Best Way to Stream MKVs to Living Room

[Nebor]

If he wants Transcoding and NAS in one box, there really isn't anything under $2000 that does that if he wants a prebuilt box. They charge a significant price premium for a faster processor on a NAS.

Any NAS with an i3 or better can handle transcoding. The one I linked above does everything I need for $1100. Then another $1000 for 4x6tb drives.

 

[WelshBloke]

If he wants Transcoding and NAS in one box, there really isn't anything under $2000 that does that if he wants a prebuilt box. They charge a significant price premium for a faster processor on a NAS.

Yeah, I gave up looking for a prebuilt NAS (and youre right that NAS is a terrible term that covers way too much ground) when I realised hoe spendy one was going to be to do what I wanted.

Then I went out and spent probably more building ny own. 😀

 

[WelshBloke]

I'd pay it in a heartbeat. $150? Back then I would. Now I only want a Norco 4224 case/build. $1100 for 24 drive capacity? I'll take it!

Yeah but a cheap tower case with a semi decent hotplug HDD enclosure would do the job just as well but a lot uglier.

 

[tential]

Yeah, I gave up looking for a prebuilt NAS (and youre right that NAS is a terrible term that covers way too much ground) when I realised hoe spendy one was going to be to do what I wanted.

Then I went out and spent probably more building ny own. 😀

Eh, at the same time though you know the quality of what you built. I see so many nap users on forums complaining about drive corruption or something stupid where 3-4 of their drives failed due to shoddy workmanship. It's data, no way I'd let someone else touch it. I'd purchase a pre-built pm maybe and eat a 20% markup but never a 300% markup and still risk losing terabytes of data

 

[Nebor]

Yeah, I gave up looking for a prebuilt NAS (and youre right that NAS is a terrible term that covers way too much ground) when I realised hoe spendy one was going to be to do what I wanted.

Then I went out and spent probably more building ny own. 😀

I just don't think you're going to match a NAS form-factor building your own. They're smaller than those little PC gaming boxes people used to haul around to LANs.

 

[WelshBloke]

Only one of the Synology NAS can transcode blurays very well. It looks like I'd need something with an i3 minimum.

Like I said, I'll try the Xbox for now and see how that does.

If you want me to see how my server does with some files I'd be willing.

 

[ControlD]

I'm not sure you even need to go as high as a Core i3 for transcoding purposes. I built my unRAID server around a G530 and it seems to handle Plex + transcoding fine. I haven't tried transcoding a full Blu Ray mkv file however because I'm not willing to blow that much storage per movie.

As far as building versus purchasing, don't be intimidated by the "NAS" operating systems. I have tried a couple of them and they really are quite easy to use. I have the most experience with unRAID, and installing that is literally a matter of copy a few files to a USB drive and booting. Installing Plex simply involves copying a single file to that same USB stick. You can always try unRAID, FreeNAS, Amahi, etc. in a virtual machine just to see what they are like.

 

[Nebor]

Eh, at the same time though you know the quality of what you built. I see so many nap users on forums complaining about drive corruption or something stupid where 3-4 of their drives failed due to shoddy workmanship. It's data, no way I'd let someone else touch it. I'd purchase a pre-built pm maybe and eat a 20% markup but never a 300% markup and still risk losing terabytes of data

Given that actually, I would have just bought some production grade silicon and set up my own fab in my garage. You could have created your own motherboard, processor and everything and no one else would be touching your data.

 

[WelshBloke]

I just don't think you're going to match a NAS form-factor building your own. They're smaller than those little PC gaming boxes people used to haul around to LANs.

The Silverstone DS380 I used is as small as an 8 hotswap enclosure is going to be. Its a really nice NAS case, its just (IMHO) a bit spendy.

 

[Nebor]

I'm not sure you even need to go as high as a Core i3 for transcoding purposes. I built my unRAID server around a G530 and it seems to handle Plex + transcoding fine. I haven't tried transcoding a full Blu Ray mkv file however because I'm not willing to blow that much storage per movie.

As far as building versus purchasing, don't be intimidated by the "NAS" operating systems. I have tried a couple of them and they really are quite easy to use. I have the most experience with unRAID, and installing that is literally a matter of copy a few files to a USB drive and booting. Installing Plex simply involves copying a single file to that same USB stick. You can always try unRAID, FreeNAS, Amahi, etc. in a virtual machine just to see what they are like.

Really? The OS on my ReadyNAS is a pain in the balls. And I'm assuming it's one of the easier ones to use.

 

[WelshBloke]

Given that actually, I would have just bought some production grade silicon and set up my own fab in my garage. You could have created your own motherboard, processor and everything and no one else would be touching your data.

I think hes touching on the EEC, ZFS thing.

 

[WelshBloke]

Really? The OS on my ReadyNAS is a pain in the balls. And I'm assuming it's one of the easier ones to use.

You shouldnt really need to go into the OS once its set up. Yeah I go in there and poke around but I dont need to.

 

[ControlD]

Really? The OS on my ReadyNAS is a pain in the balls. And I'm assuming it's one of the easier ones to use.

I went from Windows Home Server to unRAID and I find the later easier to use if that means anything. I can't speak for FreeNAS so much, but unRAID and Amahi use pre built modules for most things like Plex, so there is very little to getting them up and running. I was actually planning on getting a Synology pre made system but gave unRAID a shot first. After about a week a had no desire to go pre-built anymore and I'm mostly a Windows guy as well.

