Home friendly Media Server\Streaming setup

Technology and Internet
#1

Hi,

As few of you already know I had some issues with a dead router which now is resolved with Apple Airport setup across the house.

So, what I want to ask is can you recommend and guide me through a setup of our home media\file server\streaming setup we want?

Firs what we have;

  • house is LAN cabled with at least one LAN port in each room and many other locations like living and patio.

  • house has very good Wi-Fi coverage thanks to Apple Airports and Apple Time Capsule in three locations (Man cave, Living and master bedroom)

  • have a small rack cabinet in garage with Telstra cable modem, 16 port Netgear Switch and CCTV PVR.

  • all LAN cabling starts from garage and the Netgear switch

  • we have Apple TV3 or Apple TV4 in every room hooked up to LCD TV’s

  • we have Apple Mac Pro early 2009 desktop in the ManCave\Guest room (this computer for some reason doesnt have a working WiFi and for the life of me I cannot upgrade it to be macOS Sierra compatible)

  • we have early iMac 2009 that can be setup if need be but most likely looking at passing it on to my mum.

  • we have XboxOne in the Man Cave

  • we have Humax 4Tune PVR and Apple TV3 in the Living Room

  • we have two iPads and couple of iPhones

  • I have access to pretty new Windows desktop that can be setup if required as long as it coexists with all our other Apple devices and Desktops

  • I have now for over few months used Handbreak and MakeMKV to backup our entire DVD\BluRay, Family Photos and all our Music CD collections to external Seagate Hard Drives (USB 3.0) where they all reside in .mp4 .mkv Jpeg or MP3 formats :slight_smile:

so, here are my question that I’m hope you good people of AppleTalk can help and guide me through:

  • which software do you recommend for handling and serving up all these files to all these locations\devices ?
  • which software is the easiest to use?
  • which hardware should we use or buy in order to make this the most stable and easy to use experience to all the users at home?
  • am I forgetting anything?

much appreciated guys,

#2

Try here:

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#3

I have a couple of QNAP NAS boxes running twonky media server. Stream to all my Apple TV 4’s via either an app called infuse or VLC. I also have a Beyonwiz T4 that has a dlna server built in so I can watch shows off my PVR with VLC.

I’ll often watch a show in one room while my wife watches something in another and never have any issues. In fact it’s pretty stable. Because we rent I had to run Ethernet over power to the lounge room. This worried me, but surprisingly it hasn’t missed a beat.

My iTunes library (tv, movies and music) is run off a pegasus promise box plugged into my Mac Pro. Where possible I run Ethernet, however the Beyonwiz and all ATV4s are wireless.

QNAP and twonky are easy to set up and run. ATV4s are the way to go. VLC streaming is fantastic. I ditched all my ATV3’s and upgraded when Apple were selling ATV4’s on the refurb store.

In terms of gaming devices, we have an Xbox one, Xbox 360, 2 x ps4s and a PS3. Plus all our TVs are on wireless and no streaming issues at all with games and videos etc. but for video we just use ATV - so much easier and faster more robust.

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#4

I’m in the same boat with a QNAP box in the server rack and agree with most of that. ATV4’s make things very easy and are the way to go.

For DTV I have a Netwtream DTT for streaming digital TV to iOS devices and my MBP as well as a Fetch TV box… both are rarely used.

I have an ATV4’s in the kids rumpus room and our bedroom which runs Netflix, YouTube and MrMC (Kodi) for video playback from a FTP/SMB share. In the lounge it’s a similar story except it’s ATV3 for Netflix and YouTube but a Mac Mini for streaming local content (again running Kodi). I’m tempted to replace this with another ATV4 too but haven’t quite got there yet.

I’ve toyed with switching to Plex instead… but I really really like Kodi and can’t quite make the jump although I’ve tried multiple times. I just can’t get plex working in a way that I like enough. I’m about to go on a couple of weeks leave from work, so maybe I’ll give Plex another go. NOTE: Plex requires a server side application for all your front ends to connect to.

For those wondering, the real benefit of Plex (to me) would be a central library management allowing you to move room to room and pick up where you left off… except I rarely use the bedroom TV and the kids watch different stuff to me on their TV so it’s not really something I miss. (although Kodi does seem to forget what I’ve watched from time to time on the Mac Mini so I’m left guessing what episode I’m up to… although that could very well be PEBKAC.

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#5

Quick and simple, Harddrive plugged into USB port on time capsule so it becomes a network drive.
Infuse app then installed on Atvs and iPads, fantastic app that converts everything on the fly, beautiful artwork etc.
This is the setup I use, really simple and doesn’t require running a server.
Infuse 5 ~ an elegant video player by Firecore, LLC

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#6

This is one of the reasons I like Plex. The other is the very attractive interface which is fuss-free. It just works. It will also play audiobooks and display photos.

INfuse is also good, but now the pricing structure has altered to the point where I am no longer interested in it. I have Infuse 5 Pro but wont be upgrading. It works well, though.

Another worth considering is Air Video. Requires a server, like Plex, isnt as pretty, but it works also, at least for AppleTV4: havent looked at other uses.

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#7

+1 for Plex here, we have a Plex server (currently running on a Windows box but was previously on a Linux machine) that also runs Sonarr and we have a Raspberry Pi running Rasplex on each of the 4 TVs in the house.

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#8

I can see Plex gets a lot of mention and good rap…I really like the suggestion of QNAP too.

can PLEX be installed on our Apple TV3 ?? if not I guess its time to upgrade the ATV3 to ATV4…

#9

Look up PlexConnect - it’s a little daemon that redirects the Trailers app to Plex. Works very well, or at least it used to - I haven’t used it since I moved to ATV4

Unfortunately Plex is a bit problematic on ATV4 - until they start using their own player instead of feeding into Apple’s player, it’ll continue to display bad behaviour, such as ending playback a minute or so prior to the end of a file. I’ve switched to Infuse for the ATV4 and sync my playback status via Trakt so that Plex and Infuse are in sync.

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#10

Haven’t experienced any of these issues.

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#11

I that whats going on? Damnation, and I thought it was an issue with my wifi.

2 Likes
#12

Plex Server + Sonaar + aTV4 = heaven!

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#13

Can’t say I’ve seen this behaviour from daily use of Plex. The only times I’ve had an issue with Plex are when I’ve tried playing a 1080p movie with subtitles - my iMac (acting as the media server) seems to struggle with the conversion.

#14

What video card has it got in it? That could be your biggest issue.

I upgraded my 2008 to sierra the other day. Wasn’t that difficult following the guide / software hack another forum member put me onto: macOS Sierra Patch Tool

The only gotcha I encountered was I had a 10.12.4 installer already downloaded but the patch took expected the latest (10.12.5). Once I downloaded that, no issues at all. (This issues was documented on the page - I should have RTFM first! :thinking: That said, the requirements just said an installer when it needed a specific version so that could have been clearer. :wink:)

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