Media Servers? What do you use?

Eric Chadwick

Looking for opinions about media servers for home videos, photos, ripped dvds, mp3s, etc.

I have a bunch of physical DVDs but its slow to find and load them, and kids tend to scratch em too. I feel like ripped media would be better?

I have Plex and run it on a spare Windows PC, to play some of our content on the Samsung smart TV upstairs.

But the interface is slow to load, and not the best to navigate. Especially when looking for, say, photos from a particular year or event. Also pretty bad for playing mp3s.

Thinking about getting a dedicated NAS box to consume less power. The older Dell tower PC is not a sipper. But that's kind of a side issue. The software seems like the most neglected part.

Chromecast has been great, though a little slow to buffer. Maybe we can link that to our networked media.

Anyhow, seeking advice from people who have something they like.

iadagraca

http://www.ps3mediaserver.org/

This was always my solution for my PS3, works on other devices too. Transcodes all formats on the fly which is nice and means everything is playable. 

GhostDetector

Get a NAS  its easier to download from and is the most optimal/flexible set up.   
It may take some time to set up but after its all done, all you have to do is access your NAS through your browser and download the files from your local network.

With a NAS you would need the NAS itself and atleast 2 identical hard drives (in terms of capacity).

Then you would need to choose from the type of raid.  I won't list them all but i'll just name the basic ones.

• Raid0: 2x storage and writes 2x as fast.  If one drive fails, both of them fail and you would lose your files.
• Raid1: 1 drive is used to store the information the other is a backup.  

Another thing you can do (if you don't mind multiple copies everywhere) is the use bittorrent sync.  The way it works is that you share folders with a password key between devices and folders update when something changes.  Deleted items would go into a trash subfolder that doesn't get updated to other people in the sync.

I'd suggest a NAS if you want things easier in the long run.  All you would need to do is just keep it maintained (replacing corrupted drives and updating/adding files)

Eric Chadwick

Right, but that's the hardware. I'm curious about the software end. Which media server players don't suck?

GhostDetector

Sorry I misunderstood, I thought you wanted to share files between two or more systems without the hassle of manually transferring files.

I think Bittorrrent sync would only work well between computers, so technically you could hook up a laptop to your TV and play it onto your TV. 

The plex interface is limited to your connection.  If your router gives slow local network speeds it might be the reason why the interface is slow to load.

skankerzero

Plex works great for me. I love it so much that I pay for it.

I don't stream from the smart tv though. I stream from my Nvidia Shield TV. Usually buffers shows in a couple seconds.

Eric Chadwick

Hmmm. Took another spin with Plex. It's better than I remember.

MP3s need some tag cleanup. Lots of duplicates in different folders too.

Need to figure out what format to convert the DVDs into, since Plex can't play the raw VOBs/IFOs.

I think the gating factor for my semi-luddite family members might just be the terrible remote that came with the TV. The touchpad is cheap and barely responsive, hard to navigate with it. No physical DVR controls. Volume can't control the receiver. etc.



Thanks for the ideas!

Eric Chadwick

Wow, Plex is awesome. Got it to work nicely now, using a spare PC as the server.

I found a router script that helps me force the PC awake whenever one of my remote players wants to stream content. Very cool!
https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/35xw5t/how_to_set_your_computer_to_sleep_and_wake_on_an/

Plex works great with MKV format, which makes it super easy to rip my DVDs onto my server. I'm using MakeMKV.

The Plex client keeps getting better and better!