Donatien Peigne Posted April 3, 2016 Share Posted April 3, 2016 Hello, I am trying to design and setup at home a C4 system with the following 2 requirements: From the navigator, possibility to search and play any media (Music, Videos, Photos) stored on a NAS and on a dropbox account Having my dropbox synchronized with the NAS, and the Control4 navigator. The objective is to be able to easily take some videos for instance from my iPhone, upload them on my dropbox, and be able to watch them straight on my TV using control4. I also want to be able to edit the titles (and ideally some metadata) easily, in order to facilitate the search from the C4 navigator. I have setup my NAS (Synology) and use a package to synchronized with Dropbox, which works great. I have used Plex in different ways (Package on my NAS, Plex on Roku, Plex on a PC) but always experienced issues with transcoding, which sometimes stopped the videos in the middle, or just totally prevent them from starting. I have also used Kodi, and found it much better in reading my medias: so far, it has always started playing my medias right away without any delay. The problem with Kodi I have is that the driver made by Chowmain does not allow to make a search from the Navigator (only search for the Movies, but not for the Files). I have also purchased a Dune D1 media player but have been quiet disapointed with the GUI and also the driver. However, I have not spent so much time on it yet... If anyone could comment on what I am trying to achieve: is it a common requirements, is it something nobody has ever done, etc...? Best! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyknight Posted April 3, 2016 Share Posted April 3, 2016 Using dropbox for this function can be done as you see, though I prefer having a dedicated computer, with the dropbox folder on the nas - letting the computer handle the synchronization. Play any media: Photos isn't REALLY possible that way - stay away from it for selection etc from inside C4's nav.. What you CAN do is have and control a device that HAS a good photo interface. Music - not much of an issue as such, though the built-in database handling is aimed to full "CD" use, not individual songs - alternatively, a Sonos could be added, and use it's driver and music handling which is more geared towards individual songs and playlists. Or use the iTunes driver and and a dedicated computer (see where that same dedicated computer comes in handy?) Video - for 'normal' video use, ie industry moves is concerend you'd have lots of options, where you make this difficult is your home-brew. Arguably, using C4 to handle that media is arguably the better method, as you have the ability to edit the meta data using HE or ME editions of composer. You may want to consider using the Dune and C4's database dedicated for that type of media, and using Kodi with a separate player for 'industry' movies. Going that route will mean that you'll have to do some advanced setup however, as you'd need to make sure KODI isn't touching the 'homebrew' folders, and the other way around for C4 ignoring the others. Not difficult, just being meticulous. This gets more complex if you are NOT using C4 to do the music mind you. Yeah - it's not a common request or feature. Doesn't mean it's impossible, but it WOULD be out of the knowledge terrain of many. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanchow Posted April 4, 2016 Share Posted April 4, 2016 12 hours ago, Donatien Peigne said: I have also used Kodi, and found it much better in reading my medias: so far, it has always started playing my medias right away without any delay. The problem with Kodi I have is that the driver made by Chowmain does not allow to make a search from the Navigator (only search for the Movies, but not for the Files). The 'problem' you are describing is not a problem with the driver. The Kodi API allows for searching in TV Shows, Movies and Music based libraries only. It does not have API functionality for anything else apart from that. We made sure that we integrated EVERYTHING we could into the driver and i can guarantee you will not find any other driver or software that will allow you to search for files using Kodi. That doesn't solve your problem though. Given your unique requirements i'd say Plex is your best bet. Plex HT or Plex Media Player on any decent hardware will do direct playback of files without transcoding so if your Plex Media Server hardware is not fast enough to transcode then it will still playback fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donatien Peigne Posted April 4, 2016 Author Share Posted April 4, 2016 Gents, Thank you so much for your answers. I will try digging into it. Best! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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