Use one of your laptops to have a look at Plex, XBMC or UMS and anything else you fancy to see which you prefer. (Microsoft dropped the Windows Media Center from Windows 8, though it’s still sold as part of the Windows 8.1 Pro Pack upgrade.) Nonetheless, lots of Windows 7 users install Plex, XBMC and other programs instead of using Windows Media Player. Microsoft explained its development, and has a guide to setting it up. If you take the PC route with Microsoft, Windows 7 already has a DNLA/UPnP media server built in. You may find that UMS’s simpler table is better for your purposes, bearing in mind that it’s promoting Universal Media Server. Wikipedia has a useful List UPnP AV media servers and clients, and a somewhat confusing comparison table of UPnP AV media servers. All of these run on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. The main alternatives include XBMC, Universal Media Server, PS3 Media Server, and Serviio. At the moment, Plex seems to be the most highly regarded. Almost all run on PCs, some run on NAS servers, and a few also run on games consoles such as the Microsoft Xbox 360 and/or Sony PlayStation 3. There are lots of programs that will make your PC or NAS work as a media server. For media serving, QNAP may have the edge. A low-power server or NAS may stutter when doing that, especially if it’s serving several streams at once.įor more information about NAS boxes, please see my earlier answer on Which NAS should I buy to store files? I usually recommend Synology and QNAP, even though they are not the cheapest. For example, if you have a full high-definition movie on the server, it may have to be transcoded to a smaller size or even a different format to suit the client display. Transcoding is important if you use small devices such as smartphones. PCs can transcode files, stream movies from services such as Netflix - in principle, they can do anything you can do with a Roku or Apple TV-type device - download things from the net and perform other tasks. This includes “ home theatre PCs” that people typically plug directly into their main TV set, and use to stream media to other devices. Because you don’t, it’s worth considering a PC instead of a NAS. If you already had a PC running (say) Ubuntu or Microsoft Windows 7, you could use that as your media server. NAS boxes often have slower ARM processors and either two or four empty drive bays, but they often come with media server software, because streaming is a common requirement. Intel-based PCs are usually more powerful and more versatile, and include graphics cards and HDMI ports, but they may be bigger, noisier and more expensive. Your server could be a PC or a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device, and will be on all the time. Still, if you want a non-proprietary solution, almost everyone except Apple supports DLNA. The standards should mean that all the bits work together correctly, but they don’t always. (There are non-Apple devices that support Airplay but they are licensed by Apple.) Alternatively, all the components could work to common standards, usually UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) and DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance). Finally, each of your devices – the clients in your client/server system – runs a separate program to display whatever the server sends its way.Īll the components could be developed by a single company, which is basically what Apple did with Airplay. The server runs whichever media streaming software you choose. You start with a server, which will have a processor, memory, operating system, and one or more large hard drives to store all your media files. Look at some of the free programs and pick whichever you think will best meet your needs.
There are a lot of different combinations of hardware and software that will do what you want. I’m somewhat computer literate, but by no means an expert, and the husband and others who will also use this are less so. If there is a good solution that doesn’t support the Ubuntu laptop, I could live with that, as it’s my oldest PC.
This may change as, for example, I might replace one of the MacBooks with a Windows 7 or Windows 8 laptop, so I want a non-proprietary set up that won’t force me into buying one OS or hardware for years to come.
We have two MacBooks and a Ubuntu laptop, two Android phones, two Android tablets and an iPad. I would also like the central hard drive to receive downloads and back up to another hard drive on a nightly schedule without me needing to do anything. I would like to have all my music, video and pictures on one large, central hard drive, and then wirelessly access/play back this media from a variety of devices.
0 kommentar(er)
