Stream your home media files away from home

[nicklmg]

Amazon: http://geni.us/3LRK

NCIX: http://bit.ly/1PMPt5Z

 

Many people overlook a pretty awesome secondary use for a NAS - media streaming! But that isn't quite so useful if you can't view those files away from home...

 

 

 

[Zodiark1593]

I'd love to steam games away from home too. Anything on that?

 

Screw commercial cloud compute, I want my personal cloud.

 

 

[tt2468]

I love the networking vids! I have longed for the time ltt gets into networking! Any chance you can do one one some ubiquity equiptment? I know linus has an edgerouter lite, and I would like to see how it stacks up to pfsense and other routers!

[nicklmg]

 

19 minutes ago, Kyle Manning said:

I love the networking vids! I have longed for the time ltt gets into networking! Any chance you can do one one some ubiquity equiptment? I know linus has an edgerouter lite, and I would like to see how it stacks up to pfsense and other routers!

Possibly!

[tt2468]

12 minutes ago, nicklmg said:

 

Possibly!

OMGOMGOMG SLICK REPLIED OMG

[IsaacDaGrazin]

44 minutes ago, Kyle Manning said:

OMGOMGOMG SLICK REPLIED OMG

Did you just say @Slick?

[Darkside331]

I must say I use plex all the time. It's hooked up to my mac trough an external hard drive. Together with my apple tv it works like a charm, but of course that's when you stream it in your home network. I am checking out Infuse for my apple tv so even with a cheap nas you can use it for plex since the apple tv transcodes the files then. Never used this before so if any of you did let me know!

[gonvres]

Cheap data stroage

[TheWoollyMammoth]

I'd like to point out that this is the 1000th topic in this area. 

 

Carry on. 

[madaday]

Maybe not the right place to ask, but it seems SlySoft which was briefly shown is no more?

[Danang]

Can we have the download link to AnyDVD install? Apparently, the website is now shut down...

[aflyinghotpocket]

This is what is sad about physical media these days. Many companies out there continue to punish the consumer who purchase their content by enforcing harsher and harsher penalties such as DRM locking, region locking, and disk protection instead of letting you control the content that you purchase. Some companies out there provide free iTunes or Ultraviolet digital copies of content, but it just feels like the average consumer is frequently punished these days. 

 

I don't think it was wrong at all for Linus to say he rips his context after purchase for his own personal use. You (Linus) purchased the content and within the grounds of good taste, should be allowed to formatted that content to suit your needs. It is also more convenient for the user to simply rip the movie or show they are trying to watch so that they can view it across all devices they use on a daily basis. Just the other day I took out my DVD of Pacific Rim excited to watch some giant robots, but my excitement slowly died as I was forced to sit though 10 minutes of unskippable trailers, FBI warnings, and other trash. Why is this necessary? I purchased a DVD to watch a movie, not see trash and get lectured about copyright laws. Can you imagine if Netflix or Amazon Video displayed copyright warnings, FBI warnings, and advertisements before EVERY video you watched? Why bother with the price of a physical copy of a movie when you can just use Netflix or another streaming service to view the content for a fraction of the price? I am sorry for the rant here, but the industry needs to get with the program here. 

 

I have always thought that a format such as the following would make for a MUCH better system in the long run: (Just an opinion... so please keep that in mind)

 

1. Create a platform similar to the Apple App Store or Google Play Store but this time, all the major motion picture and television companies jump on board. The basic idea would be to crate account for a content platform. For this example we could call it a "Unified Content Platform". On this platform you would have all the TV shows, Movies, and music you could think of. A perfect world where EVERYTHING is in one place.
2. After the "Unified Content Platform" platform is created you allow users to legally purchase content off the platform. Simple, right? Here is where we have some fun...
3. All content could be streamed off the "Unified Content Platform". if the user wants to watch an episode of South Park, they click on it and it will stream to their device. Similar to any streaming service out there. This time, you allow the user to download a physical file for that account if they want a local copy. You can save the file, transfer the file, even download different formats and resolutions of the file. However, each file comes with a locked certificate that is only usable on approved devices that the user sets up in their account. This feature would work similar to apple's  "Authorized Devices" locking in iTunes. 
4. Each user is given 8 devices to add to their "Unified Content Platform" account. Any device with an internet connection would be allowed to link with your "Unified Content Platform" account for seamless transition. With me so far?
5. Follow this pricing guide to stay competitive

