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Best Setup To Stream HD Movies (Not Sure Where to post this)

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b1ggjoe

Regular Contributor
Hello Everyone,

I'm not sure where exactly to post this question, so I hope you all have mercy on me.

From much of my reading on these forums, it seems that many of us are doing some sort of HD Movie streaming, or at least...would like to.

I've read some posts where individuals have purchased a device like 'WD TV Live'. They'll have this device connected to their network either 'hard-wired' or via WiFi and can stream their own collection of HD movies to their TV.

Yet, I've heard others who connect their USB External HDD to a high-end Router that somehow supports sharing the files on their External HDD throughout the network.

What is everyone doing? What are the best and most recommended setup/configurations given different scenarios?

Thanks!

BJ

:eek:
 
Joe: I'm not sure if you are asking about players, network methods or media storage.
 
Let's start by having you describe what you are doing now.
 
Well right now...I'm not doing a whole lot.

I do have a 40" LCD that does NOT support either WiFi or Ethernet unfortunately.

I do have DirecTV with the Genie as the DVR, connected to my LCD TV via HDMI.

I was thinking about possibly, the 'WD TV Live'. I can have it plugged-into my 40" LCD TV and it seems like it can play most formats.

HOWEVER...it does not seem as though it actually has any type of storage available, so I do not think that I can copy MP4's or other Movies/Movie Formats onto it, for it to play. But it looks like through it's UI, you can access these movies that are stored on USB Media or over your network through Ethernet or WiFi.

I plan on setting up my own NAS Box (NAS4Free) in a few months for other purposes, but I was wondering if I could somehow use it's storage to play/stream movies that reside in my NAS4Free Box to my TV somehow.

I have also played with this software:

http://www.tvmediashare.com/Download.html

...and it works great.

The problem is that I get 'choppy playback' if I don't use a fast enough or high-end Laptop or workstation.

So that's where I'm at.

BJ
 
Yes, you can stream from a freeNAS to something like the WD TV Live.

Currently the only real media streamers out there that support local streaming are

WD TV Live
Seagate Free Agent line (most/all of which is now discontinued?)
Apple TV, with caveat

That is, pre-packaged deals. You can load up XBMC on a lot of hardware, and Rapsberry Pis are an excellent choice for this, but it involves at least a fair amount more user technical experience and DIY work to get running.

Or, well, your average computer you can stream to as a Home Theater PC (HTPC).

Trust me, I've been looking in to it a lot. I have a couple of Seagate Free Agent Theater + streamers, that worked fine for awhile, but the Netflix app on them are badly out of date and I think the whole Seagate line got EOL about 12 months ago, at least the Theater + haven't had support in >>>12 months now (last firmware update, with some bad bugs, was around 18 months ago 2.23, so I am on the one prior, 2.20).

One of mine just stopped working to stream from my server. Randomly it refuses to connect. It'll connect to a USB drive off my router, but it takes AGES to connect (about 60s, compared to the still working ones 1-2s to login).

The Apple TV is nice, especially if you like Apple, but it requires iTunes to stream locally, which is really annoying is there is a lot more "upkeep" requires for movies in iTunes than simply pointing something at your existing folder structure to stream moves using CIFS/SMB, which is what I do now.

The dead Seagate is getting replaced, when it shows up, by an Apple TV. I don't like the added upkeep of iTunes, but whatever. My file server can run iTunes just fine, and admittedly its only maybe an afternoon of work to import my existing collection of 800+/- movies in to an iTunes library and tag it all so that I can sort it properly on an Apple TV for view. The TV shows are going to be more work to manually go in an add season and episode numbers, but whatever. Again, the whole thing is an afternoon of work and then its only an extra minute or two of manual work a week in the future as I add movies (my collection grows maybe 1-2 movies a week, rip, transcode and currently my desktop autobacks up to the server weekly at night, but now I'll also then need to manually add the files to iTunes on the server and tag them before they'll show up on an Apple TV).


For network setup, whatever works best for you. 802.11g can stream HD movies just fine, so long as you don't have too many clients hitting the network at once and/or too much congestion from neighbors or too far from your router. a decent 720p movie tends to be 4-7Mbps and a decent 1080p movie is around 6-12Mbps. 802.11g on a bad day is around 10-15Mbps and on a good day we are talking 30Mbps usable, so if you don't have neighbor interferance, 802.11g should be fine for at least a couple of resonable 1080p bitrate streams.

