Media server build with distributed devices

[rbk123]

I'd like to build a media server PC which will not be connected to any of my home TV's but would rather have devices connected to each TV which connect to the server and so I have a few questions:

1. what's the best (inexpensive, price/performance) card I can use for OTA HD recording?
2. what distributed devices do you recommend, also from a price/performance ratio considering I will most likely need 3?
3. I will stream regular DVD's and Blu ray dvds from the media server (ripped to the hard drive) so are there devices that will play full Blu ray to the TV via wireless connection to the media server?

Is this even feasible?

 

[frowertr]

I'd like to build a media server PC which will not be connected to any of my home TV's but would rather have devices connected to each TV which connect to the server and so I have a few questions:

1. what's the best (inexpensive, price/performance) card I can use for OTA HD recording?
2. what distributed devices do you recommend, also from a price/performance ratio considering I will most likely need 3?
3. I will stream regular DVD's and Blu ray dvds from the media server (ripped to the hard drive) so are there devices that will play full Blu ray to the TV via wireless connection to the media server?

Is this even feasible?

I use SageTV (http://sagetv.com/) which does everything you are talking about. I can stream my Blu-Ray/DVD collection on my server right to every TV in my home as well as watch record LiveTV and play my audio collection.

I have an HTPC server (with SageTV installed) in a closet in my house. I then ran Cat5 cableing to every room in the house (took me two weeks of climbing through the attack and fishing cable down through the hollow drywalls in my home).

Every TV in my house (4 of them) is then connected to the HTPC server using Sage's HD-300 Extenders. Sage does make a wireless option that connects to the HD-300 extenders that will then talk to your wireless router that the HTPC server is plugged into, but it has always been my expierence that wireless is "hit or miss". If you can run hard line then you should run hard line.

As far as OTA recording I use the Hauppauge 2250 which is probably one of the best tuners you can buy. It's a dual tuner on one PCI-E device. You can also use Silicon Dust's Homerun device. It is an external device though that connects to your network. People love the Homerun; I have just never used it to give an opinion.

Cost:
SageTV software (installs on your HTPC server) bundled with 1 HD-300 = $200
Additional HD-300's = $150 each
2250 Tuner - $~100
Additional HTPC server cost = $????

 

[smitbret]

Just for clarification:

You are connecting a cable/dish/OTA line to your PC. You want to record programming and so you need to get a video capture card. You then want to store the programming locally and stream it to three different television locations along with DVD and Blu-Ray rips.

Do you have a mix of HD and SD televisions? I ask, because trying to simultaneously pull multiple HD streams across a wireless network could be trouble. The solution would be to run a simultaneous dual-band network, using the "g" band for SD and "n" for HD. Be ready to drop about $150 for a good router.

If there was any way to cat5 any of the TVs together, you could consider a wireless bridge to a switch and split ethernet cables to the different tvs from there. It'll cost you about $80 for the bridge and $20 for the switch, but you could serve more than 1 TV. Otherwise, you'll need to run a bridge to each device or get a streaming device with built-in wireless connectivity. The Boxee Box has wireless N built-in, but they run about $200/each. The other option is to just set up an LG BD640 Blu-Ray player at each location (about $140). They have wireless N built-in and playback mpeg-4, mpeg-2 and mkv. I would probably get Mezzmo media software to stream to the boxes. It'll cost $30, but you can control how media is served to each device independently and develop customized profiles for your needs.

 

[s44]

Ok, the first guy already described the expensive build.

Cheap:
Monoprice ATSC tuner - $36
Mezzmo DLNA server - $30
Linksys E3000 router (refurb) - $90 after coupon
Windows 7 x64 - I assume you already have this
Victek Tomato build (for router) - free
DLNA client device (any) - either below or above $100/each depending on wireless

So Windows will record OTA in wtv format, which Mezzmo handles natively. Flash Victek's Tomato (the special E3000 build) onto the router and use the 5mhz band solely for HD video streams. Mezzmo will also stream any ripped video, but you may want to get a DLNA client device that has native mkv if you rip Blu to that format.

