Boxee, Apple TV, Xbox Media Center, etc: your suggestions on media networking your house/flat?

[Kid_Eternity]

Inspired by this thread what set up do people have for media content networking/sharing around their house?

Starting to give serious thought to how to do this as my current plan is to go mostly digital within 18 months (I say mostly as games [console] wise are going to take a while to get downloads right but music and books are there).

My main use would be for films/tv to be accessible on the main TV but maybe with access in different parts of the house and mobile devices might be cool also but not priority. I'm not hugely fussed about music although that would be nice also.

What's your current set up, how easy/hard/annoying is it to set it up, how much did it cost?

Ta muchly

KE

 

[Crispy]

I download stuff with my imac onto a portable hard drive. I carry it into the lounge and plug it into my xbox360. Works ok. Would use plex if I could justify the oulay on a mac mini for under teh tv.

 

[Voley]

Not entirely on-topic this but here goes anyway.

I've got Windows Media Centre on my PC and I've got my monitor and telly plugged into the PC. I can use the monitor/TV perfectly well together when I use them for anything but WMC. My monitors on the left and the telly's on the right. When I have WMC running on the TV, my mouse pointer gets stuck on the left hand edge of the TV screen if I try to bring it back to the monitor on the left. The only way I can get it back is to shut WMC down and start again, meaning I can't use WMC at all as I'd like to have the telly dealing with my music as I browse the net with the monitor.

Any ideas what I can do to stop this?

 

[sim667]

I download to my mac, then run plex media server on that, I then have 2 jailbroken apple tv's running plex so I can stream pretty much any format to my tv and bedroom. The added advantage of the apple tv's is that I can also rent movies and use AirPlay from my iPad and iPhone. I use AirPlay to watch tv upstairs on my tv using tvcatchup online. I have virgin hd downstairs.

I also have plex on my iPhone and iPad and can connect to a VPN to access my network and stream my vids and music. It is easier to do it via a port forward but I think the VPN is more secure. Plex for iPhone an iPad supports AirPlay if you don't want to jailbreak an apple tv.

I get the apple tv's for about £80 of eBay, jailbreaking and plex is free. The iPhone and iPad stuff is just the cost if the app. I'd assume you've got a network in place.

 

[c01642]

windows media centre on my PC streamed to the xbox for films but sometimes use an external drive so i don't have to leave the PC on all the time. There's plugins for WMC for catchup tv and things but i have never tried streaming them to the xbox. i am going to get some home plug network adapters to improve the performance as i some times have problems with wireless.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

I download stuff with my imac onto a portable hard drive. I carry it into the lounge and plug it into my xbox360. Works ok. Would use plex if I could justify the oulay on a mac mini for under teh tv.

This is my current set up, having a mac means no wifi xbox media center...

 

[sim667]

Connect 360 running on a mac will make your vids, music and photos available on your xbox. Rivets will do the same job too. If you have an Internet compatible Sony blu ray player, there's an open source dlns server for your ms that will share to the player. Can't remember what it's called tho.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Ah cool will check out Connect 360.

 

[editor]

My Mac-mad mate in NY kitted his house out with an entire Apple TV/laptop system and I have to say it worked perfectly. If you've got the budget and don't mind being tied in tight with iTunes (and all that entails), then it is a very slick solution.

 

[Crispy]

Yeah, it's a pretty good system. For the rest of us though, Apple are hamstrung by the effective ban on DVD ripping in the USA. If itunes could rip DVDs like it rips CDs, then people would build up a big library of copied media, fueling the success of the software and ecosystem (and thus itunes store sales).

I could go the ATV route if I could be bothered to re-encode all my media into the right format and jailbreak it to play media off a HD or leave a computer on all the time to serve it media. No thanks!

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Well...DVD ripping isn't an issue...money isn't too big a problem (if I want to do something I work out a budget for it and do it properly), but ease of set up, and use is a factor.

 

[xenon]

Gonna get a Synology Disk Station when I've got the cash. I believe you can stream from that to Ipod / Iphone devices. But is there a gadget you can plug into the scart socket of a regular TV and browse your network. Something that will play the main video formats. .avi and so on? If I get a diskstation, being able to stream straight to TV, on those occasions I actually use it, rather than burn stuff to DVD or have the PC on would be pretty cool.

 

[joustmaster]

Boxee on a PC under the big TV in the front room. Boxes on a permanently placed laptop and screen in the headroom. They share some directories.

 

[sim667]

The apple tv would be made of win if it could pull media off a NAS. Unfortunately it cant, so my mac pro is left on, but it sleeps all the time, it then wakes for network access.

