BlackViper wrote:QUOTE (BlackViper @ Feb 19 2012, 07:21 AM) NAS: I use a WD 2TB, "My Book Live™". It only comes in a hardwired configuration. Careful with some of the USB systems. Known issues working with some hubs/routers. Plus it comes with Twonky Media Server.
How do you like the software that came with that?
The wife bought a 3TB of that brand and the first thing i did was format and partition it because most packaged software that comes with external hard drives is complete crap in my experience but if it actually works decently I may install it for her.
Bard wrote:QUOTE (Bard @ Feb 19 2012, 08:49 AM) The real problem is going to be throwing XBMC in with all of that.
Transcoding is a RESOURCE HOG and while you're using it to do so it's going to take a hefty, hefty chunk of virtual resources, severely limiting what you can allocate to the other vm's if you use limiting like I described above. If not, almost everything else on all of the other virtual machines on that box will probably grind to a halt whenever you stream to the tv or watch a blu-ray disc. Now, that can be okay if you're not planning to use the other portions of the box while watching an HD movie, but may not be what you're after.
The solution to this is hardware rendering, be it VDPAU/DXVA, etc .
Playing a 1080p x264 mkv uses maybe 20% of my cpu? I just have a sempron with an extra core unlocked ($35 dual core processor). A lot of this is probably from pulseaudio, too, since I have it set to the highest resample method.
fuzzylunkin1 wrote:QUOTE (fuzzylunkin1 @ Feb 19 2012, 08:18 AM) The solution to this is hardware rendering, be it VDPAU/DXVA, etc .
Playing a 1080p x264 mkv uses maybe 20% of my cpu? I just have a sempron with an extra core unlocked ($35 dual core processor). A lot of this is probably from pulseaudio, too, since I have it set to the highest resample method.
Ah. Cool.
I have a friend who did something similar a few years ago with MythTV boxes but I didn't want to use a computer powerful enough to render anything so I just use the DLNA formats my player will accept and stream without transcoding, letting the player do all of the work.
The ubuntu server package has worked well for me many times. It's just console, but it can do just about anything(I usually install it and then install ssh on it, then ditch the screen).
I have setup three DCs to date. Only one of them actually turned out to be useful. It is useful because the clients needed roaming profiles so that when their laptops were stolen(which did happen, their location is in the worst part of the city) their "My Documents" were available on another machine(folder redirection). They also needed to manage access. IMO it was too much work for what it was worth, but it is also maintained by a few people with Microsoft skill set.
Blah blah blah blah (breath) blah blah blah blah (breath) oh, what was this thread about again......
From what I've managed to read there are some issues passing the integrated Intel HD 3000 GPU which ruins my plan slightly. In addition to that, playing Blu-ray on VM's also seems to have some issues - as well trying to find a decent player. This combined makes me think that trying to virtualise a HTPC might be more trouble than it's worth. I was going to spend a bit more to get hardware specifically geared towards the HTPC but I think I'll wait and either build a dedicated HTPC or just get a traditional Blu-ray player. If I manage to get a Raspeberry Pi I'll run XBMC off that in the interim.
For the server I was looking at something like this. Any thoughts?
"SERIOUSLY, I think you guys would argue about how many wheels a menstrual cycle has if you could." -- fishbone
id3nt1ty wrote:QUOTE (id3nt1ty @ Feb 20 2012, 01:09 PM) Cheers for your input
From what I've managed to read there are some issues passing the integrated Intel HD 3000 GPU which ruins my plan slightly. In addition to that, playing Blu-ray on VM's also seems to have some issues - as well trying to find a decent player. This combined makes me think that trying to virtualise a HTPC might be more trouble than it's worth. I was going to spend a bit more to get hardware specifically geared towards the HTPC but I think I'll wait and either build a dedicated HTPC or just get a traditional Blu-ray player. If I manage to get a Raspeberry Pi I'll run XBMC off that in the interim.
For the server I was looking at something like this. Any thoughts?
The Proliant line is the *one* and ONLY thing that HP didn't $#@! up when they bought Compaq.
They are some of the most reliable servers I've ever worked with. I highly recommend them.
As for blu-ray players, I got one of these for christmas and then installed and configured Serviio on my network so I can stream stuff directly to it. I ended up choosing Serviio as that's what Sony recommended for use with the player. I don't know if they even sell those over there because you have neither Netflix or Hulu Plus afaik but that's my two cents.
Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit.
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