Is there any support for a Media Server Sticky?

[krzywica]

I will check out Ubuntu, its been a while since I have fiddled with anything of that nature... I used to build PC's for fun (for my own education) for a long time, but I have pretty much just run XP for my needs...

I really got sidetracked with so many other things in my life, that messing with computers got put on the back burner, and as far as I was concerned, they were behind the times... I have been wanting to build a HTPC, but nothing out there has had the capabilities to output (at the time)DVI/HDMI, and handshake issues were too much drama for me... but it has been a while, and things have progressed, but I have been away..

It sounds to me like you have been more up to date and current with the latest and greatest stuff out there... Is there anything available that provides as robust a GUI as the latest XBMC can do...? I would be very interested in implementing something that would handle all my needs that has had as much love from the hundreds of programmers like XBMC. XBMC with a full HDMI 1080p connection would be wicked.. and worthy of my time to build, and implement in all my systems..

That was always to me the cool thing about XBMC as you know, every week there is a change/update in the code, it is constantly updated, reworking the source code for a flawless product. You just don't get that with software these days.. It costs to much to keep re-inventing the wheel...

I appreciate your knowledge here, and would like to hear more..
Money is not a problem, but asthetics are.. I want a sexy looking HTPC that will fit into all of my HT's..

Yes XP is no longer the only "idiot proof" OS. Linux has come a long way in the last year even as far as user friendliness and GUI induced configuration, as apposed to command line wizardry.

HDMI handshakes are still an issue, but most of the sets these days have DVI, or VGA inputs that make them completely plug and play. And I think the new generation of graphics cards, Nvidia 98XX, and ATI 38XX they are coming with native HDMI ports.

Yes there is equal or better software available than the XBMC stuff.

Thats the beauty of open source software development. Its just that DEVELOPMENT, not squabbling over licensing and other malarkey.

Not a problem, computers and technology are my passion, so whatever I build is sexy, always.

 

[krzywica]

Before I forget... I want to make sure I keep my technology accurate. Is there a difference between a media server and HTPC?

HTPC is the client or local machine that you would have in your rack.

The media server is the "host" and acts as a central gateway for all your media.

 

[itschris]

So an HTPC would replace everthing except maybe power? I'm assuming I've been talking about Media Servers... a box that will sit with and connect to my pre/pro where I store all my digital music and dvd's.

 

[Warpdrv]

Ultimately they can be one in the same, You can have a computer that serves as a media center, with enough HD space to serve as storage...

I would think it is very easy these days, seeing as hard drives now come in 1000 gigabytes (terabyte).

I just bought 2 terabyte drives with that Dlink unit... now thats a pretty large and easy method of of storage, but of coarse you have to have it on the network somewhere...

 

[krzywica]

So an HTPC would replace everthing except maybe power? I'm assuming I've been talking about Media Servers... a box that will sit with and connect to my pre/pro where I store all my digital music and dvd's.

Ok......

The HTPC sits with you receiver.

The media server would be tucked away in a cabinet somewhere.

 

[itschris]

I guess I'm thinking they're one in the same. I'm gonna use the nice Silver Stone case with the LCD. I envison only having my amp, my pre/pro, and "the box" which will have a blu-ray drive, and will also hold the copies of my cd's and dvd's, as well as, serve as the DVR. Talking to some other folks, I'll probably have 5 drives in a RAID array. I don't see any point in not having them all be at least 1T each since they're not that much more exspensive. That way I could record quite a bit of HD programming along with all the digital music and DVD's. I'm thinking it would be networked in our wireless home network so I could stream content to other rooms and easily run backups to my main computer. I guess this really is both a HTPC and a Media Server in one good looking package.

 

[Warpdrv]

Now don't quote me on this, but I think there might be bandwidth problems doing it all wirelessly.... I made sure that I ran all Cat6 I got for free from my buddy... throughout the house...

 

[itschris]

To be honest... I'm not opposed to runnng cable through the house. The wireless stuff is neat, but nothing beats a direct connection... besides, I don't know that I want movies being transmitted through my body while I'm relaxing eating cookies between the system and the other room!

 

[Djizasse]

I don't know if you can stream HD movies wirelessly without a lot of breaks. It's too much bandwith for the systems i've been watching.

As for the Raid Array with 5 drives, you're talking about setting it Raid 5 for speed and security? 5 TBs is a lot of space, or thinking again, it isn't

The case looks sweet, but cramming 5 disks in there in Raid 5 means that they'll be spinning all the time (if they're all on the same array), making noise and heat. It's probable that you'll have to cool them and that means more noise.

