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Movie Servers


psi4pwr91

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Posted

I did a search earlier and I couldn't find much in the way of what I was looking for in the results. I've got to say, I'm a fan of the Fusion RD Genesis and Encore servers, but I'm totally opposed to the pricetag. I'm curious, are there any reliable software options out there to rip Blu-Ray ISOs onto a Windows 2K Server without suffering from loss of picture quality or audio streams? I'm looking into a way to build my own Windows based server with several internal hard drives as opposed to having to buy a $7K+ movie server. Does anyone have any suggestions?


Posted

What kind of hardware am I going to need if I want to service 2-3 clients with HD video and another 4-5 clients with audio from the same server? What type of players are recommended for the TVs?

Posted
@tebery - I'm only finding media players on their site. Do they do custom work or just retail Dune players?

The site hasn't been updated with the NAS line but it was posted here a couple months ago.

Posted

How would this be for a solution for NAS:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822122062 - Netgear Ready NAS 4-bay NAS Device, 2x 10/100/1000M ports, 1GB onboard memory with an Intel Atom processor. The latest firmware supports 3TB HDs. Advertised as "over 80MB/s throughput"

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148844 - Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200rpm HD, 64MB cache, SATA 6.0Gb/s

Will something like that have enough throughput to play Blu-Ray quality video with full audio streams?

Posted
Does your ReadyNAS support 1080p picture quality and DTS or 7.1 audio?

The NAS doesn't really have anything to do with that - how he stores the files and what player he's using will.

Posted

I understand the NAS doesn't technically have anything to do with the format of the hard drives, but the data compression of the files and the bandwidth of the devices on the network will. I'm not trying to be argumentative here at all, so if I'm coming off that way I apologize. I may not be asking the right questions, or asking the question the right way. What I'm trying to find out istwofold: first, if I make ISOs of my collection of Blu Rays and store them on a NAS device, will 80MB/s be enough throughput to simultaneously handle 1080p picture clarity and DTS/7.1 audio streams? Second, how many clients will that NAS device be able to handle at the same level of quality?

Posted

a non gigabit NAS will easily server 1080p 7.1. But if you want to reliably serve 3 streams at the same time, i would do a NAS with dual gigabit that supports LACP(link aggregation control protocol). Then you need to get a network switch that supports it as well. And it will give you a dual gigabit connection which would be more than fine for what you want to do. I run software called freeNAS on a old P4 3 ghz with a single intel gigabit nic. I can easily max out the network connection when tranferring 2 large files to the server while watching a 1080 movie. Thats why i think a dual nic setup would be what you need. One thing you will want to do is set up a quality of service setup on your router to give the media players priority over all other traffic.

The format of the harddrives doesn't matter all that much, you can have different network types that may give you variances in speed. You will also what to get high quality drives. I would recommend Western Digital Black enterprise drives.

Posted
You will also what to get high quality drives. I would recommend Western Digital Black enterprise drives.

+1 on the high quality drives. The WD Blacks are a great speed:size:price device . If money is no object though, the WD Velociraptor 10,000 RPM drives double the xfer rate, and increases the spindle speed by a factor of 33%.

Thanks

D.

Posted

LSDave - are there any devices you recommend that have 2x gigabit NICs, LACP, and can hold at least 12 TB? Do you run into any issues with your switch when you're transferring that much data?

Posted
LSDave - are there any devices you recommend that have 2x gigabit NICs, LACP, and can hold at least 12 TB? Do you run into any issues with your switch when you're transferring that much data?

Contact James @ Diamond Designs.

james@diamondhomedesign.com

I am pretty sure the ddSmart Server has 2x gigabit NIC's, not sure on LACP, but it does hold 18TB. The price may be a little higher because I think HD prices are still a little high from flooding in Thailand.

Posted

This is what I use in my house: http://www.readynas.com/?cat=4

I use it with 2 x Netgear EVA9150 (soon to be gone) and the new Popcorn Hour C300. I'll be getting a 2nd C300 soon and scrapping the two Netgear boxes. I have had a bluray ISO at 1080p playing on the PCH and a DVD ISO playing on each of the EVA9150's, all at the same time with no problems. All movies are stored on the NAS linked above, stocked with 4 x 2TB drives. I went with the consumer grade Seagate line. I don't remember the exact model number, but they work great and were cheap (under $100 2 years ago).

Posted

I run Windows Home Server 2011 with the MyMovies for WHS in my home. This server holds the BluRay player and runs DVDFab to rip the ISO straight to the appropriately directory. All the Media Players in the home connect to this system. Also, MyMovies can create the cover art view for most of the common media players.

Posted

i built a custom media server for my setup.....i can watch 3 bluray streams at the same time on a single cat6 line using 3 dune hd max players...os is unraid hardware is a intel s1200bts mb, i3 2120t cpu, 8 gb ram, lsi 9211 8i sas card, 30tb of storage using WD30eurs.....

Posted

@spl147 - What kind of case are you running, full ATX tower?

And just out of curiousity, are you guys running seperate gigabit switches for your media devices and control devices (especially the ones that require POE) or are you running everything on one switch?

Posted
@spl147 - What kind of case are you running, full ATX tower?

And just out of curiousity, are you guys running seperate gigabit switches for your media devices and control devices (especially the ones that require POE) or are you running everything on one switch?

All my devices that aren't PoE are on one switch, the PoE devices are on a separate switch.

Posted
@spl147 - What kind of case are you running, full ATX tower?

And just out of curiousity, are you guys running seperate gigabit switches for your media devices and control devices (especially the ones that require POE) or are you running everything on one switch?

Norco RPC-2212- 2u 12 bay hotswap chassis......

i run a dell powerconnect 2848 GBE switch and a planet POE 1200G

Posted
@spl147 - What kind of case are you running' date=' full ATX tower?

And just out of curiousity, are you guys running seperate gigabit switches for your media devices and control devices (especially the ones that require POE) or are you running everything on one switch?[/quote']

Norco RPC-2212- 2u 12 bay hotswap chassis......

i run a dell powerconnect 2848 GBE switch and a planet POE 1200G

Off topic here, but I'm curious, is it common for the network switches to be mounted on the front of the rack like that? I have my switches mounted on the rear because of all the blinking lights AND the cables sticking out of the front. Obviously you solved the cable problem with what appears to be a faceplate designed for that purpose. The rack looks great, just curious if front mounting the switches like that is common place.

Posted

^That tray is a common part and Panduit makes a few diff. depths and heights. Mine are all front mounted with Panduit cable mgmt.

Posted

I thing it is all personal preference. You figure that most components have the NIC on the rear of the device, thus which most would mount the switch rear facing. The issue with rear mounting is that in some cases it may cause gaps in the front-side of the rack. Although you can use the blanker plates, I don't think it looks as good.

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