Media Server (1 Viewer)

[zamboknee]

I'm definitely not tech-illiterate and I've hooked up any home theater system I've ever had but I need something cleared up about media servers. I have an external hard drive hooked up to my house's router downstairs. I'd like to put movies on that hard drive and be able to stream them to TV upstairs (non-smart, Roku hooked to it though) and the TV downstairs (non-Smart but PS3 hooked to THAT one). I'm looking around and seeing things like the WD TV Live, Boxee, and Uebo to name a few and I GET the concept but I'm confused about how I'd actually get the video to the TVs. For instance, let's say I buy a Uebo M400 and hook it to the hard drive downstairs via ethernet. With this scenario: How would I get the movie to play UPSTAIRS and over the wifi? Or am I completely getting this wrong? Would the Uebo hook up directly to one of the TVs and stream it over wifi from hard drive? Ugh. I'm just trying to rip my DVDs onto a hard drive and be able to play them on any TV in the house. PS..I DON'T want to have to turn my laptop on every time to initial a server such as Plex. Any clearing up of this confusion would be very helpful. Thanks

 

[Al.Anderson]

Because it's not standardized, this is an area that has a lot of options, and that's why you're confused. (And the reason it's not standardized is because the studios do not support it because using these systems is one short step form content theft.) You basically have 3 approaches. The easiest is the one you guessed at, you get a media player for each TV and it plays files from any storage device it has access to (either locally or from a HD located on a network). I'm too lazy to research the Uebo, but it appears to fit into this category of a media player. (To have a HD on a network you either need a computer, or a NAS (which has an OS built-in); when you say you have a HD hooked to your router you lost me as to how you accomplished that.) A more advanced form of this approach is a HTPC, which you seem like you don't want to do. The second is to stream content from a server. This approach had the most potential, but never really took off at the simple consumer level. Again, probably for copyright reasons. In any case you use a DLNA capable server (a PC somewhere o a NAS) paired up with as many DLNA clients as you want. The major advantage is that the client are cheaper and don't require another device, they're usually built into the TV or DVD/BR player. The downside is that because they depend on DLNA they play fewer formats and you have less control over the a playback. The last approach is the most costly and I have the least knowledge of it - you make use of whole-house products to handle the front and back-end.

 

[TK423]

...when you say you have a HD hooked to your router you lost me as to how you accomplished that...

He probably has a router such as the RT-N56U which has two USB ports on it. You can plug in external drives to routers such as these and access the content stored on said drivers remotely, via FTP in the case of the RT-N56U.