• Movies - $9.99 USD per film in SD - $12.99 per film for HD (1080p) - $15.99 for 4k or higher
• TV Shows - $0.99 - per episode in SD - $1.99 per episode in HD (1080p) - $2.99 per episode in 4k or higher
• Music (Standard bitrate 320kbps?) - $0.80 - per song - Full Album = (Number of tracks x $0.80) / 10% - Unlimited Music - $9.99
• Music (FLAC or Lossless?) - $1.20 - per song - Full Album = (Number of tracks x $1.20) / 10% -  Unlimited Music (FLAC or Lossless) - $19.99

Keep in mind, this is just a crazy idea and opinionated prices. 

 

With this system it would allow you to stream and play back files online or offline. You would be in control of your content. and not have to jump through so many hoops to watch your content that you paid for. 

 

TL;DR: Media companies pull together, create there own platform for their media all in one place, charge competitive prices, allow users to download the content they purchase, lock the files similar to how apple and google lock them, everyone goes home happy?

 

 

 

[Razor512]

If you want something basic that has nearly limitless functionality, simply set up an OpenVPN server on your NAS system. There are many free network video players for android (and likely iOS), which support smb shares as well as DLNA.

 

I currently use OpenVPN on my NAS and BSPlayer on android to stream my media collection (supports pretty much every format that I have, and it offers a windowed mode so I can do other stuff on my tablet or smartphone while enjoying a few videos).

 

While I don't get the transcoding, I really haven't needed it since I simply use a player that supports the formats I need.

For my laptop, I simply access the network share, and play the videos using VLC player. The compatibility with this method is so good, I can even take an old windows mobile PDA (windows mobile 2003) and using a 3rd party video player, (and crappy pptp VPN which is less secure but both can be set up), also stream media.

 

Overall, I have had good luck with OpenVPN, it just works, and offers a ton of functionality (depending on how you set it all up, you can even remotely use steam in-home streaming, perform incremental backups using windows backup (or readyshare vault), and balance it all with some QOS at the server level to prioritize your media streams.

The simplest way to manage the OpenVPN server, is to use router software such as untangle, and simply run it in a virtual machine on your NAS.

 

For media on the go, use bittorrent sync, or connect your phone to your PC, and fill a 128-200GB card with your anime backlog.

there is a decent sale today http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?ref_=lp_14051759011_gbps_tit_s-3_4742_cf6d3232&rh=i%3Aelectronics%2Cn%3A14051759011%2Cn%3A14051759011&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&node=14051759011&pldnSite=1

 

Spend $35 and grab an extra 128GB micro SD card for your phone, and take your old smaller card, and stick it into the back cover of your phone.

[hawking]

I finally started using Plex for the last month or so, and although it is a little pain renaming all of the files I got a bulk file renaming tool and that solves the issue easily. Perhaps my favorite feature is that it saves my progress and tells me which episodes I haven't seen of shows that I don't watch all the time. My only problem has been that for whatever reason the web app doesn't play videos all the way through on my LG G4 phone and only that phone.

 

PS: I'm running my Plex server on a Freenas box with 2 mirrored 2Tb drives since that was all I had at the time. I just recently bought 3x3Tb drives and I want to put them in a raidz array so that I will have 6Tb of extra storage. Is there a way to add my three drives to the existing volume without ruining all the work that I already did setting up the server?

[rcarteraz]

I've been using Emby (http://emby.media) for the last couple months and it's pretty great. Not as many platforms as Plex when it comes to Apps but it's also not as expensive and the dev team is awesome and really involved with the community so it won't be long until that's no issue.