 

[tential]

Really? The OS on my ReadyNAS is a pain in the balls. And I'm assuming it's one of the easier ones to use.

Prebuilt systems suck... that's why I don't use them.
Why do you think we use XBMC when there is WDTV Live boxes that can do something similar? They don't do it as well as your own box.

You shouldnt really need to go into the OS once its set up. Yeah I go in there and poke around but I dont need to.

And this, you set it and FORGET IT.

 

[WelshBloke]

I went from Windows Home Server to unRAID and I find the later easier to use if that means anything. I can't speak for FreeNAS so much, but unRAID and Amahi use pre built modules for most things like Plex, so there is very little to getting them up and running. I was actually planning on getting a Synology pre made system but gave unRAID a shot first. After about a week a had no desire to go pre-built anymore and I'm mostly a Windows guy as well.

I came from the same place you did (WHS and windows on everything) and my biggest obstacle was realising that everything was a lot less complicated than I thought it was.

 

[MongGrel]

I dislike XBMC myself, maybe its just me.

Didn't read all the posts, I guess.

Will in the next week.

Probably need to rearrange a few things myself over vacation now.

 

[tential]

Isn't Plex on Xbox One just essentially one viewmode that Plex decides?
You don't even get to customize any windows and you're stuck with that Poster Scroll?

 

[SlitheryDee]

I haven't read the whole thread, but I just wanted to second the freeNAS suggestions. I can't imagine a more economical way to come out with a VERY powerful storage device. Mine cost me ~$350 for the case, processor motherboard, RAM, power supply, SATA controller, and NIC. Even at that cost I was still able to get a haswell based dual core processor in there. I may have gone a bit light on the processor though (pentium G3220), as it seems to only be able to handle one 1080P or two 720P streams simultaneously. That's still way better than NASes that cost over double what I have in mine, and hey I can always drop a better processor in there whenever I want. In fact I could easily make my NAS more powerful than practically any consumer NAS out there without spending much at all. Never going back to premade.

"Learning" freenas isn't really something to worry about either. It's well documented and the only real snag I hit with it was the fact that my motherboard's NIC wasn't supported despite being in the list of supported hardware. An add-on NIC fixed that up. The web GUI essentially works just like any other NAS interface though.

 

[Nebor]

Isn't Plex on Xbox One just essentially one viewmode that Plex decides?
You don't even get to customize any windows and you're stuck with that Poster Scroll?

I don't know. I've literally never touched an Xbox One.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Is there any point in getting an i3 chromebox, or are the celeron ones fine?

Celeron is fine.

 

[sdifox]

Those guys are just as bad or worse than most general contractors. The last time I went to move, I found that there were huge holes cut in the drywall behind the TV and entertainment center, the TV wasn't secured in the mount, and my Burmester surrounds had screws drilled into their cabinetry. I can handle mounting my own TV, speakers and plugging everything in. It's worth it not to have monkeys ruin thousands of dollars worth of equipment.

D: I would have screwed whichever bastard that did that to the wall.


I am in the process of building my media server.

plex will sit in a vm hosted on a Dell PowerEdge R710 with 24gb of rdimm and 2x L5640. CPU Mark V7 is 13,683 :whiste:
that box cost me us$690 inc 40 shipping to my friend's place in ny. no hdd of course.

48 port L3 gigabit poe switch, still nedd to do wiring.
probably will host nas in a vm as well, not decided yet.

vms will sit on ssd installed on server. probably should get more ram.

still undecided on vm platform, probably end up with hyper-v.

 

[smitbret]

Any NAS with an i3 or better can handle most transcoding. The one I linked above does everything I need for $1100. Then another $1000 for 4x6tb drives.

Fixed that for ya

 

[smitbret]

Given that actually, I would have just bought some production grade silicon and set up my own fab in my garage. You could have created your own motherboard, processor and everything and no one else would be touching your data.

And yet you are afraid of learning to navigate FreeNAS or unRAID?

 

[tential]

And yet you are afraid of learning to navigate FreeNAS or unRAID?

It's confusing because if he buys a new nas, he has to navigate that NAS's OS anyway.
No matter WHAT NAS he purchases, he has to "learn" (setup? I mean what else do you do in your NAS OS? Do you go into every day?) to set it up.

It's an odd reasoning because it's something that has to be done no matter what purchase he makes.

 

[smitbret]

It's confusing because if he buys a new nas, he has to navigate that NAS's OS anyway.
No matter WHAT NAS he purchases, he has to "learn" (setup? I mean what else do you do in your NAS OS? Do you go into every day?) to set it up.

It's an odd reasoning because it's something that has to be done no matter what purchase he makes.

I know, I have never had any extended time with unRAID but I threw one together just for fun one afternoon. It took me 15 minutes to prepare the thumb drive, install the OS and have everything ready to create the array and clear the drives. I have never done anything with Linux in my life but it was simple, intuitive and quite frankly, the available walk throughs are just as good or better and probably more plentiful than any OEM support you'd find with a pre-built.

I can understand someone wanting the ease of going with a pre-built appliance if they don't want to mess with the hardware but Roll Your Own will do EXACTLY what he wants without a huge initial outlay of $$$$.

Fear can be a huge motivator, I guess.

I think the Thread Title should be edited to "Best Way to Stream MKVs to Living Room with a pre-built NAS"