Please log in to reply 16 replies to this topic

[oilinki]

I'd like to turn an old laptop to a media server, which can play videos, music, internet radio streams and if possible FM radio (connected to TV and amplifier). Music and videos are on separate NAS.

VLC looks ugly, but works fine (I know there are skins, but haven found a good one yet). Playlist control is not the best possible.  
The (old)http remote interface works ok, but it's still a bit clumsy.

So is there alternatives for linux?  Needs.
- Plays all kind of videos and music files.
- Linux remote control with possibility to create playlist on my laptop and those would be played via mediaserver
- Possible Chromium browser plugin to control the playlist (There is a Quick Play add-on, which failed to work well with my Chromium)
- IR remote
- Possible mobile remote application. Currently using old Nokia S60, but thinking of changing to Android at some point). VLC http interface works, but..

- Downloading and proxying podcasts would be a plus (so the the podcasts could be donwloaded further to the mobile device)

So the basic idea is to have one server which can be controlled with various devices. VLC is quite close to that, but at least I have not found an easy way to send playlist from remote client to it.

I'm pretty much open for all kind of solutions so please suggest solutions and alternatives. I'm currently using xubuntu on mediaserver and kubuntu on laptops.
I also need to buy a new or second hand laptop to become new media server, to have a bit more power for playing videos.

[oilinki]

There is also XBMC ( http://xbmc.org/ ), which looks good, but does it support remote control the playlists?

[dharmabm]

mythtv or xbmchttp://www.linuxjour...m/article/10713

[oilinki]

Thanks. I'll try both of those. There seemed to be some remote controls for chromium as well for both media server.

[urandom]

i'm using xbmc on my htpc/torrentbox with a mce IR remote since years and it's an absolutely awesome piece of code. it does support a whole range of IR remotes but also android devices as remote. for playlists, see http://wiki.xbmc.org...title=Playlists

Quote

XBMC supports PLS, Winamp M3U, Cue Sheets, and XBMC Smart Playlist (XSP) playlists.

there are a lot of plugins to extend its capabilities, adding sources is very easy, support for many protocols is available, hw acceleration, youtube plugins, browser, subtitles, trailers plugins, games, rss, <you name it>. anyway, it would take months to describe all its features, just give a try. there's a brand new project that seems to be a nice way to install xbmc. fast and easy, it's here: http://www.openelec.tv/

[lovetotravel]

Excuse me if I am missing something, but wouldn't a device like the WDTV work???  It plays movies much better than VLC.  IMHO.

[oilinki]

I'll probably go for xbmc. Now just need to upgrade the hardware to have enough speed and hdmi-port.
Btw. does Linux support hdmi without problems or is there some specific things to consider?

to lovetotravel: That has been one of my options, but home mediaserver can do a lot of more things than only displaying movies.
One example is that it's possible to setup the server to put the music on when my bluethooth enabled phone enters the room

Or  run home webserver, do backups, act as security webcam server, share mobile connection to home, connect to ibutton temperature sensors.. etc.

[urandom]

Quote

Now just need to upgrade the hardware to have enough speed and hdmi-port.

you should consider some card that supports hardware acceleration. nvidia does it in a brillant way with vdpau if you're using the closed-source driver. i have a very cheap 9400GT that can play 30GB 1080p files smoothly with 1 or 2% of CPU usage. vaapi works fine on my intel i3 too but vdpau is still the king.

Quote

Btw. does Linux support hdmi without problems or is there some specific things to consider?

hdmi to hdmi or dvi to hdmi has always worked OOTB for me. depending on your setup, you may have some issues with sound over hdmi however (which i dont use). the IR remote setup can be painful too, have a look on xbmc wiki to see supported remotes, i'd recommend a MCE remote, they're widespread and most likely supported OOTB too. i had difficulties to find one (that was a few years ago) but finally got one in Pantip in a shop specialized in video-editing (you can't miss it, it's the only one. IIRC it's on 4th floor, on the right side of the building - if you're looking at petchburi road - not too far from the escalators)

[lovetotravel]

oilinki, on 2011-12-20 14:14:32, said:

I'll probably go for xbmc. Now just need to upgrade the hardware to have enough speed and hdmi-port.
Btw. does Linux support hdmi without problems or is there some specific things to consider?

to lovetotravel: That has been one of my options, but home mediaserver can do a lot of more things than only displaying movies.
One example is that it's possible to setup the server to put the music on when my bluethooth enabled phone enters the room

Or  run home webserver, do backups, act as security webcam server, share mobile connection to home, connect to ibutton temperature sensors.. etc.

