Guess Who's Back? Back Again.

Hey everyone! It has far to long for this to pick up again. I'm still up to no good, and having fun. So let's catch up. I'm still a daddy to a wonder little girl, Cynthia. Nothing much has changed he's on the technology front. The only major news was a complete system crash and that has been resolved. I don't have much else going on besides work and parenting. I'm trying to get back heavy into gaming, photography, and just trying out shit in general. I'm looking at my collection of media in different eyes now. We have so many streaming options available to use that it is becoming less and less necessary to have terabytes of digital content. While I will never get the speed and consistency of a ripped file compared to streaming, it is a more viable option some times. I will always have my DVD movies ripped to a hard drive. No ifs, ands or buts. But TV show rips isn't that necessary anymore. We will explore everything and go from there. Until next time, peace.

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

So here is the plan. I am going to be building a whole new system for the home server. This system is going to be utilizing an AMD A6 Quad-Core APU. This is a 2.6 GHz chip with integrated graphics. The integrated graphics will be needed for the initial setup, but then will run headless. I will be pairing this with either 4GB or 8GB of DDR3 RAM. I plan on starting out with a 32GB SSD for the Ubuntu OS. A SSD is lower power, and lasts longer than a mechanical drive. The storage will be handled with two 2TB drives to start out with; I will have the option to add another 3 large capacity drives. One will be dedicated to tv shows, and another to movies. Music isn’t really a concern with services like Spotify and Pandora. Maybe a small portion will allow us to stream music if there is a large enough base to be worth the trouble of ripping CDs. All of this will be housed inside a case, and currently the front runner is the Rosewill R5 Mid-Tower case. This case holds 6 hard drives, with the capacity for 10 fans. I like the option of having fans that blow air directly over the hard drives. This will keep the hard drives cool under pressure. To keep the CPU cool, I am looking into the Cooler Master Hyper 212 [+ or EVO]. $30, high performance. Sold.

On the software side, Ubuntu 12 is the OS of choice. In here, Plex will be running 24/7. Why Plex? The Media Server side is compatible with Ubuntu. And the client software can be installed and stream media on Windows, OS X, Linux, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and the Roku player. That covers everything in my planned future house. Sold. For the networking, I am going to be setting up a media network. I believe that the internet is coming with us, and I want to build off this. The main can be used for guests, and general browsing. I want to use a separate router, switches, and boat loads of cables to set it up. I want to dedicate this for the media server to minimize usage, and to maximize the bandwidth available for streaming. Plan is set.

I want to test out the combo of Ubuntu and Plex on a old system to work out all the bugs, and to learn about the setup and performance. This will make the final build and setup easy as ever.

Crashplan

Crashplan is answer #2!!!

PLEX!

PLEX IS THE ANSWER!

Upgrading my digital life.

I have a few spare computer parts laying around in my life. So I have decided to make a home server. I don’t plan on using it currently in our apartment setup. I do plan on testing it and getting myself familiar with the setup needed and networking skills. I know for certain that at this time, we don’t have the infrastructure that is optimal for this network. I think I might use my parent’s house as a test bed, so to speak. But I have a few hiccups at this time. I have my elder AMD Athlon 64x2 2.7 GHz CPU with 4GB of DDR2 RAM. I am going to be using a few spare small capacity HHDs for the learning curve. On the other hand, I have a spare AM3 board that I could purchase a AMD Phenom IIx6 CPU and 2 or 4GB of DDR3 RAM to use. I will try it with the current hardware that I have on hand to see what the base performance will be. I want to use it to store all my media [Movies, TV Shows, Music, etc.] and stream it to my HTPC and any other computers and devices in my future home. My physical concerns are cooling. I want to keep the hardware cool but while minimizing noise. So I’m considering a new case for the build. Something inexpensive but with hard drive space. A full tower would be ideal because of the generous space for hard drives. This is still undecided. But I will be looking into lining the interior of the case with foam. This will reduce the amount of noise that will escape from the case from the fans, but will also reduce the amount of vibrations from the fans and spinning hard drives. As for the fans, I will use low noise, high air movement fans. On the software side, I will be trying out Ubuntu 12 as the basis for the first trial run. I think that this will do just fine due to its low hardware requirements. I just hope that this will not limit the streaming power. But if I am correct, I think that the heavy lifting for streaming content falls upon the device that is playing the content. So this is heavily in my favor. I am going to be throwing together a system in a case and getting the testing started. The fine tuning will occur when implemented in my future residence as some of it will require using features of the wireless router that will be used. Hopefully the ISP we choose lets us use our own router, so I will set up a second network to use for our own streaming, and allow the other one to be used for guests. Who knows. This will be decided as the time comes.

