Technology, video, phone & computer questions

[Angrboda]

This thread is for them that have not (technology answers) to reach out to thems that have, to get everyday technology questions answered without having to devote a lot of time to research, trial & error, or simply doing without. Post your questions by using the preface "Q:".

Q: I'm building a media server / media center for my sister so that she can watch her netflix, amazon, hulu, pre-recorded tv shows and such on multiple devices about the house (PC, ROKU, cell phone, Nook HD). I am new to this technology, so any advice on media servers and HTPCs is welcome, but specifically, I note in the description of server platforms like Playon and Plex, that it says they do on-the-fly transcoding. I had expected the server I'm building to not need to do any encoding / transcoding tasks, so the hardware chosen is rather modest, a Northwood Pentium 4 2.0 ghz on a lower end chipset. That does not sound adequate. However, I have a Radeon 7200 and a Radeon 9000 video card I can add. Both feature a hardware engine for calculating 'discrete cosine transforms' (DCTs) which are supposedly heavily used in decoding video. If I include one of these cards, a) will it be enough to offset the meager hardware capabilities for transcoding, and b) will it even use the video card's DCT engine in transcoding.

Q: Followup questions. Because she likes old TV shows, Playon has already been chosen (though we have 30 days to decide). I understand this runs on Windows platforms. From what I recall, XBMC can also be hosted on Windows. Can I do both? What is the least expensive MS Windows license that's a good fit for this application? (I'm thinking Windows Home Server 2011 or Windows Vista Media Center.)

I have more powerful hardware, including a couple of core 2 duo systems (an E2180, 2.0 ghz dual-core Conroe Pentium, and an E7400 midrange core 2 duo). Unfortunately, both are problematic. The E2180 is targeted to be my bedroom HTPC. The E7400 *was* going to be my main HTPC, but that can change; the main problem there is that the motherboard in it is less than completely stable, and might hard reset one or more times each week. I can live with that; I'd rather not give her a solution with known defects. (Though since it would be headless, she'd probably never notice.)

Q: Should I include a wifi router for access by her Nook HD and phone, or should I just route everything through her current LAN with wifi router? Are there any good sites explaining how to do file sharing and inter-pc / inter-device communication - I've never brought myself up to speed on these topics because everything here is wired. Any good pages to read on the subject of wifi, routing between wired and wifi, and file sharing between wired and wifi?

[Autumnlicious]

DCT hardware acceleration only is helpful for DCT codecs like H263 and H264.

Finding software that actually takes advantage of it is harder, if not nonexistent.

Also, with respect to Radeon cards, Universal Video Decoding (UVD) is only supported on Linux for UVD2. Radeons older than 3 years are potentially UVD+. An HD5670 has UVD+ (found that out the hard way).

[Angrboda]

DCT hardware acceleration only is helpful for DCT codecs like H263 and H264.

Finding software that actually takes advantage of it is harder, if not nonexistent.

Also, with respect to Radeon cards, Universal Video Decoding (UVD) is only supported on Linux for UVD2. Radeons older than 3 years are potentially UVD+. An HD5670 has UVD+ (found that out the hard way).

Thank you very much for your help. You've saved me a lot of work. Days even.

The E7400 system hard reset about 3 times last night. I think it might have been the fault of the video card / video drivers. So I replaced it with an ATI HD 5450, and will have to see. I think I'm going to give or loan her that combo, and just buy something else for myself when I get the money. I have a Raspberry Pi which I could repurpose as the living room HTPC temporarily, though I won't be able to use it as a DVR. She has an Athlon II or Athlon X2 that she just retired; when I give this to her, I'll talk to her about reusing that machine instead of this one. But for now, this is plenty of hardware. I won't have money until the third, but I may swap CPUs, giving her the E2180, as that processor should be ample for the job; that commits me to buying another LGA775 system for my living room HTPC, but that's not a bad choice.

[wolf39us]

I'm confused. Why not just load up XBMC and skip the transcoding all together? A halfway decent system will play 1080p @ 30fps with no issue.

As far as the Nook and Roku, both should support DLNA with minimal modification (though personally I believe the Roku box is a waste of effort).

Depending on the Cellphone, there are a few options for streaming... but you would need to specify which platform


For what it's worth I personally have an HTPC (XBMC) hooked up in the living room connected to a Linux NAS over ethernet (super easy). Twonky is optional to run and will support any DLNA compliant devices.