For the client, you can use one of the cheap solid-state boxes, or (as the second response said) a Blu-Ray player. Any of this year's current Blu-Ray players will also give you streaming from Netflix and other sources straight to the location without having to mess around with computer->device stream transcoding (for which you need something like PlayOn). Either make sure the box/player has built-in 5mhz wireless N (many just have 2.4), or buy a bunch of these insanely cheap E2000s ($32FS) and flash with Victek Tomato (special E2000 build) to use as bridges.

 

[rbk123]

I can see I have further homework ahead of me. I'm not familiar with any of those software packages (other than Media Center) or devices but then I'm just getting going. Hard wire is doable considering I intend to keep the server in the basement and the 2 main TV's I would feed would be right above it.

More info - OTA would be the only non-internet feed. No cable or satellite either. ie. I would record OTA for HD quality local channels, and anything else I'd watch would be from some internet supplier of TV shows (probably multiple suppliers - I have Netflix but I'm sure that won't be enough). Movies would be from ripped DVD's or attached Blu ray players (I currently have 1 PS3).

Thank you for the help; I appreciate it.

 

[smitbret]

I can see I have further homework ahead of me. I'm not familiar with any of those software packages (other than Media Center) or devices but then I'm just getting going. Hard wire is doable considering I intend to keep the server in the basement and the 2 main TV's I would feed would be right above it.

More info - OTA would be the only non-internet feed. No cable or satellite either. ie. I would record OTA for HD quality local channels, and anything else I'd watch would be from some internet supplier of TV shows (probably multiple suppliers - I have Netflix but I'm sure that won't be enough). Movies would be from ripped DVD's or attached Blu ray players (I currently have 1 PS3).

Thank you for the help; I appreciate it.

Your biggest decision is what kind of networking setup you can put together -
1 - Fully wired
2 - Partially wired
3 - Fully wireless

I'm thinking #2 will be your best bet from a price/performance standpoint.

Your PS3 is already an excellent media streaming device with two obstacles. The built-in wireless is 'G' and it does not playback .mkv files. Wireless 'G' cannot handle HD streams, so you'll need to wire the PS3 into the network. The .mkv issue is easy to overcome. Mezzmo will transcode .mkv files on the fly to a PS3 supported video format as long as the CPU in your media server is strong enough to transcode in real time.

The Western Digital Live Plus will do Netflix and allow you to stream everything from your media server. They don't have built-in wireless, so you'll need to pick up wireless adapters for each one that can't be hardwired.

50 feet Cat5e @ Monoprice - $5.38
ATSC Tuner Card @ Monoprice - $36.05
Linksys e3000 router with dual-band wireless N @Linksys store - $99.99 refurb
Western Digital Live Plus @ Amazon.com - $89.99 x 2 = $179.98
Airlink USB Wireless N adapter @ Amazon.com x 2 - $13.57 = $27.14
Mezzmo streaming software - $29.95
Total Price - 378.49

If you decide that you can fully wire everything, then dump the Airlin adapters and add a couple of cables
Total Price - 362.11

Or if you think the best idea is to go fully wireless, dump the Cat5e and pick up a wireless bridge to wire up to the PS3. I recommend the Linksys WR610N. It's at the Linksys store, also refurb, for $54.99.
Total Price - 428.10

If money becomes a real issue, you could opt for the free versions of PS3 Media Server or Tversity instead of Mezzmo. They'll transcode for the PS3, also, but with the multiple boxes and possible multiple network setups, the flexibility of Mezzmo is easily worth the $30.

There are a couple of other options you could consider. D-Link has a MoCA setup that they claim has a true 200mbps throughput (rated at 270mbps). It just runs the ethernet through the existing coax in your house, so if you have cable jacks at all of the points it could be an option. It's a bit pricey, but you could save some cash on a less expensive router and the connection would be about double what a wireless 'N' connection would do, but far less than half of a gigabit connection. You'll need to be reasonably confident in the integrity of your home's coax setup. If it's one of those that is thrown together with a gnarly nest of splitters and RG-59, then it might not be the way to go.

Let us know how it goes.

 

[rbk123]

I can go with a partially wired system but unfortunately the PS3 is not reachable; however it's the least important to stream anything to for the way we use it.