I will probably build a system with hot swap or just plug in a USB drive whenever i want to watch a movie. If i could i would rig my house with cat5 cable and gigabit network, keeping the server in the office and just a (silent) HTPC in the living room. I hate noise when watching movies.

 

[krzywica]

I don't know if you can stream HD movies wirelessly without a lot of breaks. It's too much bandwith for the systems i've been watching.

As for the Raid Array with 5 drives, you're talking about setting it Raid 5 for speed and security? 5 TBs is a lot of space, or thinking again, it isn't

The case looks sweet, but cramming 5 disks in there in Raid 5 means that they'll be spinning all the time (if they're all on the same array), making noise and heat. It's probable that you'll have to cool them and that means more noise.

I will probably build a system with hot swap or just plug in a USB drive whenever i want to watch a movie. If i could i would rig my house with cat5 cable and gigabit network, keeping the server in the office and just a (silent) HTPC in the living room. I hate noise when watching movies.

Technically streaming HD over wifi is possible with a G or greater wireless network. I do this in my apartment, because of the lack of a hard wired infrastructure. It is far from a best case scenario, but its doable. Ideally you would want at LEAST, a layer 2 switch capable of full duplex 100MBps or greater with CAT5E or greater cabling.

RAID 5 only requires 3 drives. But you can do 5 drives of you so choose. But first of all you will be hard pressed to find an HTPC case with greater than 4 HDD bays. Secondly ALL current onboard RAID controllers (barring worstation and server) are software RAID, and not hardware RAID. This means your CPU has to do all the work, and in a more complex RAID array, like a RAID 5 or RAID 10, this means a lot of extra work for you processor, which means heat, and ultimately noise. So if you are going to do RAID5 or higher I would suggest a dedicated HDD controller with at least 128MB of onboard memory. You shouldn't have a problem cooling your HDD's as most modern HDD's don't have heat issues. And the HDD's will be spinning all the time anyway, but they will seek a lot more in a RAID 5.....

The USB drive is a bad idea. Thats far from sleek and refined. But the server is usually a good idea if you have the knowledge, or have the means to acquire it.

Also 1TB drives are twice as much or more than 500GB drives, so if you can swing the server thing you could just load up on smaller drives, and get a little more value out of it.

 

[Djizasse]

I guess mileage varies. In my apartment the max i could get with a 54G (with linksys) was 2-3 MB/s, a lot behind the theoretical maximum of +-7MB/s and this was without any WEP or similar security. I had 2 concrete walls between the gateway and the receiver. Houses with wooden walls will get better throughput.

I don't know what you call HD, you talking about what? 1080p with 5.1?

And yes, Raid 5 only requires 3 disks But, besides the redundant aspect, i don't give it a lot of importance. The added speed is not "needed", at least not for the real streamming. The biggest drawback for me is the continuous spinning of all the drives in the array. In a raidless system with multiple drives, only the one being used is spinning, the others can be "sleeping".

USB works, is portable, and the latest 2.5 drives are fast enough to be able to "stream" movies. Don't even need the power brick. For me this is sleek and if you get an aluminium enclosure it becomes refined

edit: and for extra sleekness i would use a 1.8 drive. Take one out of your shirt's pocket, plug it in the HTPS's usb front port and start the movie session

 

[itschris]

I don't know if you can stream HD movies wirelessly without a lot of breaks. It's too much bandwith for the systems i've been watching.

As for the Raid Array with 5 drives, you're talking about setting it Raid 5 for speed and security? 5 TBs is a lot of space, or thinking again, it isn't

The case looks sweet, but cramming 5 disks in there in Raid 5 means that they'll be spinning all the time (if they're all on the same array), making noise and heat. It's probable that you'll have to cool them and that means more noise.

I will probably build a system with hot swap or just plug in a USB drive whenever i want to watch a movie. If i could i would rig my house with cat5 cable and gigabit network, keeping the server in the office and just a (silent) HTPC in the living room. I hate noise when watching movies.

I'll buy that. Thinking about it, what you say makes sense. So let me pose this and come back with what you think and give me some "how to."

