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46K views 399 replies 59 participants last post by  ZLTFUL 
#1 · (Edited)
Current state of my theater:


ROOM: 17x16x10

ACOUSTICS:
DIY acoustic panels Staggered (side walls)
DIY acoustic panels (rear wall)

VIDEO:
Epson 5020UB (cinema mode)
Seymour Center Stage XD 150" 2.35 scope screen acoustically transparent
DirecTV HD DVR
Popcornhour VTen
Samsung Bluray player (older model)

VIDEO PROCESSING:
Lumagen Radiance XD
Darbee Darblet

AVR:
Denon 4520CI

AUDIO:
MiniDSP

AMPS:

Emotiva XPA3 (fronts and center)
Emotiva LPA7 (surrounds)
Behringer inuke 3000dsp (x2)
Peavy IPR2 7500

SPEAKERS: 11 total
Definitive Technology UIW RLSIII (LCR x3)
Klipsch Synergy S2 (surrounds x4)
HTD HD-65AIM (wides and heights x4)

SUBS: 12 Total

DIY Infinity 1260W 1.5 ft^3 (X8)
DIY SI HT18D4 Slim cabinet 4.1ft^3 (X2)
DIY SI HT18D4 flat pack 4ft^3 (X2)


MEDIA SERVER:

FlexRAID server 24TB (media streaming)

Protection:
Panamax M5300-PM
Panamax M5300-EX
CyberPower 850AVR UPS
CyberPower 1500AVR UPS
1 X 15A circuit
3 X 20A circuits
1 X 30A circuit

SEATING:
Coaster Pavilion 4 seat set

MISC:
Roomie Remote (iPad mini)
Niles IR repeater
Global Cache' IP to IR module
Emotiva trigger expansion (X2)
Middle Atlantic slim5 rack and custom faceplates
Insteon remote controlled dimmer
Temperature controlled A/V closet
















 

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#2 ·
Looking great! What are the room dimensions and screen size? Are you planning to put acoustic treatment on the walls?. Cutie pie in the last pic aww!!
 
#5 ·
Very nice!
 
#6 ·
Great job!! The 1st picture reminds me of my 1st house w/ theater. However I didn't cover the open loft , instead I just ran drapes. LOL .


You did a great job!! I like it!!
 
#7 ·
Hey thanks! I orginally had curtains up over the openings to keep the light out. I had plans on closing in the theater before I even moved into the house. Now that the theater is usable as is, I have to paint the entire house, put in hardwood floors downstairs and remodel the kitchen before I am allowed to do anything else with the theater per the boss. We shall see about that.
 
#8 · (Edited)
Update!
Just received the Popcornhour A-400 and have been spending hours and hours ripping all my movies. Still have a long way to go.

Also I had wood floors put in my house. That turned out really nice! Next is the kitchen and then finish the theater and stain the stair rail.




Living room setup is:
Sharp 70" Aquos
Pioneer Elite SC-81
DirecTV Genie
Klipsch sub
Emptek E55Ti fronts
Emptek E56Ci center
Yamaha surrounds
AppleTV with XBMC
Popcorn Hour A-400
Logitech Harmony 900
 
#12 ·
thanks! Yes this will be my second daughter. No boys unfortunately and we never will. Getting the wife fixed after this kid. By the way....I was thinking about going with UnRaid but after seeing you comment on it in another thread, I looked into Flexraid and now will go with that. A little off topic but just wanted to let you know.
 
#13 ·
I can +1 for flexraid
. Very happy with mine.


Unraid is slow (real time) and your better off with either Flexraid F (Traditional Flexraid like I have) or the newer Flexraid-T or "NZFS" or whatever Brahim wants to name his new transparent flexraid product. Technically, Flexraid-t is more like unraid and a more true competitor (but better). It's transparent and has performanc advantages over unraid.


FlexRaid-F (normal oldschool flexraid) is better in snapshot mode. That is how I use it. It offers many advantages.


For me I just want the hard drives to be able to be added or removed when full or when empty and if my server blows up or I want to upgrade it I want to make sure I am able to read the hard drives in another system easily. That is what makes the most sense for a media server IMO. PM me if you ever need help. I'd be happy to trade you HTPC or server advice for dedicated theater build advice or DIY speaker advice. I'm trying to master those now and there is a lot to learn.
 
