Help me with media server setup

TKK

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I'm after some guidance on what to do in terms of finalising a media server setup...

My HTPC (W7 MC) is currently in a bit of a state. The tuner card (7010ix) has been on it's last legs for months(works ok once Windows can actually see it). Additionally the motherboard died a while back and the replacement motherboards audio hardware has been conflicting with the tuner card so I've been unable to get bitstreaming working as I've had to disable the onboard audio chip in the BIOS to get TV working.

At a minimum I need a new tuner - it's gotten so bad that the Mrs. keeps bugging me about ordering this as watching the TV can require several reboots until the tuner is recognised by Windows.

I'm also going to have to stop using the spare room to store the CD/DVD/Bluray disc collection which leaves me needing to rip the discs and store them in the attic. I've therefore decided to finally attack the media server setup I've been thinking about in order to make everything available from one location and usable accross multiple devices.


The plan is to replace the HTPC under the main TV with a Raspberry Pi running Raspbmc (tests so far indicate it is up to the job plus it works with my IR receiver & Harmony remote out of the box!). The existing HTPC will then get the new tuner cards and some more storage and become the media server. In another room there is a PC and TV (for xBox 360 duties) and the idea is to install XBMC on this PC too. Down the road I'll probably be getting another TV for the kitchen and another Raspberry Pi.


What I would like the server to be able to do:
Store & Share
- Movies (DVD & Blu ray rips)
- Music (FLAC rips)
- Photos
- TV recordings
- Meta Data (for all of the above)

TV server - going to be using two tuners (about to pull the trigger on the TBS 6280 & 6291 for DVB-T & DVB-S/S2).

Music server - would like to make internet radio and spotify available to XBMC clients.

Meta Data scraper - ideally updating a database for XBMC clients to access. Are there any independent scrapers or would I have to use one of my clients to do the scraping & database updates?


Ideally I would like just XBMC on my clients with as much as possible managed by the server. I'm thinking of using Linux, probably Ubuntu, on the server running Tvheadend and a MySql database for library sharing. Not sure how to go about the Spotify and internet radio side - I'm investigating squeezelite? Anyone have any ideas?
 
I'm after some guidance on what to do in terms of finalising a media server setup...

My HTPC (W7 MC) is currently in a bit of a state. The tuner card (7010ix) has been on it's last legs for months(works ok once Windows can actually see it). Additionally the motherboard died a while back and the replacement motherboards audio hardware has been conflicting with the tuner card so I've been unable to get bitstreaming working as I've had to disable the onboard audio chip in the BIOS to get TV working.

At a minimum I need a new tuner - it's gotten so bad that the Mrs. keeps bugging me about ordering this as watching the TV can require several reboots until the tuner is recognised by Windows.

I'm also going to have to stop using the spare room to store the CD/DVD/Bluray disc collection which leaves me needing to rip the discs and store them in the attic. I've therefore decided to finally attack the media server setup I've been thinking about in order to make everything available from one location and usable accross multiple devices.

The plan is to replace the HTPC under the main TV with a Raspberry Pi running Raspbmc (tests so far indicate it is up to the job plus it works with my IR receiver & Harmony remote out of the box!). The existing HTPC will then get the new tuner cards and some more storage and become the media server. In another room there is a PC and TV (for xBox 360 duties) and the idea is to install XBMC on this PC too. Down the road I'll probably be getting another TV for the kitchen and another Raspberry Pi.

What I would like the server to be able to do:
Store & Share
- Movies (DVD & Blu ray rips)
- Music (FLAC rips)
- Photos
- TV recordings
- Meta Data (for all of the above)

TV server - going to be using two tuners (about to pull the trigger on the TBS 6280 & 6291 for DVB-T & DVB-S/S2).

Music server - would like to make internet radio and spotify available to XBMC clients.

Meta Data scraper - ideally updating a database for XBMC clients to access. Are there any independent scrapers or would I have to use one of my clients to do the scraping & database updates?

Ideally I would like just XBMC on my clients with as much as possible managed by the server. I'm thinking of using Linux, probably Ubuntu, on the server running Tvheadend and a MySql database for library sharing. Not sure how to go about the Spotify and internet radio side - I'm investigating squeezelite? Anyone have any ideas?