Okay, so lets say I have my pretty SilverStone LCD case sitting with my pre/pro and amp and I have a big box of 5 or 6 drives sitting in the other room. My question is: How am I getting the music from the server to the system? Is the SilverStone just reading the drives on the server over the network like you would an EXCEL spreadsheet over your network? If I have two boxes, the nicer HTPC with my equipment and my media server in the other room, what specifically do I need to have in my SilverStone box? Would I even have a hard drive or just 4 gigs of RAM? The other thing that comes to mind is how this is connected to my pre/pro. Let's assume I go with the new Emotiva that has HDMI and all that. I'm assuming I want the pre/pro to do all the processing yes? So what is sending the signal to the pre/pro... the video card? And what connection is it using? HDMI? I see all of these video cards that process "this" and "that" but I'm thinking I don't need all that if the pre/pro is doing the work including upconverting regualr DVD's.

I could just be smart about this also and just build an HTPC with 1 or 2 Terabytes which really would be more than enough for awhile until I catalogue all my stuff. But much of the same questions still apply.

 

[stratman]

I did this primarily as an AUDIO LIBRAY but it will suport video as well, changing The Turtle beach card for something with HDMI would give you a nice sub $1000.00 system, this post came from my AUDIO LIBRARY ON A BUDGET thread at the Steam Vent, I hope the mods don't get red, but I think it might be useful here.

"Well guys I did a complete 180! Instead of opting for Cortex, I did something totally different. Frustrated by the thought of making a bad decision, I expanded my search (whew! This has chewed up 80+ hours of my life on Google! ), went to Dell, they had some nifty deals going (I know, I've said it before I'm not a fan of Dell, BUT this is not my primary computer and the deal was too good to pass up!)I bought an Inspiron 530, custom configured including a 17 inch flat display, Intel Core Duo processor 4MB L2 cache- 2.33 GHz, 1333 FSB Processor, 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 RAM @ 667 MHz-2DIMMs, 250 Gig SATA HDD, 48X CDRW/DVD combo, Windows Vista Home Basic all for $539.00 before tax and shipping (approx. 75.00), I also ordered Turtle Beach's Montego DDL sound card to replace what comes with the Dell, The Montego has some nice features like S/PDIF in and out, supports Dolby Digital and DTS all for the price of 67.74 including shipping. Next came Snap Stream Media's Firefly PC Remote bundled with Beyond Media which allows complete control of PC from remote (it also supports MediaMonkey, my software of choice for music)you can even do play lists on the fly! All of this for $77.39 including shipping and taxes! So for a total of $759.13 I have a dedicated MUSIC LIBRARY that allows for expansion in the future and video.

By comparison the Cortex and peripherals came in at about $510.00, the drawbacks no display, no remote, no MediaMonkey support, NO digital in nor out!, forced to buy two external HDDs.

The Sonos out of the gate was too expensive, to configure it to what I need $2000.00+, Sonos plus Infrant Ready NAS (1050.00)

The Duet came in at $400.00, not available till end of month, if added computer about $1000.00 and change, still more than the PC based system, plus the PC display is 17" while the Duet has a 2.4" display.

Overall I think the PC based system is the way to go for a budget MUSIC LIBRARY, only as long as you can pick up a PC at an excellent price, that's the only way I thought it was worth it. PM if you want details and particulars."

 

[Djizasse]

Yes, it is like reading an excel spreadsheet, it's just files being read over the network.
The point of having a server is using it to store your media files, preferably away from you. It can be big, ugly and noisy.

I've been a little way from the hardware releases in the PC market for the last months, i'm a little outdated on the latest gizmos and solutions. It's hard to keep track of the IT world and i only do it when i want to buy something The htpc/hd state is a real mess right now, it's not easy to make an informed decision, or even one that can satisfy all your requirements.

But i bet that an informed member will be able to help you more

If not, read this, it's a review of three motherboards with integrated video: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/02/05/home_theatre_pc_motherboards_feb_08/1

(read the comments)

I need to study this :\

 

[krzywica]

I guess mileage varies. In my apartment the max i could get with a 54G (with linksys) was 2-3 MB/s, a lot behind the theoretical maximum of +-7MB/s and this was without any WEP or similar security. I had 2 concrete walls between the gateway and the receiver. Houses with wooden walls will get better throughput.

I don't know what you call HD, you talking about what? 1080p with 5.1?

And yes, Raid 5 only requires 3 disks But, besides the redundant aspect, i don't give it a lot of importance. The added speed is not "needed", at least not for the real streamming. The biggest drawback for me is the continuous spinning of all the drives in the array. In a raidless system with multiple drives, only the one being used is spinning, the others can be "sleeping".