Whats this about being unable to rip dvd's into itunes? Just use handbrake and drop them in....

I would say that for me jailbroken apple tv's are the way forward. I looked into XBMC and it just looked a faff, sourcing the right xbox, getting the right game etc etc..... Connect 360 and xbox were good, but I was forever re-incoding stuff into the right format for the xbox, and the xbox didnt cope with streaming HD well....... For the 10 mins it takes to jailbreak an appletv and install plex ill use that, plus they're reasonably cheap, so scalable if you buy more tv's etc, All they need to do is sort out subtitle support better on plex and it will be awesome. TBH if you have an apple tv you can airplay from your mac/iphone/ipad so can pretty much play anything on it anyway as long as you have the right codecs (apps) installed.

 

[Crispy]

"just use handbrake" isn't a mass-market solution. itunes won't play people's existing pirated movies. It will play their pirated music.

how do you have your mac set up for wake on network access btw?

 

[sim667]

Settings > Energy saver > wake for network access

Everything ive used just for accessing media wakes it automagically. (inc connect 360, rivets, apple tv and plex).

Sometimes for VNC access I have to do a magic wake packet, but there's a couple of iOS apps that do that (I only ever use VNC on iOS apps so have to manually send the packet as an auto one isnt supported across a VPN). If im using VNC from inside the network (from my other mac) it works fine.

Not tested with RDP, thats my next step.

 

[joustmaster]

I found it a lot easier to piratebay all my DVD's rather than rip them

 

[sim667]

It is, but i dont see the point in risking nasty letters from my isp for downloading vids i already have a hardcopy off.

 

[electroplated]

xbmc on jailbroken apple tv 2 works great for me - will stream every video I've got from any of my macs or from a USB drive plugged into my router

 

[sim667]

I didnt know you could put xbmc on apple tv 2.

 

[editor]

Have to say, to the average consumer, all this is horrendously spoddy.

 

[Structaural]

Still using my ageing 4 year old Tivx4500 - hard-wired to my network, can stream from my main desktop - a Mac Pro (streams straight from my usenet downloads folder) or I can copy to the device using USB - (or slowly using the network). I've got about a TB of mkvs, avis and isos of DVD rips on the unit (mostly blu-ray rips mkvs). Also because my Mac is in the front room I've got a HDMI output to the same HD. Good for playing web stuff on the TV.

Use Airplay to stream music to bedroom speakers and garden/kitchen.

Use Plex or AirVideo to stream tv to my iPhone and wife's macbook for bed watching (cheers Crispy for that tip, as the laptop really struggles to play native mkvs or anything HD).

Basically I wanted a low-noise setup hence the stand-alone player, would probably get a WD Live or Jailbroken AppleTV if it stops working. PC/mac-mini media setups seem too expensive and possibly noisy to me.

 

[sim667]

Yes but average consumers are always the first to complain, and the least likely to find a workaround.

 

[Structaural]

These are essentially pirate setups though, and need more tinkering, for those who like to be fully legal the AppleTV, Boxee and PS3/Xbox work fine without much setup/spodding.

 

[sim667]

These are essentially pirate setups though, and need more tinkering, for those who like to be fully legal the AppleTV, Boxee and PS3/Xbox work fine without much setup/spodding.

Fine-ish......

Apple tv only plays itunes files, itunes does not support MKV or h264 (iirc).

The ps3 and xbox doesnt support all AVI or divx

And a boxee you either have to buy one pre-made (£180 - By all accounts whilst supporting nearly all video formats, the hardware itself isnt up to scratch) or get the right device and install it yourself which costs £200+

You can actually do it with an unjailbroken apple tv anyway, as plex is an ios app that supports airplay (i think there's clients of xbmc too).

To clarify too, jailbreaking isnt illegal, it voids your warranty only. You can unjailbreak stuff if you need to take it back anyway (most of the time) and apple wouldnt know any different.

 

[editor]

And a boxee you either have to buy one pre-made (£180 - By all accounts whilst supporting nearly all video formats, the hardware itself isnt up to scratch)

How is the hardware not up to scratch? All the recent UK reviews have been very positive.

 

[sim667]

How is the hardware not up to scratch? All the recent UK reviews have been very positive.

The ones ive read have said that the physical boxee you buy the software doesnt run brilliantly on the hardware.

Gizmodo:

What's worse is that Boxee is unstable. It freezes. It crashes. Your cursor disappears sometimes, so you have to reset the box. I've used Logitech's Google TV box for a lot more hours, and I've pretty much never had to reset that one. I've had to hard reset Boxee about once an hour.

