Connecting HDD from popcorn hour to PC....

[Stone28]

Hi all,

I want to copy quiet a few files onto my popcorn hour HDD, and I would like to do this by connecting the hard drive from PCH directly to my PC, as over the LAN it would take I think much longer. Is there an easy way of doing so? Because it will be formatted inside PCH to Exc3 (or something) am I right thinking it’s not compatible with PC?
I want to have NAS device later on but at the moment I want to start with watching movies as quickly as possible, and I think PCH is the first think I need to buy (not including TV ;-)).

Do I really have to copy everything over the LAN? I want to copy it as I don’t want to have my PC on all the time as a server.

Thanks for advice....

 

[Member 351202]

as u are moving to a NAS why not just keep the content on the PC for now and watch it on the PCH using a share on the PC?
this will save u copying it to the PCH and then later the NAS.

 

[james7604]

You just need to install Ext3 drivers on your PC (I'm assuming its a Windows based PC). Here's a guide showing you how to do it in Vista, although it's pretty much exactly the same process for XP as well. If you've a fair bit of data to transfer across, USB is the fastest way to do it.

 

[Stone28]

USB, DAMN!!!!!! Why I didn't think of this before ;-) Of course!!!!! And I have both 2.5 and 3.5 USB drives ;-) Oh my god.... I have to be tired!

Thanks ;-)

 

[systemsdead]

Mines just basic formatted to ntfs i just take it out and connect to the pc whenever i have a lot of files to shift,only a 2 min job taking out and banging back in.

 

[Stone28]

Is there any advantage of having it formated to Ext3 over NTFS? Will all the extras work or not (covers, imdb scores, etc). I mean can you install diferent skins on to the NTFS formated one?

 

[james7604]

You won't be able to install and use any of the NMT apps (torrent and usenet clients; SMB, NFS, UPnP servers etc.) unless you format it as ext2 or ext3.

You'll be able to set up a YAMJ frontend for your collection even if it's formatted as NTFS but it might become a chore to keep it up to date as you'll have to connect it via USB to your computer each and every time you want to transfer any media onto your PCH or update your jukebox.

 

[Enjoysmoviesandgames]

Does it need to be connected to the net or can I simply update it etc, via the usb when I move new new media onto it?

 

[james7604]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean to update.

You can update the PCH firmware itself either over the internet or download the firmware onto a USB drive and update it that way.

You don't get the covers and plots atomatically. The PCH gui itself is very basic and folder/text driven. A lot of users have created "prettier" jukebox frontends, which is what stone28 was referring to above. The most popular is YAMJ (Yet Another Movie Jukebox), this is a program that you run on your computer that scans your video library, downloads movie info, covers, imdb scores etc. and then creates html pages that link to your files. You can then place these html files anywher you like, on a internal/external harddrive, USB thumb drive, network share etc. It makes browsing your media a much nicer visual experience. These files you can either update over a network or via USB.