MePo taking over the house, but I have a network issue! (1 Viewer)

[porky996t]

ok, thanks.

Man, your set up is inspiring me!

Thanks for the kind words. It started off three years ago as a unit in the lounge which was a means of combining several boxes and using just one remote control. From that it just grew. It seems to be the best way of achieving a good and flexible entertainment centre, at a reasonable cost. A friend has spent a fortune on various smart TV's in different rooms, Apple TV box and Sky Multiroom and still he doesn't achieve the same end result as I have and with a much smaller budget.

 

[ben1210]

ok, thanks.

Man, your set up is inspiring me!

Thanks for the kind words. It started off three years ago as a unit in the lounge which was a means of combining several boxes and using just one remote control. From that it just grew. It seems to be the best way of achieving a good and flexible entertainment centre, at a reasonable cost. A friend has spent a fortune on various smart TV's in different rooms, Apple TV box and Sky Multiroom and still he doesn't achieve the same end result as I have and with a much smaller budget.

Well I'm 6 months in - so I'm just starting to move out from the lounge, networking around the house and MP seems just damn perfect for for the complete media solution around the house. I'm having such a blast setting it up, configuring it to my needs and then using it.

Just going to nip down Maplins now for some power line adapters!

One thing I wanted to ask was what advantages is there having the server 'in the basement' rather then using it in the front room - I mean thats a beast of a PC you have just for holding live TV cards and all your media?

 

[hafblade]

The problem with such a pc is that it's noisy and it is harder to have some bachground server tasks running when the user is clicking around and it has to run fast. I'm thinking about creating a server at the moment because of these things. Especially when you want to do some on the fly transcoding you want some dedicated server.

 

[ben1210]

The problem with such a pc is that it's noisy and it is harder to have some bachground server tasks running when the user is clicking around and it has to run fast. I'm thinking about creating a server at the moment because of these things. Especially when you want to do some on the fly transcoding you want some dedicated server.

aha, ok, its just that Porky has a top spec graphics card in the server - that really serves no purpose unless it is hooked up to a display?

 

[porky996t]

Hi Guys,

A bit of a story re the server graphics card. I bought it to replace the HD5550 in the lounge PC. When I installed it kept crashing the unit, BSOD and all that. This was at the time I was setting the server up, so I put the HD5550 back in the lounge PC and used the GT630 in the server whilst setting up... and there it has stayed, even though I access the server via RDC.

The server is also located in a cooler part of the basement, and is just not noticed ( still not sure the GF knows it is there, as it is a room off my office) as it is out of sight, and behind a closed door. I got a high spec CPU for video conversions as all my recordings etc get converted from .ts to .m4v The CPU may help with aMPdroid too, but I don't know if it converts on the fly for the streaming.

 

[ben1210]

Hi Guys,

A bit of a story re the server graphics card. I bought it to replace the HD5550 in the lounge PC. When I installed it kept crashing the unit, BSOD and all that. This was at the time I was setting the server up, so I put the HD5550 back in the lounge PC and used the GT630 in the server whilst setting up... and there it has stayed, even though I access the server via RDC.

The server is also located in a cooler part of the basement, and is just not noticed ( still not sure the GF knows it is there, as it is a room off my office) as it is out of sight, and behind a closed door. I got a high spec CPU for video conversions as all my recordings etc get converted from .ts to .m4v The CPU may help with aMPdroid too, but I don't know if it converts on the fly for the streaming.

Aha.

Converting .ts to .m4v - why do you do this? Is it to move what you've recorded to my Tv Series as I have tried to get my Tv Series to read from the recorded TV folder (.ts files) but it didnt work?

 

[porky996t]

Hi Ben

Converting .ts to .m4v - why do you do this?

I convert so all the media can be used on iTouch, Android tablet & phone and also on my HTC Windows Phone. Mobile devices don't like .ts streams, and also, the conversion also takes up less space too, although space was not not the primary reason for conversion.

I have tried to get my Tv Series to read from the recorded TV folder

I have never done this. I have a separate HDD for recordings, and then every two weeks or so, I 'tidy' it up. Any recordings I want to keep I move to the 'Movies' folder for MovingPictures to scan, or move to the 'TV Series' folder for MyTVSeries to scan - what I have to do is manually amend the file names for any TV Series to suit the format that the TV Series plugin recognises i.e. Frasier - S09E12 (Although I do check www.tvdb.com first to make sure my renaming is accurate) There are episode scanners that should do this automatically, although I have never used them, so cannot comment on their accuracy for us UK based users.