A 'what simple streamer' question (sorry)

[jonbxx]

I know we've had this question before but I would like to check a few things... I am looking to et a streamer as a christmas present to myself (i've asked for money from everyone) I would like to run it off a NAS box and I'm thinking of the cheap and cheerful Netgear Stora for this.

I would like to archive our DVD collection mainly, but the ability to play blue ray rips in the future would be nice...

One requirement I need is that it's simple to use. I have had a look at various movies on Youtube of the various GUIs and am still a bit confused. This needs to work for my technophobe wife and so I would like a system you can just switch on and get to the movies in the easiest way possible. It would be great if it wasn't like going through a file structure to get there. I would set it up so it said;

Videos>Dr Who>Series 1, 2, 3, etc. and then click 'play'

Some GUIs show the whole contents of a directory like 'sheet.jpg' and I would like to avoid this.

I have looked at the beta firmware movies for the Mede8er and this looks ideal so the new MED400 coming soon might be the one for me. I am more than happy to set up the movesheets, etc.

Does the Mede8er seem the best option or are there others I should look at?

My budget is around £100 for this BTW

Many thanks!

 

[next010]

Well this is what the Boxee Box does, you add a media source to it then it scans the media source file names and displays them in their own media library GUI with coverart. For example a folder filled with tv show episodes will show as listings with season 1, 2, 3 along with the episodes in one long list.
YouTube - Boxee Box 1.0 TV Show Library Views - Thumb Drive View Too

It's pretty user friendly however the Boxee Box is very new and rough round the edges, Boxee are working on fixing the problems but it's something you should be aware off and the software on the Box is not the same as the PC version they changed it at the last moment. It's also double your budget cost wise.

 

[planthead]

Wd tv live with brads all in one ... use a media folder plug in .. and it does what you want,, eg....videos---- usb1---- movies---- inception--

 

[jonbxx]

Thanks for your replies. With the B-rad firmware, do all sources show up or just the ones connected? Ideally, I would like the single option of the file shares from the NAS if possible (don't want much do I?)

Also, do Harmony remotes work with the Mede8er and WDTV?

 

[planthead]

The harmony remote works with the wdtv live,,,I dont use a nas,, no need to as the wd tv acts as a basic nas for my home network,, or movie sheets, so sorry,, i dont really understand your question!!!

 

[jonbxx]

No worries, I'm new at this lark so I probably not making myself clear... When I've looked at videos of streamer GUIs on Youtbe, it looks like you select 'Media' or 'Videos' and then up comes a list of sources. You select which source you want to read from and then the video you want to watch. My question is can you bypass this and say always use one source?

Good news on the Harmony BTW!

 

[planthead]

yes .. i understand what you are after, there is a way to pool all your drives and for it show as one large one,, but i cant recall hows its done, but if you post it in the unofficial firmware forum on here,, there are several who have running as such...

Also, think about your requirement for a nas, as the wdtv live can act as one, so you just need the external drives...

 

[planthead]

is this the sort of idea you have-------

##Luke's mounts:##

xmount "//192.168.0.2/movies" ".Movies_1" cifs user=luke,pass=xxxx"
xmount "//192.168.0.2/movies2" ".Movies_2" cifs "user=luke,pass=xxxx"
xmount "//192.168.0.2/tv" "_TV" cifs "user=luke,pass=xxxx"
xmount "//192.168.0.2/Music" "Music" cifs "user=luke,pass=xxxx"

xmount ".Movies_1:.Movies_2" "_Movies" unionfs

What Luke is doing here is bringing in movies from shares, movies_1 and movies_2, then aggregating them so they appear as a single folder on his USB stick called _movies . Read his linked post regarding this naming convention as you probably want something similar but different. He is also bringing in his music but just ignore that part for the moment.

In my case I set up a user account user=wdtv, pass=wdtv, and asigned permissions on my movie share for that user.
In my case my movies are on my Nas share named Public, within a subfolder called Shared movies. Its important that you use the share name, eg Public, not Public/Shared movies.
I stored the script on a cheap USB stick and leave it in the WDTV, and it works fine.

All I did was a single line xmount script as all my movies are in one single share, so it looks similar to

xmount "//192.168.0.2/Public" "Movies" cifs user=wdtv,pass=wdtv"

Note the space between xmount and ", and also the inclusion of the "" .
NB everything is case sensitive.

 

[nacmacfeegle]

That text looks familiar Planty.

"My question is can you bypass this and say always use one source?"

Yes, the actual mechanics depend on the details of how your media is distributed/stored.

The xmount script above will acces media off a NAS and make it appear as if it were on a USB drive.
The unionfs part aggregates the contents of various folders/drives etc and then puts them all into a single folder for you to browse with ease, a virtual mega folder as it were.

So if you have a couple of local USBs, some Nas Drives, even files on other WDTV Lives, by modding a couple of lines of script and saving them on a local USB device, it appears as if they are all on the same local USB drive.

I'm currently looking at setting up my WDTV Live so it jumps to a preferred point in the menu structure, further cutting down the button pushes required to get to my goodies.

And yes, Harmony has a listing for WDTV Live as a 'media center PC' so it is really easy to integrate, I think all I had to do was remap the 'enter' button to the centre 'OK' button on my Harmony One.

If you have a smart phone, you can also use the webend to make a basic remote control by going to the RC page there, and saving it as a favourite in your browser, or as a home page shortcut.

 

[planthead]

 

[jonbxx]

You guys are legends! Thank you very much, it looks like the WD TV is back on the radar!