It won't handle raw Bluray, but how many people stream that?

802.11n, 150Mbps will handle raw Bluray just fine, again, so long as you don't have much mussing up your wifi network.

Me personally, I hardwire everything I can. My wired network is limited to 2,000Mbps in traffic to my server, minus TCP/IP or UDP overhead, which is very limited, my wireless network is limited to 300+150Mbps minus protocol overhead, attenuation, etc all of which can be a lot (my router is on Channel 1, 20MHz and my AP is on Channel 6+11 40MHz, so no shared wireless). Only thing that is wireless are things that actually get carried around.
 
Azazel had good advice. What was nice about the Seagate FreeAgent was its wide video format support and that it would browse network shares, i.e. you didn't need to run a DLNA server. But Seagate is out of that business now, leaving the WD TV Live as the only "brand-name" streamer with wide format support. Roku is about the only other game in town, but Roku is primarily an internet streamer with very limited format support.

In the end, you can't beat a computer with HDMI output for flexibility. They'll play most anything using VLC. But, as you found, you need at least an Intel i3 for smooth 1080p playback. Some people swear Atoms can do it, but you'll pull your hair out trying.
 
The Bay Trail based Atoms work great for 1080p output. I can't speak to the earlier Atoms, but my Asus T100 has a z3740 Bay Trail-T Atom in it, and over HDMI to my TV I've tried streaming both Terminator 2 1080p (variable bit rate, but average 7Mbps) and the Hobbit 1080p (again, variable, but average 9Mbps) and it played back smooth as butter. No hiccups or artifacting.

I am really considering a Bay Trail based NUC or similar as a HTPC down the road, though probably by the time I am really looking to get one, we'll be on to Cherry Trail based NUCs. Though, I am going to hold out until I know that they can stream at least 4k24 well as that would likely be the reason for one, to have a device that can output 4k well as those upcoming Vizio 4k TVs look pretty nice and sound very resonable on price.
 
7 to 9 Mbps is a reasonable rate for Atoms to handle compressed forms of 1080p. But for straight H.264 (Apple Quicktime Movie Trailer clips), I found they could not cut it.

Granted, these were with the older N310 N330 Atoms, so I hope things have changed.

But try some 1080p content with bit rates up near 40 Mbps peak and see how your T100 handles it. I'd be interested to know.
 
Sure, I can grab a bluray rip and try outputting it from my T100 and see what it looks like. I'll let you know. Might be a week though. I am going out of town in a day or two for a week, but I'll try to remember to come back in and post results.
 
Sure, I can grab a bluray rip and try outputting it from my T100 and see what it looks like. I'll let you know. Might be a week though. I am going out of town in a day or two for a week, but I'll try to remember to come back in and post results.
Thanks. Or even just try a full HD Apple Trailer and see how it does...

BTW, with Win 8, can you access video sites normally blocked for tablets, like full Hulu and network sites?
 
Wow, you guys have provided incredible feedback!!! Thank you sooo much!!!

So it looks like I may have to choose between WD TV Live and Apple TV.

At least with WD TV Live, It looks like it can access my movie collection if it's sitting in my NAS4Free storage. I need to find out if the WD TV Live RJ-45 Port is Gigabit or not. Or I could always plug-in my External Seagate 1TB HDD or etc.

Why did you choose Apple TV over WD TV Live? What are the Pros & Cons?

Thank you!'

BJ


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Gigabit port doesn't matter. 100 Mbps Ethernet handles 1080p HD just fine.
Last I checked AppleTV was primarily focused on selling content from iTunes. It didn't really have any local playback features. Could have changed. It also supports AirPlay audio and video. But most content providers won't enable AirPlay for their apps and it is blocked in mobile Safari, so it's pretty useless.
 
I wanted to add to this that I stream to my AppleTV using the Plex app either on my iPad or iPhone. It works AWESOME. Do not forget that with apple you have airplay and can toss anything up on the AppleTV from your mobile device. I should say that I have a Synology NAS and run Plex Server on it with all my rips.
 
Do not forget that with apple you have airplay and can toss anything up on the AppleTV from your mobile device. I should say that I have a Synology NAS and run Plex Server on it with all my rips.
You cannot "toss anything" with AirPlay. Most video services detect and block mobile Safari from using AirPlay.