USB works, is portable, and the latest 2.5 drives are fast enough to be able to "stream" movies. Don't even need the power brick. For me this is sleek and if you get an aluminium enclosure it becomes refined

edit: and for extra sleekness i would use a 1.8 drive. Take one out of your shirt's pocket, plug it in the HTPS's usb front port and start the movie session

Yes it does depend on your environment and your wifi hardware. But I was referring to having full 56MBps or greater wireless throughput, sorry I wasn't very clear about that......Sounds like you live in a Faraday Cage or something? I have aftermarket antennas on my AP, as well as the DD-WRT firmware flashed on it, instead of the standard Lynksis garbage. You would think a brand made by Cisco would have a lot better hardware than that?

When I say HD I mean anything. 1080P 5.1 sure why not!

I don't know if you have superhuman ears, but I can't hear a SATA 7200 RPM HDD when it is idling, I can barely hear my drives seeking. And yes I'm aware that your drives can sleep when set as such.

I'll buy that. Thinking about it, what you say makes sense. So let me pose this and come back with what you think and give me some "how to."

Okay, so lets say I have my pretty SilverStone LCD case sitting with my pre/pro and amp and I have a big box of 5 or 6 drives sitting in the other room. My question is: How am I getting the music from the server to the system? Is the SilverStone just reading the drives on the server over the network like you would an EXCEL spreadsheet over your network? If I have two boxes, the nicer HTPC with my equipment and my media server in the other room, what specifically do I need to have in my SilverStone box? Would I even have a hard drive or just 4 gigs of RAM? The other thing that comes to mind is how this is connected to my pre/pro. Let's assume I go with the new Emotiva that has HDMI and all that. I'm assuming I want the pre/pro to do all the processing yes? So what is sending the signal to the pre/pro... the video card? And what connection is it using? HDMI? I see all of these video cards that process "this" and "that" but I'm thinking I don't need all that if the pre/pro is doing the work including upconverting regualr DVD's.

I could just be smart about this also and just build an HTPC with 1 or 2 Terabytes which really would be more than enough for awhile until I catalogue all my stuff. But much of the same questions still apply.

You will need a hard drive. But this PC will still need plenty of processing power, but not much storage space is required.

You would "map" your network drive or drives, so that they act just like a local drive. When a drive is mapped over a network it is assigned a drive letter. So you would just configure your media player so that the default location of your files is your mapped network drive.

As for your outputs, I would run straight to your monitor with the video, whether it be HDMI, or VGA, so you eliminate any handshaking and monitor detection issues. But you can try sending HDMI through your receiver. Some hardware plays well with other hardware, some just doesn't. I would suggest optical audio for the audio connection.

 

[krzywica]

But i bet that an informed member will be able to help you more

If not, read this, it's a review of three motherboards with integrated video: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/02/05/home_theatre_pc_motherboards_feb_08/1

(read the comments)

I need to study this :\

The problem with those motherbaords is.

1. They are micro ATX, and if you can stay away from having to go to micro ATX (by getting a full ATX compatible case) your day will be a lot easier.
2. None of the current integrated VGA cards support HD hardware acceleration.

 

[Djizasse]

Being mATX means that at least they will fit in ATX cases, you have more alternatives when choosing your box. Right?

I don't live in a Faraday cage, but in a apartment. I don't know about your house, but if it has woodfloors and walls, the signal will travel better.

Regarding the 1080p wireless transmission, i've done some math and if the maximum bitrate for Blue-Ray is 40Mbps (megabits per seconds) it is a bit lower than the 54G 54Mbps.
I hardly believe that it gives you enough headroom to the lost bandwidth, but the bitrate will not be allways at 40Mbps and its possible that the majority of movies are compressed harder and the actual bitrate is lower. If if you rip a BR movie and compress it even more, that will make the job easier.

With those "Airmax" or similar devices, that boost the transfer rate to twice the speed i guess its easy to transfer even the full 40Mbps (or higher). I've checked and it seems that are even higher performance devices out there (must be expensive).

Anyway, could you transfer a big file just to check your current bitrate? Just curious.

I'm glad that i'm only making my HTPC a few months from now, it's expected that a few complete HD solutions will emerge in the meantime. At least i've choosen the case, the Zalman HD160: http://www.zalman.co.kr/ENG/product/CategorySecond_Pic.asp?categoryname=Cases&categorySecond=

Minimal and sleek, just how i like them

 

[itschris]

As for your outputs, I would run straight to your monitor with the video, whether it be HDMI, or VGA, so you eliminate any handshaking and monitor detection issues. But you can try sending HDMI through your receiver. Some hardware plays well with other hardware, some just doesn't. I would suggest optical audio for the audio connection.