#15 ·
Snapshot mode means it does not calculate your parity back up on the fly in real time- rather simply does it once a day (or whenever you set it to do). This usually leads to superior performance, but if you have a hard drive fail your only protected against data loss since your last update. Anything you might have changed since then would be lost if the hard drive failed. Most set it to update once a day- which seems fine for a media server. If your adding and deleting data constantly all the time- you'd be better with real time parity calculation, but you'll likely suffer slower write speeds as a result when writing data to the media server.


"parity" is the back up system used to protect you against hard drive failures. With flexraid you have the ability to have a hard drive fail and you can recover the data that was on it. You can suffer as many simultaneous hard drive failures as you have parity drives. Assuming a simple media server, you'd likely have 1 parity hard drive. This one hard drive can back up all of your data hard drives. It might sound funny at first but here is how it works:




If I was to remove either drive A, drive B or drive C could you figure out what was missing ? (yes)


That is how parity works. Since a hard drive contains only zeros and 1's - it's not hard to keep track of what is what. That is what a parity drive does. The major advantage is you can back up 6 or 7 hard drives with only 1 parity drive. It's much cheaper than a duplicitous approach where you would have a second hard drive for every data drive and keep dual copies of everything in case of failure. In that approach... you'd need 12 hard drives to have 24TB (6 x 4TB drives for data, another 6 x4TB drives as back up). Since a 4TB hard drive costs you $150+ that is 5 extra hard drives and $750 more



For many people with multiple hard drives - the idea of only needing to buy 1 hard drive to back them all up is very attractive. The idea your protected against data loss is attractive too



That is how flexraid works. It allows drive pooling (all your data drives show as 1 big drive) and it backs up every drive in your pool with a parity drive so you can suffer a hard drive failure and not lose your data or what was on the drive that failed.


There is no limit on how many drives you can back up with a parity drive but most consensus is that after you have 8 data drives you should consider getting 2 parity drives (I have 8 with 1
) Dual parity drives would allow you to have 2 hard drives fail at the same time and protect you from data loss.


When snapshot mode is used - The parity update is done on a schedule (like at midnight each night for example). So your backup is a snap shot of what your server had at midnight each day. Anything that changed since that parity update or "snap shot" would be lost if your drive failed. If you had real time parity- the parity would be calculated on the fly in real time- and you are always protected. The calculation of parity uses system resources and slows the performance down- and it's advisable to have better hardware to use this method, unless you are not concerned with extreme performance or write speeds.


I can copy paste a full blu ray movie to my server (25GB+) in a few minutes. In comparison something like a NAS box or Unraid server might take 11 minutes do to the same task. Flexraid in snapshot mode is generally high performance- and you could easily stream 5 simultanous movies all over your house from an inexpensive flexraid server. Hardware is probably $400 or so... not any different than a HTPC or normal PC. Hard drives are often the biggest expense- based on how much storage you want. That's what I like most about my server- I can add a hard drive anytime now or in the future. I can add an empty new drive, or even a hard drive with data on it already without losing anything. I can also remove a drive anytime without data loss- and even install the same drive in another system or PC. That's the biggest advantage IMO. It's flexible.. which is how it got it's name
 
#16 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick  /t/1466802/the-thompson-theater#post_23441574


There is no limit on how many drives you can back up with a parity drive but most consensus is that after you have 8 data drives you should consider getting 2 parity drives (I have 8 with 1
) Dual parity drives would allow you to have 2 hard drives fail at the same time and protect you from data loss.

That "8 data drives" was maybe valid when 1TB drives were the big boys. You need to execute parity based upon probability of an URE (unrecoverable read error) during a rebuild. The link below is probably the best "simple description" of the problem. Simply put, RAID5 is already disaster waiting to happen with modern larger drives. The chance of a failure on rebuild is just too high; RAID6 (better yet ZFS) is really the only choice for larger data arrays for the average person.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/why-raid-6-stops-working-in-2019/805


Another issue is hard-drive life. The coating (which also acts as a lubricant) on the platters starts a pretty rapid degradation after five years. With people running their arrays longer and longer these days, the chance of URE gets higher and higher once a drive fails. Furthermore, a standard hard-drive does NOT verify writes (and it can't, there is no firmware on-board to do this). This okay right now, but the next generation of hard-drives will probably be eliminating the guard-bands on the platters which means bad writes will occur more often. Furthermore, then next gen of HDD's are going a to a heavier look-up table system which means your data will be even more incoherent than before (e.g. reads might take longer than writes!). Once this occurs, traditional RAID will be not even be enough. After that, you really need ZFS.


