Media Players/Servers NAS etc - What do you do these days?

CalamariFritti

I'm a bit out of touch, still running a popcorn hour a110 with YAMJ.
YAMJ is out of support if you like and is acting up lately, titles not being indexed properly etc. Got the source from github and started looking into it, but at the same time I was thinking things have probably moved on from popcorn hour boxes...

So I guess everybody is streaming these days. Prime, Netflix, Spotify and of course various unmentionables, but what does one do with their local video and music collection?

I guess you keep them on a hard disc somewhere in your home network (NAS, media server?) but what is the weapon of choice? How do you index it, browse it, play it on your AV receiver, telly, phone?

Any good new boxes, hints, buzzwords I could look into?

Thanks

bbbbb

For audio, I replaced my Hi-fi separates with a yamaha network receiver
r-n602
does the 'old world' stuff (e.g. even has a phono stage), but supports spotify connect, airplay etc.
I also ripped my CDs to a usb key (ALAC)

CalamariFritti

I actually have a Denon AV receiver. Its not the latest and best, but it has great sound and handles all my various boxes like sat, playstation etc. And it does connect to media servers on the local network including airplay and plays audio from there, playlists even. No fancy indexing and no video though. And my CDs are ripped and on hard drive together with a bit of a video collection maybe 600 titles.

Do I get myself a better AV receiver that does video through media server and nice looking indexing or another box that does all the indexing of all my titles audio & video?

I'd love to have an indexed video wall like I had with the popcorn hour and yamj. And I'd love to have something similar for my music, ideally with album covers (ID3) searchable etc that kind of thing.

The Ritz

Mod Hat On

All, Please keep this topic to how to arrange stored media playing, no strying into topics of how to obtain media, Kodi addons etc - see warning at top of forum for details

Mod Hat Off.

Hi,

I'm not familiar with Popcorn etc, but a decent performing Android box ( e.g. Minix UH9 ) with Kodi acting as a media library manager will work fine, it will do the "media wall" thing and load posters, info etc from the web.


Ritz.

CalamariFritti

Thanks no hassle, I never had any intention to go that direction anyway. Just looking for a box to organise my legally obtained media collection.

I was thinking of putting my popcorn hard disc into a USB enclosure and connect it to my wifi router which does nas/media server stuff, just need a nice interface/media player to connect to my AV receiver. Looking at a mede8er right now. Will check out that minix, thanks. I reckon its probably similar.

CalamariFritti

Dear god there are more types & makes of media players and streaming boxes than there's cars on the streets. Its mental. But apparently Kodi is the thing as it seems to do everything these days and these android boxes seem tailored for them with fanless quad core chipsets and whatnots. All for half nothing and from China. Things do have moved on from my popcorn hour. :eek:

Went in the end with a MECOOL M8S PRO as it has all the latest and seems powerful and robust. I guess its running Kodi and that means it can do all that media wall stuff. It seems it can also do a thousand other things (and Kodi can do a thousand other things already) so I guess I'm sorted just have to wade through all the possibilities and config thingies. But I don't want all that much, just a movie and an albums wall from the media server / hard disc with a good media player behind it, should be fun.

batistuta9

you should post in htpc forum, probably get more replies there

if you're using NAS, a lot are using plex, with a client then on each device.

Does all the different views, artwork etc. Like kodi.

CalamariFritti

Thanks, sounds quite interesting. But I've ordered a Kodi box now and from what I see it does all I want to do which is pretty basic.
What I like is that Kodi is seemingly huge in terms of community with a plethora of add-ons. So I guess I won't be stuck for tools when organising my CD and movie collection. Skins, customising a nice interface, scraping metadata, album covers that kind of thing.

My old box was quite sufficient really for video wall and music jukebox, but the community for it is dead now. Then things don't get updated and stop working.

CalamariFritti

For anyone interested - after a few weeks with the MECOOL M8S PRO box I can't say I'd recommend it.

There are several versions of this box, but it appears the one I have is quite a low cost issue with a budget version of the Amlogic S905 chipset called S905W. Not sure if thats bad alone but it seems the cheapest of its kind. And while it's a popular box with an otherwise good looking spec and a pretty recent Android version (Nougat) I'm having stability issues. With standard stuff like playing standard x264 videos from a local or samba hard drive through Kodi.

So I've been reading up on this stuff and while these types of boxes are often even called 'Kodi boxes' it is not guaranteed that all of these will run Kodi trouble free. On this particular box I tried the pre-installed (and supposedly tailored) Kodi version called TV Center (17.4) and also the latest stock Kodi Krypton release (17.6) and a few others that were supposedly built especially for Amlogic chipsets.
None of them were stable enough to be fit for no-hassle every-day use. In fact I wasn't able to watch a single film from start to end on any Kodi version I tried. Just freezes up in the middle of it at a random time. The only remedy then is pulling the plug.

The only thing that always seemed to work was the pre-installed MX Player. Maybe other bits work too but Kodi isn't and thats what I wanted it for.

It appears if you go for the ultra budget boxes its a bit of a lottery. They are being churned out in China at no cost one after another all based on the same generic chipsets. You can expect little to no support and little or no software updates. And they can be flaky apparently but it could have been that the one I have simply has a problem.

Anyway I will replace this one with a similar type but higher spec box from a manufacturer who's a bit more involved. It'll cost me twice the money but at least it'll do what I want it to do (hopefully).