file server...or just not get one at all.

EDIT: Maybe #1 isn't as painful as I thought, since most of these are .avi, and that should theoretically be very easy to directly convert to an .mp4 with x264, right? Any suggestions for software?

[Mission Difficult]

Rokus seem to like using the Apple TV profile in Handbrake if you plan on transcoding.

[Mission Difficult]

Another thing to think about if you have a lot of files with subtitles is the latest version of Plex Media Server is that it is able to burn in subs as it transcodes. Not sure if it's picky about type.

Also, have you tried playing any of your MKV files to see if they work properly?

[Eightball]

Another thing to think about if you have a lot of files with subtitles is the latest version of Plex Media Server is that it is able to burn in subs as it transcodes. Not sure if it's picky about type.

Also, have you tried playing any of your MKV files to see if they work properly?

Yeah, I'm aware. It's imperfect, at least when I tested it on the Plex web/PMS player. Haven't tried playing mkv on my roku yet.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2

EDIT: Oh, didn't realize what you meant. Hmm. Seems kind of promising, but the fact is I still won't know what's up until I get the damn fileserver. Maybe I should pull the trigger...

[Eightball]

Been a few days, time for an update.

I've been gradually converting my library using a handbrake batch encoder. Hopefully I'll be all done before ACEN, after which I'll convert stuff as I download it and won't fall behind.

Done with exams now. I'll be kind of busy with lab over the next week, but I plan to pull the trigger and buy a Synology within 2 weeks. So, some thoughts about what model to get:
DS212j - $200, ARM1.2GHz and 256MB DDR2. Currently the lowest end 2-bay synology. At this level, I question if you can even run Plex with all direct play media.
DS212+ - (discontinued, never mind)
DS213air - $300, ARM1.6GHz and 256MB DDR2. Apparently the extra $100 is mostly for WiFi connection; it can even act as an access point. Don't need those features though.
DS213 - $300, ARM2.0GHz and 512MB DDR3. Probably the better choice if I'm going to be cheap.
DS213+ - (processor not compatible with plex)
DS713+ - $530, Atom Dual Core 2.13GHz and 1GB DDR3. Should be capable of transcoding some media at 720p.

So the only real decision is: DS213 or DS713+? The extra $230 might save me from hand-encoding my library...but maybe not. On the other hand, I can't find a good report of someone running Plex on the DS213. Got some cash coming in around a week from now, that might make the decision easier. One more thing though: the storage drives. Seems like WD Red is the go-to for NAS drives. But 2x2TB or 2x3TB (RAID 1)? My media library is CURRENTLY about .7 TB, though I expect it to grow soon since I'm ripping the content off of 2 more friends' external HDDs. Add the size of backups, and maybe I should get 3TB huh.

Jesus christ, encoding is going to take forever.

[Mission Difficult]

I know the DS212j won't transcode at all.

I'm going to install it on mine (DS1010+) and if it's able to transcode on that, the DS713+ should definitely be able to.

I'll let you know what happens.

EDIT: It almost worked at 720p. It kept pausing after a few seconds in. High motion stuff would have killed it. CPU was pegging. I wouldn't count on the DS713+ to do it smoothly unless it's really low bit-rate. 1080p, not a chance.

It would be a safer bet to go for one of the less expensive models and then find some secondhand hardware to run PMS on. 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo and a couple gigs of ram.

[Eightball]

I know the DS212j won't transcode at all.

I'm going to install it on mine (DS1010+) and if it's able to transcode on that, the DS713+ should definitely be able to.

I'll let you know what happens.

EDIT: It almost worked at 720p. It kept pausing after a few seconds in. High motion stuff would have killed it. CPU was pegging. I wouldn't count on the DS713+ to do it smoothly unless it's really low bit-rate. 1080p, not a chance.

It would be a safer bet to go for one of the less expensive models and then find some secondhand hardware to run PMS on. 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo and a couple gigs of ram.

Yup, ARM chips = no transcoding whatsoever. Thanks for trying it on your 1010+, good to know. The 713+ (if I'm going to use this as a metric) bears a roughly 23-24% more powerful processor than the 1010+, but I'm not sure that's a large enough margin. Looks like I'll continue to hand-encode and pick up a 213. I don't really mind saving the cash

[Eightball]

Jumped the handbrake ship for Freemake video converter, since it's about as fast, can burn in plaintext subtitles, and is a little easier for queuing files. The output isn't as good as when I was using an mkv extractor, converting subtitles to an srt, and then running it through Xvid, but I'll deal with it if it saves me like, 5 minutes per individual file.

EDIT: Okay, I'll be using them in tandem. Freemake loses a lot of the font and color information, so I'll just use it specifically for utf-8 subbed files.
EDIT2: And it's not actually that fast, I was converting 480 res videos, takes like 3-4min per 720p file.
EDIT3: And by loses a lot of the info, I mean it loses all of it.
EDIT4: Hoo-boy, now it's beefing it on pretty standard media. Never mind.

[HeK]

This is why I love XBMC and a HTPC.
No transcoding. Just serve up the files and let the player handle the formats.

[Eightball]

Media conversion is progressing, not too much to comment on there.

I have an idea now of what apartment unit I'll be residing in next year (and presumably the following three years as well). Space....will be at a premium (Floor plans). Which means repurposing a computer with PFSense is probably not economic, rip. I would like to upgrade my trusty WRT54GL, and use it as a switch though. Just not too sure which of these are a good choice.

Got an infusion of cash too. I'm in a good position to order the Synology DS213 on that basis, but which storage drive (and how much) to get is still kind of up in the air. Still leaning towards WD Red drives. What do you guys think? 2x3TB? 2x2TB? RAID 1? No RAID? Without any feedback, I'd probably go for 2x3TB RAID 1, but looking for affirmation first.

Oh and I can probably start considering HDTV sets now. My criteria are pretty nebulous at this point, but let's say >32", 1080p, and less than $800. That should get the ball rolling. I know Samsung is trustworthy, but what of Sony, VIZIO, and others?

TL;DR help me pick a router and TV, and an amount of storage for the NAS

[HeK]

The performance and feature gap between a pfSense and a COTS gateway is so massive, I cannot recommend a hardware solution. Seriously. It's big. A microATX case will fit anywhere, stuff it under the couch. I had mine there for years until I moved.

The WD Red drives are a good choice for a NAS. Get the largest that it supports/you can afford.

As for TVs, since Panasonic is ramping back their display production, look towards Samsung. LED back-lit LCD at a minimum. Size should be based more on your viewing distance.
Keep contrast specs and brightness close to heart, don't get confused by the different methods for measuring contrast. Number of inputs shouldn't matter if you get a proper receiver, but since you're in an apartment...

Personally I am waiting for 4K OLED displays, but that's a few years out.

[Didzo]

[Versus]

Space....will be at a premium (Floor plans).

ouch

hm...wonder if my old netbook could handle pfsense properly...except then i'd have to taint my desktop or tablet with printer drivers :barf:

[HeK]

It's a dlink, that modification is required for stable operation.

[zaneyard]

Anyone have any thoughts on the "Ouya" running XBMC?

[HeK]

I didn't think it was out yet.
I feel xbmc is the best software, it just needs good hardware.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[Versus]

lol ouya

[Mission Difficult]

Newegg has the WD Red 3TB drives on sale this weekend for $135 (down from $160.)