HTPC, Meet PLEX.

New life changes are happening. The wife and I recently recieved a new couch. Along with the couch, we are making plans to make the living room better for us. We just purchased a new TV console to use with HTPC, Wii, 360, and other electronic devices. I believe the HTPC can fit inside it, which will be nice due to having doors, and we have a tiny human. While this transition is happening, the main PC, Charlemagne, will be moving into the bedroom on a new desk. I think I'm going to pull the HDD [2 TB] one and put it into the HTPC. Then, I can reorganize the Movie and TV Show files so I can set up an effective Plex Media Server. This would include making sure that there are no duplicates of any files. I am hoping that between Plex, Kota, Netflix, and Hulu we will be able to have an effective way to watch videos. The HTPC is always on, so it makes the most sense to have it host the server. With 4 TB of storage on board, it will hold all the Movie files I have. Also, having a Blu-Ray drive, we can watch Blu Ray disks. I am excited to partake on this adventure, I am hoping this goes smoothly, and goes as planned. I have more research to do on the hardware transitions, but I think I should be good to go. The main issue I am going to have is going to network support. I am going to make sure I have the bandwidth to stream the HD movies. But, this is going to be a testing as we go process. Until next time, Goodbye.

Regularity

Well, Hello again.
I'm working on trying to get back into the swing of updating on a regualas basis. I'm trying to figure out what direction I want to take. I'm not doing too many tech related these days. I have a little girl that I'm learning on the fly how to raise. I think I'm doing alright, but you never know. I think the most techie thing I've done in a while is I just upgraded my laptop to Windows 10. I wanted to get in before the deadline at the end of July. And so far, I'm liking the update. Now, I have had Windows 10 on my desktop and HTPC. I dont use my laptop too much these days. But I'm happy at the speed of which my aging laptop has again. Not like a brand new, state of the art laptop. But like it was a new laptop back in the day. It came preloaded with Windows Vista, and a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it was released. An Athlon x2 2.0 GHz CPU with 2GB RAM and a 250 GB HDD. The battery doesn't work too much, and the charging cord has seen better days. I am looking at spending the extra $100 to give it new life. I would be looking at a new battery, charging cord, SSD to replace the HDD, and new RAM. I could just expand the RAM, but buying two sticks that are matching would guarentee that they would work in duel channel mode perfectly. This could range in price from $70 to $100. The RAM, Battery, and cord will be inexpensive. The SSD would be the pricey item. I might hold off and see how the other pieces work out in the overall big picture. A SSd would be an instant upgrade in the way of speed. Boot times on this thing were rediculuous. But I still love my laptop. Well, this is it for now. Good night everyone.

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.

XBMC and Our Digital Future

So here is where I’m at. I’m working on getting our digital household up and running. I am getting everything encoded into the proper format and set up for the HTPC. A desk has been added to the living room. Kate’s laptop is to reside upon this desk. We also plan to have my underused Samsung laserjet printer connected to this laptop so anyone can print out what they need. The printer can also be shared so we can print out through our computers on the network. We also have plans of purchasing a low cost Android based tablet, and using a few programs, we can use it as the input interface for the Home Theater PC. We are embracing the digital future.

Now I want to do something a little different. I want to do a small software review, based on my experiences and uses for it. Bear with me, this something I have never done before.

XBMC

XBMC is a media center program, with its roots planted in Microsoft’s XBOX gaming console. The software was only able to be installed after some form of modding and hacking. The creators then ported the program to Windows, OS X, and Linux. A Media Center program is different from a normal video player. XBMC organizes your files, watches your folders, collects data, and plays your files. I will go into detail with each one.

                When you first install XBMC, you need to set up the install. This includes telling the program where your media files are stored. XBMC will then “watch” those folders; for example if you rip more CDs to your Music folder, XBMC will “see” the new files and add them. This a great thing to have in a media center program, as you don’t have to worry about continuously adding single files in the program. Once your files are in the program, it will then “scrape” your files to collect the metadata. It will attach this data to the file within the program. This will give you information such as covers, artwork, summaries, ratings, etc. This makes it easy to see at a glance any information for the movie. From this organization and listings, you can play your files.

One of the great things about XBMC is its ability to install add ons and skins. You can browse and download and install the skin that you want to use. They are all good, but some are better for certain applications. I chose Neon, and the individual options to be used for the Home Theater. All this is set up on my desktop for now, but it will all be translated to the Home Theater. It is easy to use and navigate froma  distance. I also installed the add on that should help me configure my Windows Media Center remotes to be used with XBMC. I hope to make this our main media center application. 

Overall, I give it a 9/10. Why? For everything it does great, it lacks a few things. For one, no Netflix or Hulu integration. I am hoping that the remote customization will help create custom macros to launch Netflix and Hulu Desktop. Below are a few screenshots from my installation as it sits for now. 

I have a lot of work to do with it, mostly with getting all the correct information and files all together. I will let you in on the process, every step of the way. So long, fairwell.