Help! Simple plan plan gone Pete Tong. Rescue me! Nas or PC? Plex or Xmbc or.. .. .... ..

[nemo183]

About a year ago I had a plan. For some reason I decided to switch all my Av to digital. I would digitise all our old photos and create flac lossless copies of my music so I could always listen to it if one of the kids had pinched the CD. I would control all this via a tablet which I hoped might also show me metadata of the music playing.

So I went shopping. I bought a top of the range Sony TV, a Pioneer LX86 av amp, a Synology DS212 Nas, Sony 790 blu ray and finally a Dell Vostro i7. Although this might seem extravagant, most of my kit was over 10 years old. I was not certain if I would steam from the Nas or PC, or which software to use (xbmc, plex, and dbconverter were on the list). I decided to keep my kef 7.2 speakers.

Then out of the blue I was ill and it's only in the last two weeks I've been able to do anything. The house looks like a closing down branch of Comet.

And worse of all I seem to have lost the plot concerning my plan. I would much appreciate some advice. I must get this stuff working before the family revolt. One thing is clear - I need to retain the old s900 Toshiba dvd as the sound from the Sony 790 is awful. For bog standard stereo I've kept my Cyrus kit.

So please jump in and help me with a plan. Media Soft? Nas or PC streaming? Is my idea to show metadata and control everything feasible? Is anything changed by the unwanted arrival of a youview box? I have tried to find a local company to fix it but it seems that it's not worth their while. So ladies and gentlemen, I need your help.

I have no fibre or network issues as all is hardwired. Despite having to relocate the kit mountain over 12m away to hide IT (or get a divorce) I have all the best interconnects etc, ir gear etc.

 

[cheeseboy]

to be honest, you could slap xbmc on the vostro, do away with the dvd player, get a blu ray drive for the vostro and run everything through that if you wanted using hdmi output from the computer to the amp then to the tv if that's possible.

If you have the nas, may as well use it for storage, that way other devices can access the files wherever they may be.

XBMC and Plex both allow control from an ipad, so that's not an issue.

Not sure if that helps. Is there anything/any first step in particular you would like help/advice on setting up?

 

[abacus]

I assume you have all the equipment you mention connected together. (If not follow the instructions to get everything up and running)

1. Set the Synology up as a DLNA Server

2. Use the Pioneer for steaming your music from the server and for decoding any music discs played on your Sony via HDMI. (Most Sony Blu-Ray players suck when it comes to reproducing music out of their analogue outputs)

3. Use your Sony for playing streamed videos stored on your server and any video internet content. (And Blu-Rays of course)

4. Connect the HDMI output of the Pioneer to you TV and use the Pioneer to control all your connected equipment.

5. Download the Apps for your tablet for the equipment you have.

After a little trial and error (Should not be that much) you should have everything as you wish.

Remember the equipment’s instructions are your friend, so don’t avoid them.

Hope this helps

Bill

 

[rgill90]

serviio on the nas will let you stream a whole host of content. it's a briliant little java based DLNA media server. I use it with no problems at all and it constantly gets updates with new features and lots of contributers and testers. I use it on my synology direct to my samsung tellys, but i do use sonos for music.

 

[Overdose]

Whatever else you do, you should make getting a backup drive a priority for whatever is on your NAS. If you cannot go as far as a true backup, then at least mirror your data on a second drive. This is particularly important for things like photos, which are potentially irreplaceable.

 

[nemo183]

serviio on the nas will let you stream a whole host of content. it's a briliant little java based DLNA media server. I use it with no problems at all and it constantly gets updates with new features and lots of contributers and testers. I use it on my synology direct to my samsung tellys, but i do use sonos for music.

I've looked at serviio and like it. I'll investigate it further. I'm tempted to run it on the vostro rather than the NAS, as the ds212 has arm processors and seems slow. I'd then use the NAS for backup.. Is my plan to use the tablet to show as much metadata as possible sensible? Thanks for taking the time.

 

[nemo183]

error

 

[nemo183]

to be honest, you could slap xbmc on the vostro, do away with the dvd player, get a blu ray drive for the vostro and run everything through that if you wanted using hdmi output from the computer to the amp then to the tv if that's possible.

If you have the nas, may as well use it for storage, that way other devices can access the files wherever they may be.

XBMC and Plex both allow control from an ipad, so that's not an issue.

Not sure if that helps. Is there anything/any first step in particular you would like help/advice on setting up?

I read your post and had to laugh - to be honest you could slap... and was expecting to read - yourself for being an idiot.. Thanks for the ideas. Frankly, I'll have trouble with your plan as the vostro is even furher away.

But may I ask if you would chose Plex or XBMC or even something else? Plex seems to work better, but XBMC seems for flexible. Should I abandon the metadata shown on the tablet bit? And just use it as a control?

 

[nemo183]

error

 

[nemo183]

I assume you have all the equipment you mention connected together. (If not follow the instructions to get everything up and running)

1. Set the Synology up as a DLNA Server

2. Use the Pioneer for steaming your music from the server and for decoding any music discs played on your Sony via HDMI. (Most Sony Blu-Ray players suck when it comes to reproducing music out of their analogue outputs)

3. Use your Sony for playing streamed videos stored on your server and any video internet content. (And Blu-Rays of course)

4. Connect the HDMI output of the Pioneer to you TV and use the Pioneer to control all your connected equipment.

5. Download the Apps for your tablet for the equipment you have.

After a little trial and error (Should not be that much) you should have everything as you wish.

Remember the equipment’s instructions are your friend, so don’t avoid them.

Hope this helps

Bill

Bill, thanks for taking the time. As yet I have not found the instructions to be my friends, but I''ll use your advice and change my attitude. I'm tempted to run the Vostro as a DNLA server and use the NAS for backup - do you think that's feasible.? The NAS is poweredd by arm processors and slow, wheras the Vostro has an i7 quad intel.

 

[nemo183]

error

 

[nemo183]

Whatever else you do, you should make getting a backup drive a priority for whatever is on your NAS. If you cannot go as far as a true backup, then at least mirror your data on a second drive. This is particularly important for things like photos, which are potentially irreplaceable.

Thanks for your reply. It is the photos I'm most worried about. I'm tempted to put all the content on the Vostro and use the RAID NAS as backup.. The NAS has arm processors and is slow. Another possibility would get an intel based NAS, and abandon the Vostro, and backup to the old NAS.. Any views you have would be appreciated.. I started of being paranoid about the photos, but a bad experince with JustCloud has made me realise that it's not practically possible to 100% ensure data security - all you can do is your best..