The only silver lining is that by time this hits, nearly all PC's and laptops will be SSD's. This leaves platter drives for large storage systems where they can deal with a much higher URE rate. Interesting times ahead...very interesting.


Oops..forgot a not
 
#19 ·
So in Flexraid, If I add a 9th drive and then add another parity drive, is it just plag and play with the parity? I know that I have to set it up as a parity drive first but didn't know if it gets crazy after that. Also one of my questions is.....Do you rip blu rays to your PC and then send it to your flexraid server of do you rip the blu rays on your flexraid server? If you rip them on you PC and send, do you do it over your network or via USB or what? Thanks
 
#20 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pain Infliction  /t/1466802/the-thompson-theater#post_23443838


So in Flexraid, If I add a 9th drive and then add another parity drive, is it just plag and play with the parity? I know that I have to set it up as a parity drive first but didn't know if it gets crazy after that. Also one of my questions is.....Do you rip blu rays to your PC and then send it to your flexraid server of do you rip the blu rays on your flexraid server? If you rip them on you PC and send, do you do it over your network or via USB or what? Thanks


I am a little confused with what your asking but I will do my best.



Adding a drive with Flexraid is plug and play. Well... almost.
If you wanted to add a hard drive to your flexraid storage pool you would first install the hard drive like normal. You would need to format it if needed (new drives) for windows and basically install it on your machine just like you would with adding a HDD to any PC. Once the drive was installed and working on the machine (PC or server) you can simply add to your storage pool. To add it to your flexraid storage pool you just open up the flexraid control panel and add it as a DRU drive (data drive). If you wanted to add it as a parity drive you would add it as a PRU drive (Parity drive) It's a few clicks and simple to do. Parity drives should not contain data on them because the data would be lost. You can add a drive with data on it- or a brand new empty drive as a data DRU drive. If you add an empty drive the drive gets added to the pool almost instantly because there is nothing on the new drive so there is no new parity to be calculated. If you add a full drive or a drive with data on it, then you'll need to run a parity update which can take a little while. It would take as long as it takes to read all the data on on all your drives. Your drives are all read simultaneously so basically it would take as long as your slowest drive. Once done your new data drive would be included in the pool and any data on it would still be there and included in the storage pool as well.


Adding a drive with flexraid is not quite plug and play - but it's not hard. You can add or remove a drive anytime.


Most start with 1 parity set up with the initial installation, and a few hard drives. Then just keep adding hard drives as they need more space. Adding a second parity once you have many hard drives is not hard to do but once you have lots of hard drives and multiple parity drives the time to calculate all that data increases. Most just set it up to run overnight or something. You would not want to sit around and wait for it.


I personally rip to my desktop. I use MAKEMKV


Then I use MediacenterMaster on the ripped MKV fle to organize, rename, collect the album artwork and meta data.


Once it's done you get a nice folder with all the art work, the meta data information, the video file, etc... I then copy paste that to my server and delete from my desktop. I tend to do rips a few here, a few there as I get them. It adds up over time. Most full quality 7.1 1080p rips are 25GB+ each and are identical in picture and sound quality to the actual BLURAY disc. I can't tell a difference.


In matters of 480i/p->1080p or 720p >1080p I find my HTPC is superior in PQ to the up conversion in my AVR, Projector, and other equipment. I have a Optoma projector and Denon AVR3312IC.


I use MadVR and occasionally SVP. Here is a good read on SVP for you: Just warning- It takes a modern HTPC with good hardware. I would not attempt it with inferior or older machines. You need a quad core and a modern GPU.
Quote:
http://www.svp-team.com/


Here you go:




SVP allows you to watch any video on your PC file with frame interpolation (like you can watch it on high-end TVs and projectors). It increases frame rate by generating intermediate animation frames between existing ones to produce very smooth, fluid and clear motion. The technology is well-known for a while ("TrimensionDNM", "Motion Plus", "Motionflow" and others), but now it's available for free to PC users with simple GUI and just a couple of mouse clicks.