What does Mezzmo get me over Windows Media Center (which I haven't started playing with yet; still constructing the server)?

 

[smitbret]

If you can wire any location, it will be better than wireless. Plan on using a wireless bridge for your PS3. And make sure everything in the PS3 is identifying it as a wired connection, even though it technically is a wireless connection. The PS3 won't automatically recognize that an ethernet cable has been plugged in and will continue to try to work off the built-in 'G' if you don't change the setting. Mine works like a dream.

The biggest advantage you'll get with Mezzmo is control over file types and transcoding to each location. WMC is very automated and not very customizable from a streaming standpoint. Mezzmo is an easy download, and has a 21-day trial period. You might just try putting everything else in place and using WMC, first. If it works, then pocket the $30. If it doesn't, give Tversity or PS3 Media Server a try. You can always have Mezzmo downloaded and installed in under 10 minutes if you feel like you need it. Mezzmo is just prettier, smoother and you can adjust or have Conceiva adjust each device profile to fit exactly what you want to do. Keep in mind that there are more file container and media stream combinations out there than there are stars in the universe.

You did mention that you wanted to rip DVD and BR to your media library and stream them. You'll want to stay away from using Blu-Ray players as media boxes unless you have time to do your homework. Sony is putting new copyright protection on their DVD and BR discs that, so far, is unremoveable. It's called Cinavia and it disables playback of digital files ripped from DVDs and Blu-Ray. It's not widespread, yet, but it is picking up steam. The playback device has to support it. So far it seems limited to a handful of BR players, but we'll never know exactly which ones until someone gets burned.

 

[s44]

Mezzmo does auto-realtime-transcoding from whatever format the file is in to whatever formats your client understands. It's most important for TV recordings, because the proprietary .wtv format WMC records in is understood by basically zero devices natively, and although there's a built-in conversion option, you have to do it file by file on the server and it takes a long time.

Basically, although the DLNA connection protocol works well enough, finding the right compatible file formats/codecs the client understands can get a bit tricky. Mezzmo is really good at understanding various client devices you have.

I would *not* use any sort of usb dongle for wireless N, though. The reason I suggested the E3000 is so you can use the 5mhz band -- which no dongle I know of supports -- solely for video. Hence my suggestion to buy a E2000 (which can do 2.4 OR 5 but not, unlike the E3000, both at the same time) and use it as a 5mhz bridge (by flashing a custom firmware) on whichever TV you can't hardwire (which is your PS3, I guess).

The WD boxes are nice, but if you're going to play Blu-Rays rather than stream them, I'd use a Blu-Ray player as your client on the two non-PS3 locations. The new Panasonic BDT110 has the best version of Netflix right now, with multichannel audio (otherwise only available on the PS3), but recent Samsung, Sony, and LG players have other direct streaming options (MLB, Hulu+, etc.) as well as DLNA. (Samsung and LG do more codecs out of the box and therefore require less transcoding, although this won't matter much if you're not streaming Blu-Ray rips and use Mezzmo anyway.)

 

[rbk123]

Thanks for the info. What about Mezzmo vs. SageTV? Other than the price tag, is it more just user preference between the 2?

 

[s44]

Sage was state of the art 5-10 years ago, before DLNA hit... I believe it's also dependent on its own extenders. Mezzmo is literally the latest big thing, designed to play well with every format and every major DLNA video client device (any modern networked TV, Blu-Ray player, or non-Apple streaming box).

 

[s44]

The main advantage of SageTV, btw, is the flip side of it being expensive and monolithic: it's unified, and you'll get the same UI all around. DLNA is a standard so pretty much every device can share with every other device, so the actual human-side interface you see on a player can be great or stone-age, and will vary from brand to brand. I would have suggested Sony Blu-Rays on your non-PS3 TVs to keep some interface unity, but the post above about locking out certain streaming suggests they may be the one player brand to avoid.