[Angrboda]

I'm confused. Why not just load up XBMC and skip the transcoding all together? A halfway decent system will play 1080p @ 30fps with no issue.

As far as the Nook and Roku, both should support DLNA with minimal modification (though personally I believe the Roku box is a waste of effort).

Depending on the Cellphone, there are a few options for streaming... but you would need to specify which platform


For what it's worth I personally have an HTPC (XBMC) hooked up in the living room connected to a Linux NAS over ethernet (super easy). Twonky is optional to run and will support any DLNA compliant devices.

(emphasis added)

My sister is not as technically proficient as you or I. I'm essentially designing a turnkey system to meet all her video playback needs. She has a lot of old TV shows on disk and would like to be able to painlessly load and watch them on any device in the house (including both things like avi as well as DVDs), as well as use Amazon Prime and Hulu. I'm in the process of getting up to speed on the technology myself, so I'm just starting to learn about things like Playon and XBMC. Until I'm further along in my learning process, I can't just blindly commit to one solution, either XBMC or DLNA, without knowing what the advantages, disadvantages, and trade-offs are. I've already learned that the hardware I had chosen wouldn't work. Since XBMC doesn't do transcoding on the fly, my guess is that her Nook HD will only play files that are already compatible with the device, which means only some of her videos would be playable on some devices; I know that she currently spends a lot of time transcoding files - those files would not play with XBMC if it doesn't do on-the-fly transcoding. Your suggestion of just loading up XBMC or using DLNA would have resulted in a non-solution, a paperweight, if I hadn't researched the hardware / software interdependence and had just done what you said. Further, you assumed "a halfway decent system" despite all the contrary specifics given. I apologize if my tone here is a bit harsh, it wasn't my intent to be, and I appreciate the time you took to post your ideas; however, you seem to be suggesting I ignore a lot of details that I can't ignore and then achieve a working turnkey system that meets as many of her needs as possible, especially the technical proficiency level one, among others. On the plus side, I wasn't aware that XBMC doesn't do on-the-fly transcoding; your bringing that to my attention will save me from wasting time pursuing dead end solutions.

XBMC will not currently transcode any files, so only file formats that your TV/device can natively playback will work.

(emphasis added)



(ETA: And, IIRC, I just found out this morning that the Chromecast is announced to be working on supporting Playon.)

[StuW]

I have a Raspberry Pi running RaspBMC, it's cheap, it plays 99% of the stuff i throw at it and it's VERY power efficient. My current setup is an old laptop with a 3TB USB external HD attached. The laptop runs Ubuntu minimal server with SabNZB, Sickbeard, Couchpotato and few other services like FTP/HTTP. All in not including the laptop that would go to scrap (keyboard on it is fubar) it cost me about £150.

[Angrboda]

I have a Raspberry Pi running RaspBMC, it's cheap, it plays 99% of the stuff i throw at it and it's VERY power efficient. My current setup is an old laptop with a 3TB USB external HD attached. The laptop runs Ubuntu minimal server with SabNZB, Sickbeard, Couchpotato and few other services like FTP/HTTP. All in not including the laptop that would go to scrap (keyboard on it is fubar) it cost me about £150.

I don't have all the extras for mine, like case and power supply. I suspect the Pi will work as a stopgap measure, but a) I want to be able to record shows off the air, and b) I had planned to use it in a different application. So, at best, it would be a fill-in. And, Though the P4 system isn't powerful enough for transcoding (which includes during video capture of TV signals), it might run XBMC just fine.

(I'm essentially flat broke until March. Christmas presents suck all the air out of this month's budget, which means February will be spent on things I needed but didn't buy in January.)

[StuW]

You can put a USB TV decoder dongle in the PI to make it a DVR, but not done it myself therefore couldn't comment on how successful it would be. You would also need the MPEG2 licence code.

[Angrboda]

You can put a USB TV decoder dongle in the PI to make it a DVR, but not done it myself therefore couldn't comment on how successful it would be. You would also need the MPEG2 licence code.

Good to know. I picked up an ATI HD750 tuner card for $15, but it's Windows only, so that's what I'd assumed I would use. The Radeon 9000 has a built-in tuner, but, a) I lost the dongle, and b) it had artifacts in the video when I was prepping it, many moons ago (years).

[wolf39us]

those files would not play with XBMC if it doesn't do on-the-fly transcoding.

You are loading XBMC onto a computer correct?

Why won't the files play in XBMC?