Building a Home Media Server

[bigboss]

What will be the chain like with Kodi, to the AV receiver? Will it support Atmos?

 

[Q5]

Not sure if this gives any further inspiraration.

http://www.hifidelit.com/

Link from the above site

 

[Dave_]

Kodi can't or at least couldn't decode Atmos, but it will do passthrough. So all you need is a PC with HDMI out and let your AV receiver do the decoding.

There are some nice small form factor PCs about.

I backed the Wood Kubb back in the summer on Kickstarter for example, which will be a Kodi box on my main system + a TVHeadend server to feed a bunch of Raspberry Pis dotted around the house.

http://www.kubb.eu/en/16-the-shop/

 

[bigboss]

Kodi can't or at least couldn't decode Atmos, but it will do passthrough. So all you need is a PC with HDMI out and let your AV receiver do the decoding.

There are some nice small form factor PCs about.

I backed the Wood Kubb back in the summer on Kickstarter for example, which will be a Kodi box on my main system + a TVHeadend server to feed a bunch of Raspberry Pis dotted around the house.

http://www.kubb.eu/en/16-the-shop/

 

That's interesting! So I can connect an external HDD to it for more storage, and even install Windows 7 with mymovies if I don't like Kodi.

 

[bigboss]

Not sure if this gives any further inspiraration.

http://www.hifidelit.com/

Link from the above site

Thanks, this looks quite similar to Innuos hardware wise. Looks beautiful!!

 

[bigboss]

This seems to be a good value media server which can go up to 18TB. Will work straight on my Oppo but without the fancy movie wall.

http://store.aclasstechnology.com/media-server-2566-p.asp

I've read on AVS forum about a modded Oppo 103D which then displays a movie wall but didn't divulge further information. Anyone has any idea about it?

 

[bigboss]

This seems to be a good value media server which can go up to 18TB. Will work straight on my Oppo but without the fancy movie wall.

http://store.aclasstechnology.com/media-server-2566-p.asp

I've read on AVS forum about a modded Oppo 103D which then displays a movie wall but didn't divulge further information. Anyone has any idea about it?

 

[Dave_]

That's interesting! So I can connect an external HDD to it for more storage, and even install Windows 7 with mymovies if I don't like Kodi.

You could, though personally I'd be storing the media on a NAS.

It comes with the option of W7/10 or Linux Mint pre-installed. I went with the Linux version to avoid the Windows tax since I'll be installing OpenELEC on it anyway.

 

[cheeseboy]

This seems to be a good value media server which can go up to 18TB. Will work straight on my Oppo but without the fancy movie wall.

http://store.aclasstechnology.com/media-server-2566-p.asp

looks good, but bearing in mind it looks like a full 19" rackmount beast, chances are it'll be huge and loud!

maybe have a look at the hp microserver gen 8 http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B013UBCHVU/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=569136327&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B00DDIC1DA&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=06ATASW4YPYY9DAC0QBT

or 110 squid after cashback - see here http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/hp-proliant-microserver-gen8-celeron-dual-core-164-34-serversplus-109-99-after-cashback-2332976

they've very popular, and for a reason. You could load vortexbox on to that, and even replace the drive in for a slimeline blu ray and you can have you one stop shop ripping nas box

The video wall thing you keep going on about is more of a front end, not a server thing. I still think the best options for this are some form of htpc and kodi. Have a look here for an idea of what the kodi skins can give you for an experience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVFBycQjj8M

 

[bigboss]

Cheers! That looks very good! I'm assuming I'll need a media player separately to go with it, considering it doesn't have an HDMI port?

 

[cheeseboy]

Cheers! That looks very good! I'm assuming I'll need a media player separately to go with it, considering it doesn't have an HDMI port?

there are people who have put in a gfx card in order to make it a media player as well, but not sure it's the best option.

Personally I would stick with a seperate media player as you can upgrade/tweak and install as needed without messing up everything else (that's a personal thing though)

 

[naughty573]

i was going to talk about the microserver as well .... it could serve as a NAS as well as a front end combined if you use it with an operating sstem installed - i have three gen7 microservers with Win 7 instlled then i have upgraded the amount of ram as well as added graphics cards in each machine and connected them all in a network with each one located in a different room

they share the media and they do all the playback required - and for music i use Foobar and for movies i have Kodi, VLC, as well as MPC-HC installed so if any rip i do has an issue to play with one bit of software i am covered by one of the other software apps

i have approximatey 7 x 2TB drives and 2 x 1.5TB drives and this contains all my movie (Blu-ray) backups and music so i can play any music or movie in whchever room i am in and whenever i want to (each microserver is connected to a TV as a PC monitor in a different room)

not saying its a perfect or the cheapest solution but it works for me and the only issue i have is that to play MVC files (3D frame stacked MKV files) i could not really find good enough software .... i tried stereoscopic player but the versions i tried could not play 3D as well as HD audio so i got a media player (mede8er x8003D) in the main room and my HDMI matrix unit distributes it to the one other room i would like it to play in as well. So the combination of a couple of mixcroservers and one mede8er media player serves me pretty well and i manage a 4 user network with each machine having an android tablet to remote control it over the wi-fi (i can change the IP addresses in the remote control apps to control the TV of the room im in) so im pretty well set up for multi-room all-over-the-house entertainment

 

[Feral]

I recently set up raspberry pi with Kodi on OSMC (replacement for XBMC).

