What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?
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@NashBrydges said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
I have 4k TVs at home but my brother in law doesn't so if he is watching the same movie I am, it can play natively via Roku 4 for me but it can't for him.
Yeah I don't yet but I can see where that would be frustrating
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I have an old 2950 in service running a 2008 server for my file access (primary file storage & print server) with a couple other VMs on the host. One of those other hosts is the Ubuntu Server 14.04 (if I recall correctly) with plex on there, using smb to mount all of my movies and other media. All of my media is on DAS, internal through the perc. As I stated above, I use a roku3 to watch everything. The only problems I have is that the 2950 is underpowered and if a tv show or movie isn't encoded in a ready-to-play format, then I need to prepare to watch that show by telling plex to transcode it for watching in advance. I'm planning to upgrade to a 510 or something as soon as I have a couple grand just doing nothing. Mostly, I just want more storage.
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It seems Roku and Kodi are not really friends.
For the sake of conversation, we should consider them as completely separate things, not links in a chain.Ideally it would be nice to watch anything from any source using a single interface. Right now we have our PS3 which we use for Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, and DLNA from Win10.
If I got a Roku, then it would seem Kodi is not the best bet, Plex is where it's at.
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Our Roku 3 works flawlessly with Plex!
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@dafyre said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
Our Roku 3 works flawlessly with Plex!
It's really a fantastic combination.
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I am leaning toward Plex and Roku.
I don't think Roku is actually necessary though, at least right away. I should be able to just plug the tower directly into the TV with an HDMI cable right? Or is Plex only accessible over the network? Even then I can just use the network without Roku.
In any case, assume I go with Plex. Is the Linux install more or less stable and easy to use than the Windows install? It just needs to be easy to manage and easy to add media over a network share or whatever. Local storage.
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@guyinpv You can plug the PC directly into the TV via HDMI (you'll want to make sure your video card also sends sound via the HDMI...not all do) but the noise is very quickly going to become annoying. It's hard to beat the silent Roku. Not to mention the Roku can take some stream and direct play them, relieving the stress from your PC for any transcoding work.
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@guyinpv said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
I am leaning toward Plex and Roku.
I don't think Roku is actually necessary though, at least right away. I should be able to just plug the tower directly into the TV with an HDMI cable right? Or is Plex only accessible over the network? Even then I can just use the network without Roku.
In any case, assume I go with Plex. Is the Linux install more or less stable and easy to use than the Windows install? It just needs to be easy to manage and easy to add media over a network share or whatever. Local storage.
It's not an easier install than Windows but some distros are more annoying than others. I installed in on CentOS 7 and made a guide here which is an okay guide. The problem with CentOS is it partitions anything past the 50GB cap in the
/root/directory into/home/and you need to reallocate the space either to/root/or just point everything to/home/. -
@wirestyle22 said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
The problem with CentOS is it partitions anything past the 50GB cap in the
/root/directory into/home/and you need to reallocate the space either to/root/or just point everything to/home/.That makes it sound far worse than it is. It doesn't just partition like that and you don't need to reallocate space later. You just can't skip the "choose your storage layout" part of the install when you initially install. You can partition however you want, choose your filesystems and so forth from the very beginning. It just has a default that works for people who decide to skip that step.
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@scottalanmiller said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
@wirestyle22 said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
The problem with CentOS is it partitions anything past the 50GB cap in the
/root/directory into/home/and you need to reallocate the space either to/root/or just point everything to/home/.That makes it sound far worse than it is. It doesn't just partition like that and you don't need to reallocate space later. You just can't skip the "choose your storage layout" part of the install when you initially install. You can partition however you want, choose your filesystems and so forth from the very beginning. It just has a default that works for people who decide to skip that step.
Well that is certainly true Scott, but there's nothing in that initial set up that tells you what the fuck it's doing with all the space and how bad is mangling it was that/home.
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I actually only ever used CentOS and assumed it was just a characteristic of all distro's instead of just CentOS alone until a week ago or so
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@NashBrydges said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
@guyinpv You can plug the PC directly into the TV via HDMI (you'll want to make sure your video card also sends sound via the HDMI...not all do) but the noise is very quickly going to become annoying. It's hard to beat the silent Roku. Not to mention the Roku can take some stream and direct play them, relieving the stress from your PC for any transcoding work.
Good point about audio. Is this a requirement? I mean, can't I just run the audio out on the PC over to an audio input jack on the TV? Or is audio-over-HDMI a necessary standard for TVs?
My TV is about 6 or 7 years old plasma 40". It has HDMI and even USB ports but not a "smart" TV by any means. -
Normally you want audio over HDMI because it's "all one signal". Otherwise you have audio going one place and video going another. You can do it, but a lot of devices get confused since your HDMI has audio but you are trying to use something else for audio too.
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@guyinpv said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
@NashBrydges said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
@guyinpv You can plug the PC directly into the TV via HDMI (you'll want to make sure your video card also sends sound via the HDMI...not all do) but the noise is very quickly going to become annoying. It's hard to beat the silent Roku. Not to mention the Roku can take some stream and direct play them, relieving the stress from your PC for any transcoding work.
Good point about audio. Is this a requirement? I mean, can't I just run the audio out on the PC over to an audio input jack on the TV? Or is audio-over-HDMI a necessary standard for TVs?
My TV is about 6 or 7 years old plasma 40". It has HDMI and even USB ports but not a "smart" TV by any means.You want HDMI audio because it will carry multi-channel surround formats, PC audio outs are 2 ch stereo (unless it is an optical jack, but those are still not as good as HDMI).
