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I need a plan for streaming...

736 Views 5 Replies 3 Participants Last post by GusGus748s, Jun 24, 2012

MDGuelker

Discussion Starter · Jun 22, 2012

I'm somewhat late to the game, but I need some suggestions for best course of action to put together my plan...I'm fairly certain these issues have been addressed in other places, but my limited knowledge is leaving most things as beyond me (reads as gibberish) and I don't know enough of what I'm looking for to search effectively. I'm happy to accept links to previous posts if that answers my situation.

I have an HP TouchScreen PC in my study permanently attached to a 1TB external HD full of movies (mostly .avi I think). I have a Sony55HX750 in the living room that I want to stream to. I have a wired connection with both the computer and the TV on the home network. What program/system should I use to manage the movies and is there anything specific I should for the TV to recognize them (the TV indicates that it supports DNLA, but I don't know much about that)? What I would love is a system that organizes and displays metadata for each movie on the computer side as well as the TV side...is this even an option? (I also have a WDTV Live Plus from a previous plan that I never flushed out before the old TV died...would that be better to use?) I recently attempt Plex as recommended by some users, but it looked significantly different than I expected and I couldn't figure out where to start.

Thanks for info and bearing with me...

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koan00

· #2 · Jun 22, 2012

Let me ask you a few more questions.

Do you want to stream to more TV's that just Sony set you mentioned?

Do you mind leaving the PC on at all times (or at least whenever you want to stream)?

Do you need to be able to watch 2 things at once (ie on the TV, and on the PC, or alternate TV as well)?

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MDGuelker

Discussion Starter · #3 · Jun 22, 2012

Let me ask you a few more questions.

Do you want to stream to more TV's that just Sony set you mentioned?

**No...the only possibility would be to eventually stream also to the WDTV attached to another TV, but that's not really even necessary as we almost exclusively watch on the main TV.

Do you mind leaving the PC on at all times (or at least whenever you want to stream)?

**Not a problem...it's already always on...I'd like it to be ok to go into standby or sleep mode as it does that anyway.

Do you need to be able to watch 2 things at once (ie on the TV, and on the PC, or alternate TV as well)?

**I don't think there is any reason for 2 things at once...the Sony has a Picture in Picture option but I'm not sure I have a way to use that. So, great if I can, but not something I'm counting on.

Thanks!

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GusGus748s

· #4 · Jun 23, 2012

I would of suggest Plex as well. Why don't you use your existing WDTV box instead. You can use ThumgGen to create a jukebox if you want to make it look nice. Or you can just have ThumgGen scrap for poster file so you'll at least have the front cover for each movie.

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MDGuelker

Discussion Starter · #5 · Jun 23, 2012

Meaning use Plex and ThumbGen...do you use both together?

If there is no real way to get a good thumbnail/moviesheet display on the SONY using the DLNA network then using the WDTV is an option. I'm avoiding it because that's an extra piece of startup, etc...but definitely a fallback option...would Plex or Thumbgen work without the WDTV?

Thanks!

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GusGus748s

· #6 · Jun 24, 2012

Quote:
Originally Posted by MDGuelker /t/1416930/i-need-a-plan-for-streaming#post_22160368

Meaning use Plex and ThumbGen...do you use both together?

If there is no real way to get a good thumbnail/moviesheet display on the SONY using the DLNA network then using the WDTV is an option. I'm avoiding it because that's an extra piece of startup, etc...but definitely a fallback option...would Plex or Thumbgen work without the WDTV?

Thanks!

ThumbGen is a program use for WDTV to get poster, thumbnails, metadata etc. Plex is a its a DLNA program, which does its own scanning scraping , and it can transcode on the fly if your devices doesn't support the formats. I don't use DLNA due to its limitations.

Here's the ThumbGen website with some screen shots on how it looks like.

http://thumbgen.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53&Itemid=61

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