SVP provides GPU acceleration and it's possible to watch FullHD 1080p-video recalculated to 60Hz in real-time with mid-range CPU and almost any GPU hardware.

SVP actually is not a video player itself, but it enables almost any player to play smooth video.

Yeah, also in 3D



First, it's free, second - if both Peter Jackson and James Cameron don't think the "soap opera effect" is something bad why should you?


"We are indeed shooting at the higher frame rate. The key thing to understand is that this process requires both shooting and projecting at 48 frames/s, rather than the usual 24 frames/s (The great majority of films have been shot at 24 frames per second since the late 1920s). So the result looks like normal speed, but the image has hugely enhanced clarity and smoothness. Looking at 24 frames every second may seem ok—and we've all seen thousands of films like this over the last 90 years—but there is often quite a lot of blur in each frame, during fast movements and if the camera is moving around quickly, the image can judder or "strobe." Shooting and projecting at 48 frames/s does a lot to get rid of these issues. It looks much more lifelike and it is much easier to watch, especially in 3-D." - Peter Jackson

"3D shows you a window into reality; the higher frame rate takes the glass out of the window" - James Cameron

http://www.svp-team.com/wiki/Download

Other than frame rate interpolation (like what the fancy TV's do) you can also scale your non 1080p content upwards with amazing results. This won't matter much on 1080p BR rips, but it would be nice for anything that is 720p or under.

This is a great comparision with screen shots of PQ for you

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1477339/so-youve-built-your-htpc-now-what-is-next-how-to-get-the-ultimate-picture-and-sound-quality-from-your-htpc-madvr-svp-xbmc-mediabrowser-jriver/0_100#post_23444281




This is how I have mine set up:


I have a desktop PC that is my main PC. I do most things on this. I have a flexraid server set up that I can remote desktop into from my desktop. It serves to back up my systems, hold my data including movies, pictures, music etc...

Then I have a HTPC client with only SSD drive (no storage) in my AV rack closet that I use for playback. I'd need a PC in the house anyways and enjoy my desktop so most I would imagine just use the HTPC for both duties which works well too.


Do you use a front end for your media like XBMC, Mediabrowser or PLEX? Do you have movies you have ripped or downloaded already ?
 
#21 ·
You hit the nail on the head for the questions I asked. Thank you!


Right now I have Popcorn hour and I have filled up two hard drives. The reason why I was looking into a server is because I want the protection as well as the storage. I am just new to the server world so was not sure the best way or even how to do it. I know for sure that I want flexraid and really the only questions that I have so far without actually using it are the ones that I asked. I am sure that I will have more once I get started or I might be able to figure it out if it is as easy as stated.


Actually I do have another....You access your server from you PC. What are you doing to do this? Sharing over your network or using a program such as team viewer or something?
 
#22 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pain Infliction  /t/1466802/the-thompson-theater#post_23447251


You hit the nail on the head for the questions I asked. Thank you!


Right now I have Popcorn hour and I have filled up two hard drives. The reason why I was looking into a server is because I want the protection as well as the storage. I am just new to the server world so was not sure the best way or even how to do it. I know for sure that I want flexraid and really the only questions that I have so far without actually using it are the ones that I asked. I am sure that I will have more once I get started or I might be able to figure it out if it is as easy as stated.


Actually I do have another....You access your server from you PC. What are you doing to do this? Sharing over your network or using a program such as team viewer or something?
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1438027/planning-to-rebuild-my-20tb-whs-flexraid-server-information-requested/0_100



Read that. I once had all the same questions as you and that is my journey. It really should be stickied IMO because it contains everything you'd need about building a server. I was going to make a how to build media server guide out of it but I abandoned plans when I learned the Mods are not sticking any more threads. It's far more up to date and relevant than the current stickies.




