I want a 'mini-computer' which i can use to play 1080p videos from my NAS drive. It needs to support as many file formats as possible and have a half decent interface. So i have looked at a few including raspberry Pi with XBMC, WD TV Live, Roku 3 etc Does anyone have one that they could recommend, im looking to spend (at most) £200 but im more than happy to spend less is it worth building my own? if so what kind of spec should i get? im a total novice to this stuff so appreciate any help. Thanks.
Just in case you have a console lying around, they're pretty good at that kind of thing. I use my ps3 when my Rpi isn't working (which is fairly frequently) using the ps3 media server.
I have a Synology NAS, a PS3 and a WD-TV Live. My DVD's and home movies have been converted to MP4 so the kids can stream from the NAS to their Samsung tablets. Converting, which took a fair while, was fairly simple with MakeMKV and Handbrake. The bits that took the time was DVD's with subtitles, they don't all use the same method so trial and error was required. Prior to converting I tried a large number of movie formats (MKV, WMV, AVI, MPG etc) with the PS3 and WD-TV Live. I had the most success with the WD-TV Live, the only formats it didn't like were AVI's and WMV's with odd audio codecs, the movie codecs themselves were fine. Given that the WD-TV Live is only £75 on Scan's today Only page right now, I would suggest that option. It is silent and "just works".
My 360 used to do a pretty good job of streaming media off my server and anything it couldn't play natively my server would just transcode for it - but I don't know if that is an option for you or not.
could you PM me which settings you used and what file size you ended up with, I am guessing there are some Blu-ray rips in there. Especially for subs as I have quite a few foreign films in my collection, cheers bud.
I'll do it later tonight as I am still at work. I don't have any Blu-Rays but I'll gladly share the file size settings for a bunch of movies. Subtitles vary between DVD. Some are actually a separate track which is visible when you create the MKV and some are burned into the movie itself. As long as you can figure out which method your movie uses, Handbrake can handle it. The longest one I had to do was LOTR Extended Edition which uses different methods for each of the three movies. That took me a while to sort out. My end format is MP4 and AC3 if I recall correctly, I'll confirm tonight.
Im not really much of a network person tbh but. trans coding would require something more than a DLink cheepo NAS drive wouldn't it?
Correct. Transcoding is heavily dependent on the CPU in your NAS. My Synology DS211j, whilst awesome, struggles to transcode video without massively hammering the CPU and slowing things down (according to the Synology forums anyway, I have never tried transcoding). If you have a home built NAS with a powerful CPU (even a Celeron is more powerful than the 1.2GHz ARM that is in the DS211j) then it won't be a problem but then you have to have a NAS O/S that can do transcoding in the first place. I looked into all of this after getting my Synology and came to the conclusion that the one off task of converting to a format that every device in the house can play was the best way forward, especially with my kids using Android tablets - hell hath no fury than a child who can't watch their favourite movie RIGHT NOW! tl:dr - I think you DLink NAS would struggle with transcoding even more than my Synology would. You need to look at all the movies you have already and what format they are in, then decide what you are going to do. If they are in all sorts of formats and codecs, maybe the one off task of converting would be better for the future? If you have fairly consistent formats then maybe a cheap and simple media player is the answer?
I think struggle is a very diplomatic way of putting it Think im going to invest in a dedicated media streamer. probably the DLink Live TV.
Ahhhh... I bought mine used on the evilbay for £35 last year, it is the non-wifi model whereas the latest ones have built in wifi. I like mine, easy to use, can play from my NAS via DLNA or from shared folders. The newer ones can do Netflix, Spotify, YouTube etc as well. You can't really go wrong for a simple, no fiddling option. One thing I will try this summer is taking it with us on holiday, it is small and light enough and can take a USB drive as well, I can take a selection of movies on a 2.5" USB drive and play them in the hotel. User manual for the WD TV Live here: http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/UM/ENG/4779-705062.pdf.
I had a Pi wth XBMC on before building a HTPC... streamed everything I threw at it, including 20GB BR Rip mkv's with 5.1 sound.
GregTheRotter had one for sale a few months back in the MP, PM him to see if he still has it: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=257043.
Right, using the DVD of Saving Private Ryan as an example, I ripped it to MKV using MakeMKV and it resulted in a file size of 6.12GB. On a stock clocked i5 2500K, it takes about 10 minutes. I then used Handbrake with the Regular/Normal preset, H.264 video codec, AC3, Dolby Pro Logic II mixdown, no chapter markers, no subtitles, everything else at the preset defaults. The Handbrake conversion takes about 16 minutes with the same CPU but it will be longer with a slower or dual core CPU. I used to create the videos with an i3 2120 and it took exactly twice as long - more cores are better. It results in an MP4 file size of 3.1GB that looks and sounds excellent on a 40" TV via either a PS3 or a WD TV, a PC, a laptop, a 7" Android tablet and a 10" Android tablet - I can even watch it on my HTC One S phone. Subtitles is a whole different kettle of fish and would result in a war and peace length post here, I would suggest starting here: https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/Subtitles. To make a long story short, if you have a dedicated subtitles track when ripping to MKV, it makes it easier when using Handbrake - you just select that subtitles track in Handbrake itself. If you don't have a dedicated subtitles track, it usually means they are unique subtitle tracks within the main audio track. There is a "Foreign Audio Search" facility within Handbrake that can deal with these. Basically a lot of trial and error will make you an expert is spotting which type yours are within a short time.
Hey Fingers, why do you rip to MKV, only to transcode? Why not rip straight to MP4? (I use DVDFab to rip without transcoding, and then transcode in Handbrake, but I gather you could do it in one step with AnyDVD). Also, could you give some more details about what you did with LOTR EE? Did you join the two parts together? I've never managed to do this successfully.