Engadget:

As for browsing, well, we can certainly understand why it's treated as a fallback -- it's serviceable, but as with Google TV, it's slow enough to make you immediately reach for your phone or laptop, and if the speed doesn't bother you, moving the mouse around with the arrow keys will make you run screaming for the hills.

That's not to say we had flawless playback experiences -- we noticed that audio and video sync drifted occasionally, and every now and again we encountered a Flash bug where the audio started and finished well ahead of the video. We also once came back to a Showtime podcast after a long pause to find the sync so unmatched we had to quit and relaunch the video to get it back in order. We also ran into some seriously stuttery playback of an XviD file and a DTS-encoded WAV file -- which also led us to discover that multichannel audio files are only output as PCM, instead of bitstreamed like video files.

I am only going on reviews though, i havent actually used one.

Not saying that plex/appletv is perfect, it doesnt like subtitle files very much (hardcoding is the workaround). But its a lot easier to stomach at an £80-100 price tag instead of a near £200 price tag.

Personally if I could afford it id have a mac mini running plex or xbmc, as I'd be able to store files locally and could move them across my network instead of waking my computer up everytime....... But affordability is my major issue and without going the original xbox/xbmc route (which isnt HD), my next best alternative is what i've got. (another minor gripe could be that the apple tv is only capable of 720p out put, but ive only got a 720p tv).

 

[Crispy]

Fine-ish......

Apple tv only plays itunes files, itunes does not support MKV or h264 (iirc).

The ps3 and xbox doesnt support all AVI or divx

(itunes/ATV only supports H264 btw)
None of which matters if you

...like to be fully legal

because DVD ripping is illegal in the USA, which is what counts in terms of manufacturers' designs.

 

[editor]

The ones ive read have said that the physical boxee you buy the software doesnt run brilliantly on the hardware.
Gizmodo:

They're *US reviews* from nearly a year ago. It's an entirely different beast in the UK.

Here's the UK review from Wired (and the software/firmware has since been upgraded):

So is the Boxee Box the best media player on the market? As an overall package -- if your pockets are deep enough and your residency in the UK -- the answer is a resounding yes. Apple TV will still attract iTunes devotees and the WD TV Live Hub offers better value for money, but the Boxee Box is the one we'd want sitting under the tree on Christmas morning.

Conclusion
Brits may get stiffed on pricing, but the Boxee Box is a winner in every other way. Codec support is immense, the interface is easy to use, there is a lot of online content and the app and firmware support suggests it will continue to improve week on week, month on month. We're not fans of trite sound bites, but the Boxee Box really is the media player Apple should have built

http://www.wired.co.uk/reviews/tvs-and-home-cinema/2010-12/d-link-boxee-box-uk?page=all

 

[editor]

Here's the reason for the different US/UK reviews:

Specification-wise the Boxee Box is also remarkably well equipped. It comes with Wi-Fi and Ethernet, HDMI, SPDIF and RCA audio inputs and will happily read media from SD cards and external storage via USB. Extensive network support means it can read content from NAS (network attached storage) devices too -- extremely handy for those who like to save their media to one central location.

In operation things continue to look rosy: The Boxee Box is whisper quiet and we couldn't find a single media file it was unable to play. Combine this with its unerring ability to handle 1080p (a major failing with the Apple TV) and it sets a new standard in format support. Better still, however you attained your files, the Boxee Box will -- where possible -- automatically tag your content with covers, movie summaries and episode descriptions and group them into their respective categories and shows. Clever stuff.

By now you'll be thinking: so why the transatlantic divide in opinion? In short it all comes down to the Boxee Box's second major feature: online content. In the US Boxee has so far failed to agree terms with the leading content providers so the omission of Hulu, Amazon, Fancast and others make it little more than a glorified media streamer. In the UK, however, it has deals in place with the BBC, Channel 4 and Channel 5 as well as ad-supported movie services (with many titles in HD) meaning you'll be able to jump from Father Ted to Fifth Gear to The Fifth Element in the blink of an eye.

What's more, the Boxee Box platform is open to third party developers and over 130 "apps" are currently available to UK owners giving access to popular websites and services including Last.fm, YouTube, Flickr, The Onion and even Wired. While locked by default, even adult themed apps can be accessed such as YouPorn and Suicide Girls. Given all this online content it is worth pointing out a small piece of design genius: the Boxee Box remote has a full Qwerty keyboard on its rear making searching for content a breeze.