I would use the plex media server, with the plexbmc add-on for the Raspberry Pi devices with Quartz skin. IMO it is better suited for the limited power of the Raspberry Pi. There is also a plugin for plex so it uses xbmc nfo files. Your main htpc/server could manage the media info using the nfo files, either with xbmc scraping or ember mm. Squeezebox LMS Server will give Spotify access but I have only used this with proper Squeezebox players. You would need to experiment with the software players. Use the 3rd party Triode Spotify plugin on LMS. There is also the Xsqueeze add-on for xbmc.
 
As far as I'm aware plex doesn't do live TV? This is one of my crucial parts to the overall solution.
 
Last edited:
I'd use UnRaid with a centralised mysql database. Can use any old disks you have lying around, very expandable. Plugins available for various things and you can try a free version first.

I've been using it for about two years now and I love it, never crashes, had an uptime of over six months before I restarted to add another disk.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
As far as I'm aware plex doesn't do live TV? This is one of my crucial parts to the overall solution.

Plex would be used for your personal media only. You still use xbmc and tvheadend.
 
I'm not so sure about Plex and Unraid. I feel that Unraid may be too restrictive down the line when/if I decide to have the server do more for me.

I'm a programmer and, albeit over a decade ago, did quite a bit of work with Linux in the past. I've no fear and with a bit of searching I find that most things can be resolved.

My current thoughts are Ubuntu Server, Snapraid & TVHeadend to initially get up and running with the TV side of things (keep the Mrs. happy).

Once that's up I can commence ripping my disks to the server using EAC, MakeMKV & Handbrake to grow the library.

After that I can look some more into the Spotify/internet radio side of things.

What I'm not finding while researching this is the existence of options for scraping. From what I understand there are independent media managers (e.g. Ember) which will scrape to nfo files. However I can't find any that will update the XBMC MySQL database? The server will be run headless so running XBMC on it is not easily achieved (I've seen that some are working on getting it going though). If I have to update this database by using one of my XBMC clients then I don't really see the value in using a seperate scraper - i.e. why not just use XBMC to both scrape and update? I suppose there is also the possibility of writing a script to update the database directly with the data once scraping is complete?
 
I'm not so sure about Plex and Unraid. I feel that Unraid may be too restrictive down the line when/if I decide to have the server do more for me.

I'm a programmer and, albeit over a decade ago, did quite a bit of work with Linux in the past. I've no fear and with a bit of searching I find that most things can be resolved.

My current thoughts are Ubuntu Server, Snapraid & TVHeadend to initially get up and running with the TV side of things (keep the Mrs. happy).

Once that's up I can commence ripping my disks to the server using EAC, MakeMKV & Handbrake to grow the library.

After that I can look some more into the Spotify/internet radio side of things.

What I'm not finding while researching this is the existence of options for scraping. From what I understand there are independent media managers (e.g. Ember) which will scrape to nfo files. However I can't find any that will update the XBMC MySQL database? The server will be run headless so running XBMC on it is not easily achieved (I've seen that some are working on getting it going though). If I have to update this database by using one of my XBMC clients then I don't really see the value in using a seperate scraper - i.e. why not just use XBMC to both scrape and update? I suppose there is also the possibility of writing a script to update the database directly with the data once scraping is complete?

Scraping movies with a Raspberry Pi takes ages to complete. Even updating to add new movies takes forever, and the pi is useless until it completes. Using the Plex server and the client on the pi, imo gives a better user experience.
 
That's the thing - I want to avoid doing any scraping on the pi. I would much prefer to do it on the server and if not there then on the main PC.

This is why I'm very interested in a scraping system that will run on the server and update the MySQL database that the pi will be connected to.
 
That's the thing - I want to avoid doing any scraping on the pi. I would much prefer to do it on the server and if not there then on the main PC.

This is why I'm very interested in a scraping system that will run on the server and update the MySQL database that the pi will be connected to.

In that case just use Plex to run everything, including the scraping. You will only have one library so there will be no need for mysql to sync multiple libraries.
 

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