I'm not sure about ATMOS or 3d as I don't have a 3D tv and only 5.1 but i manage to steam my bluray backups wirelessly from my DS213J upstairs on 2 currently unmirrored 2TB WD Reds (looking to raid a pair of 6tb reds in the new year). I did have to install my broken vaio's BD disc into my PC as a second drive to do the backup but the Pi easily manages to play everything without using Plex or transcoding on the NAS.

I bought some software called Pavtube which rips the surround tracks as AAC at 320kbs and compresses the mkv files down to around 12gb without any loss of picture quality to my eyes.

i also use some freeware called Tiny Media manager which manages all the meta data, movie sets etc.

All i have downstairs in is the PI wired into my network extender with the HDMI going to my AMP and via that into the TV. I control the PI with the free KODI app on my IPAD and must be good as my wife thinks it's easy.

Happy to share any details of my set up if it helps.

btw also use the a volume on nas for streaming to my SM6 using EAC and Bliss.

 

[bigboss]

Thanks Feral, sorry for the (very) late response, as I had put this in the back burner for a while. It's probably the right time to revisit this. I read somewhere about Kodi not supporting Atmos, so not sure.

I'm thinking of building one from here:

https://www.quietpc.com/sys-lora-4k

With the following specs:

Streacom FC10OD ALPHA Black Fanless Chassis, with Optical Slot

Gigabyte GA-Z170X-GAMING 7 LGA1151 ATX Motherboard

Intel 6th Gen Pentium G4520 3.6GHz 47W HD 530 3MB Dual Core CPU

Corsair DDR4 Vengeance LPX 8GB (2x4GB) 2400MHz Memory Kit

Streacom ST-HT4 CPU Cooler Riser for FC9/10

Streacom ST-NANO150 150W nanoPSU

Cloverleaf C5 UK Mains Power Cord, 1.8m (150W PSU only)

Samsung SM951 128GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD

WD WD20NPVX Green Power 2TB 2.5in Hard Disk Drive

WD WD20NPVX Green Power 2TB 2.5in Hard Disk Drive

WD WD20NPVX Green Power 2TB 2.5in Hard Disk Drive

Streacom ST-OB3 Slot-Load Blu-ray Rewriter Optical Drive

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Streacom Flirc SE Universal Remote IR Receiver

ASUS PCE-N15 300Mbps Wireless 802.11n PCIe Adapter (Win 7 Only)

StarTech Dual-port eSATA External 6Gbps PCI Express Card

Streacom PCI Express 1X Slot Riser Card Adapter Cable

Would 16GB RAM be of more benefit for my needs? I'm not into gaming. I think Windows 7 will allow me the flexibility to decide between mymovies and Kodi.

Any suggestions?

 

[pauln]

8 gig should be plenty. The motherboard seems a bit more than you need given your choice of CPU and you no multi graphics card set-up?

Also bear in mind that Windows 7 does not natively support NVMe so makes installation quite problematic, although it can be done, it's complicated. I doubt you would notice any difference whatsoever if you just put in a normal SSD - that would also mean you could go for a simpler motherboard.

Streacom certainly make some very nice cases.

 

[bigboss]

Thanks pauln! That's the only motherboard option they have.

When I asked quiet PC, this was their response:

"You have gone for the lowest processor on the list, it will play movies at 4K but you will not be able to run other programs in the background when doing this. Think of processors as multitasking or the amount of task you can do at one time, the more powerful the processor the more things you can do but as mentioned if you are only running one program at a time the processor will be fine."

Any thoughts on this?

 

[Dave_]

Thanks Feral, sorry for the (very) late response, as I had put this in the back burner for a while. It's probably the right time to revisit this. I read somewhere about Kodi not supporting Atmos, so not sure.

It does.

The Kodi team have now even got DTS-HD, DTS-X, Dolby TrueHD and Dolby ATMOS passthrough working on Android in the latest dev builds, ie v17 aka Krypton which is currently in its first beta atm.

 

[bigboss]

Thanks Feral, sorry for the (very) late response, as I had put this in the back burner for a while. It's probably the right time to revisit this. I read somewhere about Kodi not supporting Atmos, so not sure.

It does.

The Kodi team have now even got DTS-HD, DTS-X, Dolby TrueHD and Dolby ATMOS passthrough working on Android in the latest dev builds, ie v17 aka Krypton which is currently in its first beta atm.