 

[smitbret]

Cinavia's not widespread, yet, but it will most likely grow pretty fast. There's only a handful of BR players that are reported to have it so far. I learned about it when I ripped Salt, stuck it on my network and tried watching it on my PS3. Luckily, I had DirecTV installed a couple of months ago and I was able to watch it on my receiver box if I remuxed everything to .m2ts. DVDFab can defeat it, but only if you burn it to another BR. Hardly useful for anybody with a legitimate copy that just wants it media served. Once again, DRM manages to squash the guys that are keeping it honest while pirates keep right on pirating.

Here's a link to some info about players and media that are verified to have Cinavia.

http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=41885

Even though Sony players didn't make the list, it pisses me off enough that I think I'm going to go out of my way to avoid buying anything Sony in the future.

 

[rbk123]

Ok, I have my media server built and I got the Monoprice card in it and working (is there a way to get it to work without having to set W7 in test build mode to bypass the digital signature issue?).

My next steps are to:
1.) Decide on transcode software. Are there any advantages to going with Mezzmo as you recommended vs. Boxee (which is free)?

2.) Decide on which device to connect to the 2 TV's that will be hardwired. Any recommendations? Since they are hardwired, I assume I won't need a Blu-ray player as I can just stream a Blu-ray from the media server.

3.) Get a Blu-ray burner for the media server. Any deals out there (they are annoyingly pricey, imo)? I list a burner only because they are slightly more expensive than just a reader which will give me the flexibility of burning a disc if I want.

 

[smitbret]

1) I can't speak about Boxee, I have never heard of it outside of the Boxee Box. If you are looking for a free DLNA streamer, try TVersity or PS3 Media Server (works for more than just the PS3). TVersity seemed to work better with larger libraries than PS3 Media Server for me. I used it for two years and it served me well. Try them first; you can always "upgrade" to Mezzmo if you need the functionality. I switched because Mezzmo's tech support and customizable device profiles were easily worth the $30 for me. It took less than a day for any problem I've ever had. There's a free 21 day trial of Mezzmo if TVersity or PS3 Media Server aren't working out for you. I've also used Nero Home and Twonky and I can't recommend them for what you want to do.

2) My opinions on ripping and storing DVD and BR might toe the line of forum rules, so check your PM for my opinion.

Make sure you are picking the correct audio streams for your tv setup. You'll be in a bad situation if you are trying to playback an .mkv file with a DTS audio stream, but there's no DTS decoder on the TV end of things. I ALWAYS try to default to a 448kbps 5.1 AC3 track as my 1st audio stream in every file so that I can play it back virtually anywhere. I'll occasionally use a 5.1 .aac stream, too. I haven't spent the money on an awesome surround sound setup, so the DTS track has always been of little interest to me. Someone else could probably offer a lot more help there.

3) The BR player/burner will be the least expensive purchase when it comes to ripping, so just get a Lite-On for $55 from NewEgg or Amazon and call it good. I've never burnt a Blu-Ray disc. I've preferred to just convert to an 8GB .m2ts file and burn to DVD. I literally can't tell the difference on my 50" plasma. I just stream everything, so I haven't really had a need to burn more than a handful of times, anyway.

Which streamer boxes did you choose, by the way?

If there's an Xbox 360 anywhere in this equation, then my only pieve of advice would be forget about multi-channel audio and just turn the transcoder on your streaming software.

 

[The-Noid]

I use SageTV (http://sagetv.com/) which does everything you are talking about. I can stream my Blu-Ray/DVD collection on my server right to every TV in my home as well as watch record LiveTV and play my audio collection.

I have an HTPC server (with SageTV installed) in a closet in my house. I then ran Cat5 cableing to every room in the house (took me two weeks of climbing through the attack and fishing cable down through the hollow drywalls in my home).

Every TV in my house (4 of them) is then connected to the HTPC server using Sage's HD-300 Extenders. Sage does make a wireless option that connects to the HD-300 extenders that will then talk to your wireless router that the HTPC server is plugged into, but it has always been my expierence that wireless is "hit or miss". If you can run hard line then you should run hard line.

As far as OTA recording I use the Hauppauge 2250 which is probably one of the best tuners you can buy. It's a dual tuner on one PCI-E device. You can also use Silicon Dust's Homerun device. It is an external device though that connects to your network. People love the Homerun; I have just never used it to give an opinion.