So forget trying to watch Hulu, network TV sites, etc. Everytime I have tried to use ATV as a cord-cutting device, I've given up in frustration.
 
Wow, this level of feedback has been incredible. Thank you again so much!!!

Here's a stupid question that I forgot to ask;

As I began to mention in my initial post...in my living room, which is almost directly below where the RT-AC68U is going to be placed...I have my Home Entertainment stand.

- I plan on also having the 'ASUS EA-N66' placed on top of a tall cabinet that will connect to the AC68U.

- I will have a Cat6 cable ran from the 'EA-N66', down behind the cabinet to my Media stand, plugged-into the 'ASUS GX-D1051 V3' 5-port Gigabit Switch.

- Finally, I will have a variety of ethernet-enabled devices (LCD TV, Blu-Ray Player, DirecTV Genie, Gaming Systems' plugged-in to the ASUS 5-port GB switch.

So...this was the *initial* plan.

However, now...I'm wondering if instead of using the EA-N66 to bridge all of these non-wifi ethernet devices to my WiFi network...I'm wondering if instead I should go with another standard such as; HomePNA/HomePlug/MoCA etc?

The issue of course, is that I would like to be able to stream HD content in the best possible manner without having to run ethernet cable directly.

Would my initial WiFi setup work for this, or will going to an alternative standard be more stable and reliable?

@Ralphort,

So, since I was planning on setting up a 'NAS4Free' Box of my own anyway...this will probably house my entire home collection of movies.

I like the idea of the 'NeoTVPrime' being able to stream more than my own collection, unlike the WD TV Live.

- How exactly does it work when it comes to Live TV Shows? I ask because I was also going to add a TV into my Garage, but because it's about 100 FT away from my house, DirecTV wants to charge me $300 to add an additional Dish and mini-Genie. So I'm wondering if the NewTV Prime could be the answer there as well?? Just FYI, I do have Gigabit connection going directly into an RJ-45 drop in the Garage as well.

Thanks!!

BJ
 
b1ggjoe, what you're trying to do is what I'm doing for the past 2 weeks since I got my NAS. What you need is a NAS. For a streaming device, I suggest you get a Netgear NeoTV Prime or some Android based media streamer. NAS manufacturers have their own multimedia apps (ex. Synology's DS Video) that you can install & use to watch stream contents. Don't go with WD TV Live as it's limited only within your network. I don't suggest you go with Apple TV either as Apple take hold of its content channels & not up to the end user.

As for ripping videos, the hardest part (for me) is the cropping to a more standardized screen size (16:9) on HD (1920x1080) H.264 without stretching the video rip (a technique I've learn through trial & error crop & rip). MKV file holder seems to be the favorite but there's nothing wrong going with MP4. Keep the bitrate at mid level. If you go up so high then you'll end up having to rip longer & you're streaming device might not be able to handle the streaming.

@Ralphort,

A few more questions;

- Are you streaming with your NeoTV Prime via the 10/100 Ethernet or via WiFi 'N'?

- Are you using the NeoTV Prime 'As is' or are you doing any exploits such as come from 'GTV Hacker'?

- Are there any significant advantages to exploiting this device?

- Is the 'Live TV' Free? How does it actually work?

Thanks!!

BJ


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Also...what is everyone doing with regard to a good sound system, to hear these movies in great sound???


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Also...what is everyone doing with regard to a good sound system, to hear these movies in great sound???


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Depends..

2x SONY 7.1 True HD
2x Subwoofers
12x surround speakers
2x center speakers

This is in two rooms living room has 240 watt 12-inch active subwoofer
Master Bed room has 100 watt 8-inch servo active subwoofer

Now Guest Room has: Philips all-in-one 1000 watts 5.1 Dolby Digital
Also the Outside Patio has: Philips all-in-one 1000 watts 5.1 Dolby Digital

Both units have Passive Subwoofer still not bad build in DVD upscale 1080p.

So everything streams from NSA325 to 2x SONY SMP-N200 and 6x SONY SMP-N100 and 2x SONY BD and 2x laptops, 2x netbook, over 45 android tablets and 1 windows 8.1 pro tablet.

Everything works.. Good to have different choices of devices to use. ;)
 

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