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@RojoLoco said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
@guyinpv said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
@NashBrydges said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
@guyinpv You can plug the PC directly into the TV via HDMI (you'll want to make sure your video card also sends sound via the HDMI...not all do) but the noise is very quickly going to become annoying. It's hard to beat the silent Roku. Not to mention the Roku can take some stream and direct play them, relieving the stress from your PC for any transcoding work.
Good point about audio. Is this a requirement? I mean, can't I just run the audio out on the PC over to an audio input jack on the TV? Or is audio-over-HDMI a necessary standard for TVs?
My TV is about 6 or 7 years old plasma 40". It has HDMI and even USB ports but not a "smart" TV by any means.You want HDMI audio because it will carry multi-channel surround formats, PC audio outs are 2 ch stereo (unless it is an optical jack, but those are still not as good as HDMI).
Ah TOSLINK. Who even remembers that stuff
It'll go down as a memory, much like Toshiba itself. -
@scottalanmiller said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
@RojoLoco said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
@guyinpv said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
@NashBrydges said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
@guyinpv You can plug the PC directly into the TV via HDMI (you'll want to make sure your video card also sends sound via the HDMI...not all do) but the noise is very quickly going to become annoying. It's hard to beat the silent Roku. Not to mention the Roku can take some stream and direct play them, relieving the stress from your PC for any transcoding work.
Good point about audio. Is this a requirement? I mean, can't I just run the audio out on the PC over to an audio input jack on the TV? Or is audio-over-HDMI a necessary standard for TVs?
My TV is about 6 or 7 years old plasma 40". It has HDMI and even USB ports but not a "smart" TV by any means.You want HDMI audio because it will carry multi-channel surround formats, PC audio outs are 2 ch stereo (unless it is an optical jack, but those are still not as good as HDMI).
Ah TOSLINK. Who even remembers that stuff
It'll go down as a memory, much like Toshiba itself.I do. TOSLINK was at least better than analog for surround sound setups, but horrible according to any audiophile.
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@travisdh1 said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
@scottalanmiller said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
@RojoLoco said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
@guyinpv said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
@NashBrydges said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
@guyinpv You can plug the PC directly into the TV via HDMI (you'll want to make sure your video card also sends sound via the HDMI...not all do) but the noise is very quickly going to become annoying. It's hard to beat the silent Roku. Not to mention the Roku can take some stream and direct play them, relieving the stress from your PC for any transcoding work.
Good point about audio. Is this a requirement? I mean, can't I just run the audio out on the PC over to an audio input jack on the TV? Or is audio-over-HDMI a necessary standard for TVs?
My TV is about 6 or 7 years old plasma 40". It has HDMI and even USB ports but not a "smart" TV by any means.You want HDMI audio because it will carry multi-channel surround formats, PC audio outs are 2 ch stereo (unless it is an optical jack, but those are still not as good as HDMI).
Ah TOSLINK. Who even remembers that stuff
It'll go down as a memory, much like Toshiba itself.I do. TOSLINK was at least better than analog for surround sound setups, but horrible according to any audiophile.
That's because audiophiles used digital already that was superior. So TOSLINK was a step backwards compared to what existed at the time for good audio, which was not analogue. So for audiophiles would could hear the new jitter, due to TOSLINK lacking a timing signal that traditional copper based digital had, saw it as an expensive way to lose audio quality.
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@guyinpv said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
@NashBrydges said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
@guyinpv You can plug the PC directly into the TV via HDMI (you'll want to make sure your video card also sends sound via the HDMI...not all do) but the noise is very quickly going to become annoying. It's hard to beat the silent Roku. Not to mention the Roku can take some stream and direct play them, relieving the stress from your PC for any transcoding work.
Good point about audio. Is this a requirement? I mean, can't I just run the audio out on the PC over to an audio input jack on the TV? Or is audio-over-HDMI a necessary standard for TVs?
My TV is about 6 or 7 years old plasma 40". It has HDMI and even USB ports but not a "smart" TV by any means.It's up to you how you get audio "out"
My current setup runs the HDMI output from Roku to the receiver which handles all of the multi-channel audio (DTS, DTS-HD, DTS-MA, AC3...etc) and the receiver has a HDMI out that goes to the TV. So the receiver runs audio through the surround system and the TV on gets the video signal.
If you don't have a receiver in place but only a TV, if your video card handles audio via HDMI then you're good to go with the tv playing back both video and audio. If your video card does NOT support audio out via the HDMI then you'll probably have to resort to using some other method like component video + audio jacks from your video card and PC to your TV. But you'll lose a lot of quality that way.
You'll want to know what your Plex PC can manage for outputs and determine whether you even want to go down that road. But for the cost of a Roku these days, I'd spring for that and be done with it. Much, much simpler and quieter.
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@NashBrydges said in What's the current "standard" for a media server setup these days?:
You'll want to know what your Plex PC can manage for outputs and determine whether you even want to go down that road. But for the cost of a Roku these days, I'd spring for that and be done with it. Much, much simpler and quieter.
You're suggesting the Roku completely replaces building a Plex box. How is that? I still have to store all my files somewhere and I'm trying to not have to use my main workstation. Is Roku's media management features as good as Plex? Does it scan for meta data and find previews and cover art and all that stuff?
I guess I'm not see how Roku alone is a complete replacement for Plex. I thought Roku just connects to various streaming services? Is it also a media management app like Plex?