Wow, that bluetooth/music option is pretty cool.  The rest is too high tech for me!

[oilinki]

Thanks urandom for great advices! I'll be visiting pantip next week and will take a look around.

lovetotravel: The bluetooth trick should be pretty easy to do with blueproximity.

    blueproximity - locks/unlocks your desktop tracking a bluetooth device

[oilinki]

Hmm. I saw this Acer Aspire 4740-432G32MN with a price tag of 9500B in Phuket. Sounds pretty cheap for i5 laptop. Would that be good enough to play Blu-ray movies?

http://notebookspec....G32Mn:C016.html

[urandom]

bluray (libbluray) support is at early stage of development but it works here, at least for the only bluray ISO I have (it didnt work with xbmc dharma release but does with eden). you shouldn't have any problem playing HD encoded content (i.e. x264 encoded 1080p movies in mkv container) with this machine, as long as your player is using vaapi [ http://en.wikipedia....cceleration_API ]. From my experience, VLC has fair support for vaapi (disabled by default), mplayer has very good support but non native, you need to use the vaapi developer's mplayer branch, it's here http://gitorious.org...s/hwaccel-vaapi - your distro should have binaries for it, normally - and lucky you are, xbmc does support it as well since dharma (never tried it with xbmc, i'm using vdpau). the one thing you should really be careful about with this machine is wireless (and bluetooth if you intent to use it) chipset support...

but but but but, you're building a HTPC and intend to store HD content. believe me, you'll end up with 5TO of data sooner than you expect and laptops are not really designed to be expandable. depending on your budget, you could buy a cheap mini ITX motherboard (biostar ~THB1K), a cheap CPU (amd sempron ~THB1K) and a nice nvidia entry level card (less than THB2K). put all that stuff in a nice mini ITX case [ just an example http://computeandmor...ist.php?id=1423 ] and you'll have a great system. DDR3 costs nothing (THB0.8K/4GB), maybe THB1.5K for good power supply + remote control and you're good to go. ooops i forgot the hard drives, not the best time to buy... maybe a dvd-rw too.

[lovetotravel]

One reason I use the WDTV is their ability to play pretty much everything that's thrown at it.  I like the interface way better than VLC, and the pic quality seems much better.  I've got the live version, so I can play internet radio, YouTube vids, pictures, stored music on iTunes, and connect via CAT 5 to my PC in the other room which has 6TB of disk!  And it only cost $100.

[dharmabm]

lovetotravel, on 2011-12-22 07:47:50, said:

One reason I use the WDTV is their ability to play pretty much everything that's thrown at it.  I like the interface way better than VLC, and the pic quality seems much better.  I've got the live version, so I can play internet radio, YouTube vids, pictures, stored music on iTunes, and connect via CAT 5 to my PC in the other room which has 6TB of disk!  And it only cost $100.

i like my wdtv too, but i only have v1 (free from my friend who works @ WD), but the external usb drive gets REALLY hot when my son forgets to turn it off. planning to do this one of these days - http://ctso.me/2011/...r-setup/#more-5 (this is from one of the developers of cyanogenmod and a founder of grooveshark)

[urandom]

from http://ctso.me/2011/...r-setup/#more-5 :



reminds me someone but not sure who, any idea K. ?

OT, @TV: text editor is f'ing broken

[justsumhelp]

A jail broken ps3 with showtime installed has been a great media server for me, there is local storage on the ps3 also it can play off a NAS. Then there is otherOS, emulators, and i think it plays some type of other games as well

[dharmabm]

urandom, on 2011-12-24 10:32:59, said:

from http://ctso.me/2011/...r-setup/#more-5 :



reminds me someone but not sure who, any idea K. ?

OT, @TV: text editor is f'ing broken

MWAHAHAHA! ;>}