As far as your questions,


WHS (Windows Home Server) is your best bet. It's cheap (as low as $39) and it works really well. It's just like windows 7 but with added server features like automated backup of all machines, Remote access , Access your server from anywhere in the world... etc... Setting up backup of other windows machines is very easy with windows home server- that is a core feature it has. You can also install FLEXRAID on WHS to give you parity back up, and drive pooling. That is a good option for a do it all server for reasonable budget. Of coarse it holds your media too. Anything that is connected to your network or LAN can access what is on your server- including TVs, Players, or HTPC,s Even wireless tablets and smart phones.


I do access my server from my PC. I just click the remote desktop icon (which is a short cut on my taskbar) and it opens right up







It's really easy to do. If you have dual monitors you can use one monitor to control the server and the second to control your PC your on.. it's like having two machines on the same mouse and keyboard. Nice for a power user doing more than one thing at a time. I organize my media this way




You don't need team viewer. The remote desktop feature is built into windows and WHS and works really well.
 
#23 ·
Looks great! I would highly suggest you bring your center channel up as high as you can get off the floor before it gets in the way of the screen. You can build a stand or a mount or something. It would also be beneficial to get away from the back wall at least 8", but even more would be better.


Popcorn Hour A-400 looks nice, maybe I'll get something like that eventually to use as a movie server. How much storage do you have for movies?
 
#24 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick  /t/1466802/the-thompson-theater#post_23448687

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1438027/planning-to-rebuild-my-20tb-whs-flexraid-server-information-requested/0_100



Read that. I once had all the same questions as you and that is my journey. It really should be stickied IMO because it contains everything you'd need about building a server. I was going to make a how to build media server guide out of it but I abandoned plans when I learned the Mods are not sticking any more threads. It's far more up to date and relevant than the current stickies.




As far as your questions,


WHS (Windows Home Server) is your best bet. It's cheap (as low as $39) and it works really well. It's just like windows 7 but with added server features like automated backup of all machines, Remote access , Access your server from anywhere in the world... etc... Setting up backup of other windows machines is very easy with windows home server- that is a core feature it has. You can also install FLEXRAID on WHS to give you parity back up, and drive pooling. That is a good option for a do it all server for reasonable budget. Of coarse it holds your media too. Anything that is connected to your network or LAN can access what is on your server- including TVs, Players, or HTPC,s Even wireless tablets and smart phones.


I do access my server from my PC. I just click the remote desktop icon (which is a short cut on my taskbar) and it opens right up







It's really easy to do. If you have dual monitors you can use one monitor to control the server and the second to control your PC your on.. it's like having two machines on the same mouse and keyboard. Nice for a power user doing more than one thing at a time. I organize my media this way




You don't need team viewer. The remote desktop feature is built into windows and WHS and works really well.


Wow thank you so much! You have helped me out so much! Thanks for the suggestion about whs. I was going to get win7 but not now. I think I got this now and just need to get all the parts to build it. When ever I do I will post pics for sure. Thanks again!
 
#25 ·
I
Quote:
Originally Posted by djkest  /t/1466802/the-thompson-theater#post_23448741


Looks great! I would highly suggest you bring your center channel up as high as you can get off the floor before it gets in the way of the screen. You can build a stand or a mount or something. It would also be beneficial to get away from the back wall at least 8", but even more would be better.


Popcorn Hour A-400 looks nice, maybe I'll get something like that eventually to use as a movie server. How much storage do you have for movies?

I am about two feet off the back wall. Just can't tell in the pics. Also, I agree with the center channel. I was thinking about getting another screen so I could go acoustically transparent. Right now I have only 5tb of storage but it is almost filled to capacity. I love the popcorn hour. I will post pics of that when I get around to it.
 
#26 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pain Infliction  /t/1466802/the-thompson-theater#post_23449181


I

I am about two feet off the back wall. Just can't tell in the pics. Also, I agree with the center channel. I was thinking about getting another screen so I could go acoustically transparent. Right now I have only 5tb of storage but it is almost filled to capacity. I love the popcorn hour. I will post pics of that when I get around to it.

Sorry, I was unclear. I was talking about the back of the CC being 8" from the wall.


You could build a small stand or even just use some boxes to prop it up as a temporary measure. If it's lower than your ears (seems like it would be) than I think angling the CC up a little also makes some sense.
 
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