If I'm running video out from the HTPC to my DLP TV HDMI in, than why do I even need a pre-pro? I'm missing something conceptually simple here I think. I would think it would be more user friendly usage-wise if everything routed through the HDMI inputs on the pre-pro/receiver and it do all the work and just have the HTPC pull the media from the server and control the home media functionality like DVR, Ripping, and pulling up playlists, etc. If I do want the receiver to do all the surround decoding, what kind of video card should I be looking at? I'm not opposed to spending the money, I just don't want to throw it away. And clearly I would need a hard drive for the HTPC for Vista or what ever other media software I was running-- I don't know why I even asked that question. Dumb on my part.

I'm getting close on all this stuff. I got the pieces, I just need the help putting it all together.

 

[krzywica]

Being mATX means that at least they will fit in ATX cases, you have more alternatives when choosing your box. Right?

Thats why I suggested getting a full ATX compatible case, it opens up your options to basically any motherboard on the market. As apposed to a select few mAtx boards.

Regarding the 1080p wireless transmission, i've done some math and if the maximum bitrate for Blue-Ray is 40Mbps (megabits per seconds) it is a bit lower than the 54G 54Mbps.
I hardly believe that it gives you enough headroom to the lost bandwidth, but the bitrate will not be allways at 40Mbps and its possible that the majority of movies are compressed harder and the actual bitrate is lower. If if you rip a BR movie and compress it even more, that will make the job easier.

I already know it works I just said exactly what kind of network I have and my connection speed.

With those "Airmax" or similar devices, that boost the transfer rate to twice the speed i guess its easy to transfer even the full 40Mbps (or higher). I've checked and it seems that are even higher performance devices out there (must be expensive).

I'm not sure what you are referring to with the airmax thing, but the 802.11n standard allows for 248MBps data rate. But thats not a mature wifi technology yet and I would stay away from it.

Anyway, could you transfer a big file just to check your current bitrate? Just curious.

Roger that I will do that when I get a chance and get back to you. But I do know my network utilization is between 10% and 20% when streaming 720P content.

I'm glad that i'm only making my HTPC a few months from now, it's expected that a few complete HD solutions will emerge in the meantime. At least i've choosen the case, the Zalman HD160: http://www.zalman.co.kr/ENG/product/CategorySecond_Pic.asp?categoryname=Cases&categorySecond=

Thats a nice case! Zalman has always made solid products.

 

[krzywica]

If I'm running video out from the HTPC to my DLP TV HDMI in, than why do I even need a pre-pro? I'm missing something conceptually simple here I think. I would think it would be more user friendly usage-wise if everything routed through the HDMI inputs on the pre-pro/receiver and it do all the work and just have the HTPC pull the media from the server and control the home media functionality like DVR, Ripping, and pulling up playlists, etc. If I do want the receiver to do all the surround decoding, what kind of video card should I be looking at? I'm not opposed to spending the money, I just don't want to throw it away. And clearly I would need a hard drive for the HTPC for Vista or what ever other media software I was running-- I don't know why I even asked that question. Dumb on my part.

I'm getting close on all this stuff. I got the pieces, I just need the help putting it all together.

You can route your video through your pre-pro if you want. I was just stating that its not guaranteed to work perfectly right away. You might have to tweak some settings a little more than if you just went straight to your TV.

About audio. Your sound card is going to be doing your audio output, the video card has nothing to do with this whatsoever. But most higher end motherboards have toslink, digital coax, and independent 5 channel or greater output. So you can usually chose if you want to output bitstream or PCM in the software configuration for you sound card.

The video card will determine what the quality of your image will be somewhat. As well as taking most of the load off the rest of your system when processing HD content, but this would be on newer cards only, such as Nvidia's 8 series or ATI's 2k series or greater. I have noticed a big difference in image quality with certain cards. I would stay away from Nvidia's lower end 8 series cards, but the ATI cards seem to do well regardless. Another thing to consider is will you be playing games on your HTPC, and if so, what type of games?

Here is a parts list of a basic HTPC.

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wishlist/PublicWishDetail.asp?WishListNumber=7339412

But that can be trimmed back or beefed up depending on what you want exactly.