NAS & Kodi - Is it doable and what are your suggestions?

[AshleyAshes]

2 hours ago, Blebekblebek said:

Just use your current setup, and stick with kodi if that's what really server the purpose, I don't really understand why people want transcoding on the fly on everything, and even if they want it, current smartphone are powerful enough to encode 1080p multimedia files.

Well, there can be reasons:

 

1) Not every smart phone has HEVC hardware decoding, so if a file is HEVC, it doesn't matter if it's '1080p multimedia' and there is also the matter of bitrate.

 

2) Between one's home server's limited upstream and one's cell provider's limited downstream, transcoding simply to put the bitrate in something that is even FUNCTIONAL for streaming to 3G/LTE whatever.

 

I don't use Plex because I'd rather watch the files at home and I've I'm travelling I'll copy the files to SD card or something.  However a LOT of my file collection are DIRECT Remux's of BluRays.  I literally have 25min anime episodes that weigh in at 6.8GB each, and movies that are 25-35GB each and have a bitrate in the 30mbps or so on average.  My 250/20 internet connection would literally choke just trying to upstream them across the internet and let's not talk about my value priced $40/mo for unlimited cell carrier.  Plenty of people have carriers that can't muster more than a few mbits and even 'recompressed' files on their server could need additional transcoding to even fit into the connection in real time.

[dalekphalm]

39 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

Well, there can be reasons:

 

1) Not every smart phone has HEVC hardware decoding, so if a file is HEVC, it doesn't matter if it's '1080p multimedia' and there is also the matter of bitrate.

 

2) Between one's home server's limited upstream and one's cell provider's limited downstream, transcoding simply to put the bitrate in something that is even FUNCTIONAL for streaming to 3G/LTE whatever.

 

I don't use Plex because I'd rather watch the files at home and I've I'm travelling I'll copy the files to SD card or something.  However a LOT of my file collection are DIRECT Remux's of BluRays.  I literally have 25min anime episodes that weigh in at 6.8GB each, and movies that are 25-35GB each and have a bitrate in the 30mbps or so on average.  My 250/20 internet connection would literally choke just trying to upstream them across the internet and let's not talk about my value priced $40/mo for unlimited cell carrier.  Plenty of people have carriers that can't muster more than a few mbits and even 'recompressed' files on their server could need additional transcoding to even fit into the connection in real time.

Yep - I recently tested the Web Streaming functionality - I have 500/20 Internet. I was able to stream from my Plex Server to my fiancee's student apartment with zero problems. We tried several different 1080p HD videos (I don't have any 4K content) and, yes there was maybe 10-15 seconds of buffering at first, but once it started, it was perfectly smooth with no artifacting or stuttering, etc.

 

It actually worked far better then I was expecting.

 

I also prefer Plex because I have one single "library" to manage, in terms of meta data. And most of my devices direct stream anyway.

 

But I have no hate against Kodi. It's great software. In fact, Plex started back in 2007 as a fork of Kodi (XBMC at the time). I just like the additional features Plex has, and I have some devices that have Plex App's but no Kodi app.

[AshleyAshes]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

I also prefer Plex because I have one single "library" to manage, in terms of meta data. And most of my devices direct stream anyway.

Oh you can have a single library for multiple machines in Kodi.  You just have to run a MySQL server and point them all at that.

[dalekphalm]

5 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

Oh you can have a single library for multiple machines in Kodi.  You just have to run a MySQL server and point them all at that.

Lmao... yeah. Installing Plex is easier than installing and configuring an SQL database. I'm lazy as fuck

[AshleyAshes]

9 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Lmao... yeah. Installing Plex is easier than installing and configuring an SQL database. I'm lazy as fuck

I just followed a tutorial and I have zero idea how works.

[dalekphalm]

8 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

I just followed a tutorial and I have zero idea how works.

I mean I have a theoretical and foundational understanding of SQL but I haven't dealt with it since College lol.

 

Perhaps one day

[jde3]

Installing a database is easy.. making it run well and doing backups? less easy.. managing the data in it? It's as if aliens wrote SQL where words and concepts no longer mean what you think they do.