That's interesting, thanks! I need to read more about it. With this option, all I'll need is a NAS drive and an android media player (or use Amazon Fire if that supports Atmos), right? I have an external blu ray drive, and I can use my laptop to rip my blu rays uncompressed to the NAS drive.

 

[Dave_]

Thanks Feral, sorry for the (very) late response, as I had put this in the back burner for a while. It's probably the right time to revisit this. I read somewhere about Kodi not supporting Atmos, so not sure.

It does.

The Kodi team have now even got DTS-HD, DTS-X, Dolby TrueHD and Dolby ATMOS passthrough working on Android in the latest dev builds, ie v17 aka Krypton which is currently in its first beta atm.

That's interesting, thanks! I need to read more about it. With this option, all I'll need is a NAS drive and an android media player (or use Amazon Fire if that supports Atmos),

Yep. Though not 100% AFTV will do Atmos passthrough. The NVidia Shield does for sure, I believe its a firm favourite with the Kodi team.

 

[bigboss]

Thanks! Yes, I've been looking at NVidia Shield. Will I get all movie info on Kodi?

 

[Dave_]

Thanks! Yes, I've been looking at NVidia Shield. Will I get all movie info on Kodi?

Yep.

If you've got an AFTV you really should just install Kodi on it and give it a try.

 

[pauln]

Thanks pauln! That's the only motherboard option they have.

When I asked quiet PC, this was their response:

"You have gone for the lowest processor on the list, it will play movies at 4K but you will not be able to run other programs in the background when doing this. Think of processors as multitasking or the amount of task you can do at one time, the more powerful the processor the more things you can do but as mentioned if you are only running one program at a time the processor will be fine."

Any thoughts on this?

They have a limited range - there are other places to shop, probably cheaper than quietpc too - Scan and ebuyer are a couple I've used in the past. There's also Kustompcs.co.uk who have a huge range of Streacom and other fanless cases.

I would go for maybe an i5 6500 (65W) or an i3 6300T (35W) rather than the Pentium (47W) Less heat is obviously better for a fanless build and the i3 gives you more performance for less heat output. As to motherboards, Gigabyte and Asus do dozens of boards for the Skylake processors. You could browse a website like Scan and find the one that suits your needs; do you want thunderbolt or USB type c connectivity for instance. The Z170 chipset is intended for gamers who want to run multiple graphics cards so if you don't need that you could get an H110 chipset board and save around £50 or more, which would counter the extra you would have to pay for a better CPU.

If you don't have space for an SSD along with the three 2.5" drives, you could go for an M2 sata drive.

Are you going to build it yourself, if not I think Kustompcs do a bespoke build service, they certainly used to. Puget systems would be another good place to look.

If "quiet" is what you are after, check out silentpcreview.com for lots of info. Helped me source components for my "silent" builds!

 

[bigboss]

Thanks! Yes, I've been looking at NVidia Shield. Will I get all movie info on Kodi?

Yep.

If you've got an AFTV you really should just install Kodi on it and give it a try.

Thanks. I'm unable to get info of movies I already have in my NAS. In Boxee box, it's displayed as a movie wall with posters, and when you click on a particular movie, it brings up movie information and names of actors etc. In Kodi, even when I choose to view thumbnails instead of list, it only shows empty boxes with names of files. Any suggestions?

 

[bigboss]

What do you think about this one:

http://store.aclasstechnology.com/media-server-2566-p.asp

It seems to have everything I need at a good price. I'm pretty sure this won't be fanless though.

 

[bigboss]

Thanks pauln! That's the only motherboard option they have.

When I asked quiet PC, this was their response:

"You have gone for the lowest processor on the list, it will play movies at 4K but you will not be able to run other programs in the background when doing this. Think of processors as multitasking or the amount of task you can do at one time, the more powerful the processor the more things you can do but as mentioned if you are only running one program at a time the processor will be fine."

Any thoughts on this?

They have a limited range - there are other places to shop, probably cheaper than quietpc too - Scan and ebuyer are a couple I've used in the past. There's also Kustompcs.co.uk who have a huge range of Streacom and other fanless cases.

I would go for maybe an i5 6500 (65W) or an i3 6300T (35W) rather than the Pentium (47W) Less heat is obviously better for a fanless build and the i3 gives you more performance for less heat output. As to motherboards, Gigabyte and Asus do dozens of boards for the Skylake processors. You could browse a website like Scan and find the one that suits your needs; do you want thunderbolt or USB type c connectivity for instance. The Z170 chipset is intended for gamers who want to run multiple graphics cards so if you don't need that you could get an H110 chipset board and save around £50 or more, which would counter the extra you would have to pay for a better CPU.

If you don't have space for an SSD along with the three 2.5" drives, you could go for an M2 sata drive.

Are you going to build it yourself, if not I think Kustompcs do a bespoke build service, they certainly used to. Puget systems would be another good place to look.

If "quiet" is what you are after, check out silentpcreview.com for lots of info. Helped me source components for my "silent" builds!

 

Thanks. Will look at the sites suggested.