Cost:
SageTV software (installs on your HTPC server) bundled with 1 HD-300 = $200
Additional HD-300's = $150 each
2250 Tuner - $~100
Additional HTPC server cost = $????

I was going to recommend all this, however he did it perfectly. This is the setup we have on 6 TV's, except some of them are HD-200s.

 

[rbk123]

I must be blind as the cheapest Bluray burner was around upper $70's. I'll recheck as I don't recall any in the $55 range.

I have a WD Live Plus on order to start playing with. I'll do some research between Boxee (comes highly recommended) and Mezzmo. I'm not averse to the $30 but not if it doesn't get me anything over Boxee.

Also, when I rip my DVD's to my server, I do it full (9) which ends up creating the TOS files/folders. This will give me the DD 5.1 and no transfer penalty (unless I'm missing something). I would only change formats if I wanted to shrink it to put it on a Droid pad (which is a future purchase) of some kind.

 

[smitbret]

I must be blind as the cheapest Bluray burner was around upper $70's. I'll recheck as I don't recall any in the $55 range.

I have a WD Live Plus on order to start playing with. I'll do some research between Boxee (comes highly recommended) and Mezzmo. I'm not averse to the $30 but not if it doesn't get me anything over Boxee.

Also, when I rip my DVD's to my server, I do it full (9) which ends up creating the TOS files/folders. This will give me the DD 5.1 and no transfer penalty (unless I'm missing something). I would only change formats if I wanted to shrink it to put it on a Droid pad (which is a future purchase) of some kind.

My bad, I should have been specific in my message. $55 for just a BR Reader. The burners are about $30 more.

Boxee is just another box like the WD Live. You'll need Mezzmo, TVersity or something similar to playback your local DVD and BR rips on either one. You could use Windows Media Player, if it's all going to be in standard DVD format.

You're right about the direct rips. It does keep everything intact so that you have the absolute best quality possible, but the Video_TS folders can be cumbersome and unwieldy. Are you trying to keep the menus intact as well, or just the main movies/television episodes? If so, you need to make sure you're getting a media streamer that supports Menus. The WD Live boxes don't, the Boxee Box, will. Your other option is an HTPC at each location instead of media streamers.

 

[dclive]

Here's what I did:

1. WMC on a W7 box for content, brought down by a HDHomeRun (two of them, in fact)
2. WTV -> DVR-MS converter on the W7 box, to convert to a "standard" format Life Xtender can read; runs nightly
3. LifeXtender on the W7 box, to remove all the commercials; runs nightly
4. XBOX360 or LinkSys Media Center Extender on all TVs to play WMC content
5. PS3 or Patriot Box Office (http://www.amazon.com/Patriot-Office...7836202&sr=8-1) on all the TVs for all .MKV/.WMV/.AVI/etc.-type playback
6. MKV2VOB converts all MKV into a format PS3 understands, with no loss of quality, audio, etc. - my HDMI receiver still likes to play everything back in 5.1.

I've been very pleased with this setup. It's simple and, with the PBO on the client side, very, very flexible (PBO doesn't need _anything_ on the server side - just a Windows/CIFS/SMB share; no fancy media center or transcoding software required!), and fast. (PS3 requires PS3 Media Server; I use it and it works great; it's free.)

Wired everywhere.

 

[s44]

Some things I've learned recently about this sort of setup:

(1) Serviio now supports the wtv (Windows TV recording) format natively. This wasn't true before March. It's a very well-built and free cross-platform DLNA server, both tweakable and easy to use right from install, that folks should definitely consider. (Mezzmo is also nice, as I said, but costs $.)
(2) LG devices don't seem to play well with files that need transcoding... which basically means wtv,. So don't get a LG Blu-Ray as a client.

 

[s44]

(3) As the OP discovered, Serviio does very well with Blu-Ray players and DLNA TVs but doesn't have a built-in WDTV profile. This wouldn't matter, since WDTV plays back pretty much everything natively... except wtv. So not the easiest solution if you're using that as your TV client.

 

[dclive]

Catching up a bit late here, but you can easily move from .wtv to .dvr-ms (in an automated fashion) and from there decommercialize and convert to m4v/x264 or some other format.