 

As for the morality of using services like these, there a plenty of legitimate uses and I'm with Linus on using this as a means for backing up and having easy access to content you've purchased. Additionally, I use an OTA antenna and HDHomerun Connect  to record television that I then convert to H.264 to reduce the file size and load into my library for streaming purposes.  

 

 

[DXMember]

you can still do that with a WD MyBook or WD MyPassport

WD provides you with equivalent cloud storage

[XOR42]

Bad Linus!

 

MakeMKV and Handbrake.

 

Thanks.

 

Good Linus!

 

There are a metric crap ton of reasons you would do this (Long time and happy Plex user here). Here is one of mine.

 

My Kids have sometimes 3 versions of the same DVD/BR. They are all scratched to hell, because kids. The multiple versions are because previous version got scratched and started skipping/stuttering in the player. So I made them their own library. New films get ripped, transcoded and sent to storage box #38 (It's actually on top of a cupboard) to remain pristine. End of story and no more scratched disks. The interesting point here is that although I am a brit, I live in Belgium and my kids mother tongue is French. So all the MKV files I make contain English, French and Dutch audio as well as subtitles. MKV is perfect for this as a couple of years back, no other formats seemed to support BR PGS subtitles properly.

 

I have no ethical or moral problems with this, I'm fed up of having 2-3 versions of the same film on disks and none that work!

 

On a side note (this is a little off topic); Ever had a BR/DVD player that, after a couple of years of use starts not wanting to read perfectly good disks anymore ("no disk" syndrome)?

 

About 3 years ago, I went round the internet trying to find out why because it was driving me crazy. There was a lot of "disk dirty mate", "firmware update?", "laser head is dirty"  and "It's broke". But when I finally got to the bottom of it, I managed to recuperate 2 out of 3 units that where sitting on a shelf. It's spindle slip. The motors that bring a disk up to speed have huge torque when they start up (well the units I have anyway). If the rubber grommets that clamp on to the disk get gunked up/oily or both, they fail to clasp the disc properly and it fails to get to speed for the hardwares liking which equals "no disk". Cleaning the rubber grommets that clamp the disk with denatured alcohol cured the problem in 2 or the 3 players I had.

 

</Soapbox>

 

Cheers!

[Svnyster]

I've been using Synology products for about 5 years now, and their included media streaming software has been improving over time. They may not have all of the features of something like Plex, but it's still pretty good as far as included software is concerned. DS Video will grab the metadata (in most cases), it'll track your viewing progress, you can download videos to your device, and there's a web player along with the iOS and Android apps. You can use Synology's QuickConnect DDNS service for remote access, though I just use my personal domain name with an A record pointing to the NAS. Same end result, but I don't have to use Synology's domain names.

 

Synology's hardware can be pretty expensive, but the ease of use makes it worth the cost to me. I previously had 4x2TB WD Black drives in my NAS, but was running low on space. With Synology's Hybrid RAID configuration, I was able to power down the NAS, swap out one of the 2TB drives for a 6TB WD Red Pro, let it rebuild with the new drive, and repeat. Now I've got 12TB of usable storage space, with one drive for redundancy and one drive as a hot spare. If I start running low on space again, I can just add the hot spare into the volume and have 18TB of usable space.

 

In regards to ripping media, I completely agree with Linus's standpoint on the morality of it all. I've got well over 2000 DVDs and Blu-ray discs (counting movies and TV shows) and the only means I currently have to play them are via my PS4/Xbox One or an external BD drive (which I use for ripping). When I'm on vacation or traveling for work, I shouldn't have to bring my BD drive AND whatever movies/TV shows I may want to watch. With my media stored digitally, I just bring a Chromecast with me just about anywhere I go and as long as there's a display with HDMI input, I can watch anything I own. And same as Linus, I don't share my media with anyone other than my wife.

 

Legally, I'm sure that the MPAA will eventually lift restrictions on ripping media, just like the RIAA eventually did for music. It's just going to take time.