The HTPC Content Pipeline

I have a strong stand on a certain topic of contension between consumers and media companies. I feel that purchasing a copy of a DVD or Audio CD gives us [the consumer] the right to make archival, backup, and digital copies of that physical media. I have a project that I have been working on, although been a bit lazy about it lately. My project: to make digital copies of all the DVDs that we own in our household. This is a monumental task seeing as there are a couple hundred DVDs in the collection. The digitizing of the content isn't difficult. It is just a tedious and time consuming task. Handbrake and DVD Fab HD Decrypter are the two tools needed in this process. We currently have a 2TB hard drive installed in the HTPC. This makes them accessible to anyone who wishes to watch a movie on the HDTV. We have equipped the HTPC with a mini keyboard that has a track pad integrated on the board. I also purchased a Windows Media Center remote that allows us to control Windows Media Center, which has become the central media hub. This house is predominantly Windows. It is just a fact. Windows 7's Homegroup makes dropping and retreiving the video files easy. The wireless is a little slow at times when transferring the files, but I think that doing so overnight will help with the transfer speeds when I'm not downloading new Steam games. A Wireless-N Router is the next upgrade for the home network. This will bring about (hopefully) faster transfer speeds. Then a wireless printer bridge will allow the hook up of my faithful Samsung laserjet printer and allow for us to hide it but be accessible to everyone who needs it.

Back to the HTPC. Here are the specs of my custom brewed HTPC:

CPU: Intel Core i3-2100 3.1 GHz Dual-Core

Motherboard: ASUS P8H61-M Micro-ATX

RAM: 2x2GB Kingston HyperX 1600

HDD: Seagate 2TB 5900 RPM

ODD: Multi-function DVD Writer Combo Drive

Case: Antec NSK2480 DT

PSU: Antec EarthWatts 380 Watts

The case was custom painted with White and Key Lime Green accents. The Power Supply has been (mostly) custom sleeved with UV Green and Black 1/8" sleeving. Each wire is indiviually sleeved in alternating Green and Black. The case sits in the home theater center and the front is about the size of an A/V Receiver. When I next return home, I will be bringing back a set of 2.1 Harmon/Kardon speakers, the only surviving pieces of the old Dell computer. They work great still and will add some much needed boost to movies and tv shows. Eventually we will be investing a monstrous surround sound system to make everything sound as great as it looks. At that point, a Blu-Ray drive will be added.

We no longer have cable here. We instead spend our money in a better way: Netflix and Hulu Plus. For under $20 a month we gain access to all the HD content we desire. We are not limited to show times. Hulu Plus streams in 720P HD, which is perfect with a 32" HDTV (although I think I scored a 1080P one). While our Media Center is not perfect, it is better than what some people are using. While my parents have a Blu-Ray player and pretty good home theater system (although aging), they are limited to DishNetwork television. Yes, they get sports channels, but my dad is interested in the prospect of an HTPC and smaller monthly bill for their tv content. The thing is, I don't think his home network can handle a good HD stream from Netflix or Hulu Plus. The wireless router from their ISP is located in the basement, and I don't think that father is too keen on running cables, although it would be the best option.

Here is a list of HTPC upgrades/tweaks I wish to make in the future:

1. Hulu Desktop Plug-In for Windows Media Center

2. Blu-Ray Optical Drive

3. Kick Ass Speakers

4. Logitech diNOVO Edge Keyboard

5. Second 2TB drive

I had this idea of what my HTPC would be like. I have acheived that look. Now I am working on internals and accessories to go with the HTPC. I would recommend an HTPC to anyone. It costs more up front, but in the long run it saves you money. Basic digital cable/satelite packages are getting expensive. Less than $20 a month gives you access to a multitude of content. Add to that the ability to buy/rent content from Apple, Amazon, and other sources makes it an attractive option. Season Passes from these sources often give you a discount, maybe 10% off each episode. Amazon doesn't charge you for your purchase all up front. It charges you each time an episode is released, which makes it easier on the wallet to have it spread out to $3 a week instead of $50 up front. Don't forget the options of having DVDs mailed to you by Netflix. This is an interesting and powerful content delivery combination.