Centralized home entertainment system

Grant

Grant

Honorary Master
Joined
Mar 27, 2007
Messages
69,844
Reaction score
38,390
Location
Behind the grassy knoll
Not sure what the correct title would be.

But I am mulling over getting some sort of system where the various tv's / devices in the house can access media stored on a server of sorts.

A system where for example i can listen to music in the study / office, another can watch movie "A" in the lounge, whilst a 3rd person could watch movie "B" in a bedroom.

Any suggestions - and where to start ?
 
Have a look at a seagate central HDD, it is an "external" HDD drive, that you can connect to your router via a LAN port, and then it makes it available on your network like a media server. You can also set up access rights like a public folder and a private folder that is password protected on the network.

It is quite cool. ATM I use mine a centralised home enterainment system. I access it via WIFI on my samsung HT. It has a seagate app you can install to browse it nicely.

http://www.makro.co.za/computing-and-mobile/seagate-2tb-central-hard-drive-263567EA
 
Plex units,or android media players running XBMC
Centralized storage using Microserver or NAS units

Personally i'm running the latter in both instances
 
Plex plex all the way, and the cool metadata and beautiful apps. Can't go wrong
 
Once you up to speed add LetMeWatchThis (LMWT) and SS Plex channels from the unsupported Plex app store for all your TV series/Movies ala XBMC style https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/topic/25523-unsupported-as-in-totally-unofficial-appstore/
 
OrbitalDawn said:
What do you mean? What does this do?
Click to expand...
You are able to stream TV series and movies from the Internet similar to 1channel and ice films on XBMC. After installing the channels on your Plex server, any device that connects to it is able to connect to LMWT and SS Plex and stream tv series and movies :cool:
 
SL1v3R said:
You are able to stream TV series and movies from the Internet similar to 1channel and ice films on XBMC. After installing the channels on your Plex server, any device that connects to it is able to connect to LMWT and SS Plex and stream tv series and movies :cool:
Click to expand...

Ah, I see. That's pretty cool.

The only complaint I have with my setup (Roku + Plex) is the side scrolling interface. It's retarded. I want everything to display all over the available screen space, not one stupid row.

But I think it's the Roku apk that determines that.
 
so let me try get this right.

if i am doing some work at home (in the study) i can listen to some music via the sound system connected to the tv.
while i am doing this, someone downstairs can be watching some move
&
a wayward guest could be watching music videos (or porn) in one of the bedrooms

where is plex actually installed ?

i have a spare mac pro & was thinking of using it as a server (of sorts), that then connected to the router & network switch (is that right) then have cables run through existing conduit to the various tv's / sound systems.
sounds like i am trying to complicate & overkill something a whole lot more simple.
 
Plex has a server component that delivers contents to various clients via various means.

So you can install the server on the Mac Pro and also use it's storage or other networked storage.

Clients connect with Plex app on various devices or via UPNP.
 
grantza said:
so let me try get this right.

if i am doing some work at home (in the study) i can listen to some music via the sound system connected to the tv.
while i am doing this, someone downstairs can be watching some move
&
a wayward guest could be watching music videos (or porn) in one of the bedrooms

where is plex actually installed ?

i have a spare mac pro & was thinking of using it as a server (of sorts), that then connected to the router & network switch (is that right) then have cables run through existing conduit to the various tv's / sound systems.
sounds like i am trying to complicate & overkill something a whole lot more simple.
Click to expand...

Mac Pro will make a great Plex server. Just go to the Plex site and download the Plex Media Server application, install it and follow the instructions.

Where is all your media stored? Do you have a NAS or external hard drives or is it all on the Mac Pro?
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
Mac Pro will make a great Plex server. Just go to the Plex site and download the Plex Media Server application, install it and follow the instructions.

Where is all your media stored? Do you have a NAS or external hard drives or is it all on the Mac Pro?
Click to expand...

there are 2 wd media centre's. (each with its own hard drive)
both with different content which is a pain

the mac pro is sitting unused - which is why i figured it should be put to use
 
grantza said:
there are 2 wd media centre's. (each with its own hard drive)
both with different content which is a pain

the mac pro is sitting unused - which is why i figured it should be put to use
Click to expand...

Before we go any further though, how old is that Mac Pro? The newer versions of Plex require Mac OS 10.6 or higher.

Requirements
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or higher.
A Mac with Intel Core 2 Duo processor or better.
At least 1GB of RAM (2GB recommended).
Click to expand...
 
grantza said:
its about 3rs old
running SL 10.6.8
Click to expand...

That's cool.

What devices do you have in each room? If you have any compatible Samsung smart TV's you could probably get rid of the WD's completely and run Plex directly using the native app. This way you could move those drives from the WD's to the Mac.

Otherwise you can just copy all your media over to the Mac and then use DLNA to stream using the WD's. This is not ideal though as you don't get the full Plex experience this way.

I would probably recommend selling the WD's and getting devices that can run Plex natively, something like a Roku 3, Chromecast or even some Android media player.

Not knowing your exact setup though makes it difficult to make recommendations though.
 
tv's are all sony bravias

but i am about to replace them all (need to find a dealer i can haggle with, have to get a few) - samsung smart tv's better ?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X