What’s your media server setup?

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › What’s your media server setup?

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2844 posts

Uber Geek

#2504117 13-Jun-2020 15:10

Synology NAS for stored media.
Tvheadend (FreeBSD), connected to a networked h.264 encoder for Sky and six HDHomeRun tuners for live TV.
Kodi as the front end running a mix of CoreELEC, LibreELEC (Pi) and Windows (NUC).

Previously I used FreeBSD and ZFS for storage, until the RAID failed and I needed a quick replacement. I will probably move back to that platform for the next upgrade.

PANiCnz

990 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2504133 13-Jun-2020 16:29

SirHumphreyAppleby:

Synology NAS for stored media.
Tvheadend (FreeBSD), connected to a networked h.264 encoder for Sky and six HDHomeRun tuners for live TV.
Kodi as the front end running a mix of CoreELEC, LibreELEC (Pi) and Windows (NUC).

Previously I used FreeBSD and ZFS for storage, until the RAID failed and I needed a quick replacement. I will probably move back to that platform for the next upgrade.

Out of curiosity what is a "networked h.264 encoder"?

SirHumphreyAppleby

2844 posts

Uber Geek

#2504143 13-Jun-2020 16:48

PANiCnz:

Out of curiosity what is a "networked h.264 encoder"?

It's a standalone HDMI capture device which can be used for streaming.

I have one similar to this. Not a recommendation for a specific seller - I've had mine for several years.

lagbort

263 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#2504744 15-Jun-2020 08:55

Server made of old leftover parts (i5-2500, 16GB Ram, some cheap SSD I bought).

Running Plex, Ombi, Radarr, Sonarr, Jackett.

Actual media is pulled across the network from my main PC as a hangover from when I ran Plex on that PC, however this will change when I upgrade my main PC at the end of the year and can be bothered putting in the work to shift the HDDs and change all the settings.

lchiu7

6476 posts

Uber Geek

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#2504753 15-Jun-2020 09:35

I am just using my main PC with a couple of HD's attached running Plex server. And my clients are now both Odroid C2's running Coreelec and Plex.

Given that the server does no transcoding at all (managed to work out how to set that option), and the client can play 4K H.265 Atmos content, I am thinking of moving my server to a Raspberry Pi 3. I have Plex server running on a Pi2 as a POC and it worked okay. And that was even with the media on a SMB share off the Windows PC. WIth the hard drives (USB3) attached directly to the Pi, it might do fine.

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jonb

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#2504756 15-Jun-2020 09:46

Would a Plex client work direct from a TV (Panasonic FX740) to an older Diskstation (112). Currently have all the media files in a not very organised system as watched them direct from a laptop previously. Would Plex be able to play most of them if move them to the 'Videos' directory or would it would need to transcode, which the Diskstation doesn't have the grunt for.

lagbort

263 posts

Ultimate Geek

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#2504757 15-Jun-2020 09:48

jonb:

Would a Plex client work direct from a TV (Panasonic FX740) to an older Diskstation (112). Currently have all the media files in a not very organised system as watched them direct from a laptop previously. Would Plex be able to play most of them if move them to the 'Videos' directory or would it would need to transcode, which the Diskstation doesn't have the grunt for.

Depends entirely on the intersection between the formats your media is in and the formats your TV supports.

If those overlap then no transcoding is required

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xpd

Geek @ Coastguard NZ
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#2504804 15-Jun-2020 10:05

Plex on Windows 10 running on a repurposed 4th gen i5 desktop. Really needs an upgrade..... starting to notice it struggles a bit at peak times.

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lchiu7

6476 posts

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#2504817 15-Jun-2020 10:22

xpd:

Plex on Windows 10 running on a repurposed 4th gen i5 desktop. Really needs an upgrade..... starting to notice it struggles a bit at peak times.

If you can avoid transcoding, that machine is fine for most content. Just get a better client. I was quite surprised that the Plex client in the Amazon Firestick 4K works really well and can play content which is stored as 4K H.265 with lossless audio (like Dolby TrueHD or DTS MA) . And you can find them on ebay for quite low prices.

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elpenguino

3423 posts

Uber Geek

#2504821 15-Jun-2020 10:39

robjg63:

Main household desktop PC that has a shared windows partition. Downloads and various media files go into that share.

Amazon Fire TV hooked up the the main TV running KODI - KODI has access to the windows share.

Secondary TV is hooked up to a Raspberry Pi running Librelec (KODI) also with access to the Windows share.

I have the same layout and it's amazing how easy to use Kodi is, it has a high WAF.

I also have a tuner card in the desktop and have NextPVR clients on all my kodis to schedule/watch recordings.

robjg63:

Works sweet as a nut.

It does, and all at quite low cost.

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JaseNZ

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#2504828 15-Jun-2020 10:47

unraid server teamed up with infuse on an apple tv 4k , Has everything I need and is as simple as hell.

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darylblake

1162 posts

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#2504909 15-Jun-2020 11:05

Basically I just got a large PC case, and filled it up with HDD's. (its overflowing now haha).

i5-6500

8GB DDR4 2133

2TB x 2

4TB x1

1TB x1

750GB x1

500GB x1

256GB SSD x1

Running Ubuntu 20.04, Plex etc. Have a screen in the garage and some speakers in it to watch workout videos while im gymming in the garage. I need a bigger PC case but tbh i dont care about the raid, if a drive dies I will live with it. Its powerful enough to get about 4-5 simultaneous streams on plex.

Dugimodo

168 posts

Master Geek

#2504963 15-Jun-2020 11:48

Maybe I'm unusual but I've never found any use for media servers, have tried plex, kodi, and a couple other options but in the end for me it just seems to add an unnecessary front end to what I can already do with ordinary file sharing.

One thing is I just use a NUC attached to the TV to stream everything, and windows file explorer with a mapped network share from a NAS. I do the same thing on my laptop or gaming PC. I realise if you want to stream to mobile devices it's not quite as useful this way.

My media is sorted into folders and easily found.

On the storage front I use a 4 bay Asustor NAS, and also have a open media vault server I built but currently powered down with no drives installed. The Asus NAS is more expensive but just better IMHO, take sup less space, is easier to configure, and uses less power.