Control 4 remote/Plex/Apple TV/ Mac Mini Question

[Jbbrenner90]

I have a server room that houses everything. Before coming over to control 4 six weeks ago I used a nas plex server streaming to a mac mini. Well my dealer tells me that you can not control a mac mini with the control 4 universal remote So I picked up an apple tv. Most of my files will not play because they are not in the correct format for an apple tv. The bottom line is I NEED TO CONTROL MY MAC MINI with the control 4 remote. Is anyone doing this and is it possible. I pray to god it is! I would have even used my blue tooth keyboard but it does not reach unfortuntaltey. Look forward to answers. Thanks!

[South Africa C4 user]

There is a great apple app called Rowmote Pro that will allow you to fully control your Mac Mini from your iPad.

I had the exact same problem as you. My Mac Mini is in my rack and no where near any of my TVs (except the projector) so I looked pretty stupid sitting on our theatre floor as close as possible to the rack so that I could get the blue tooth speaker to work and see the screen.

Rowmote Pro saved the day for me.  I now switch to the Apple Mac with my SR260 and do anything I want from my iPad... Even making changes in Composer HE.

I also use the tunes driver (linked to the Mac within C4) for playing music and movies... works pretty well!

[ECS]

I have the same setup and use the chowmain full plex driver. My mini is only a playback device for plex and this works perfectly via ip.

 

 

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[alanchow]

If your mac mini is a dedicated HTPC running plex media player or plex home theater then all you need to do is install our Plex Full driver for Control4.  You will be able to use your Control4 SR-250 or SR-260 remote to control Plex and also use Control4's user interface to browse and select all of your media on your Plex Media Server.

https://www.chowmainsoft.com/plex-full-driver-for-control4

[Jed Peters]

Something isn't adding up here.

First, you need to move your plex server off your NAS (just manually scrape) and onto the mini as the server.

Second, you can control plex via Universal remote input--through IR. See above plex app. That's if you HAVE to use Plex Home Theatre on the mini. Preferable, however, to use the mini as the server, the NAS what it was designed for (to be network attached storage) and a client to be used as a client....

The more simple solution, get an AppleTV 4, download the plex app, enjoy on your local network. Your mini will transcode ANY file plex can and will push to the client (the Apple TV). OR if you have to do 4k, transcode on the mini and push the content to a roku over the network. 

[Steelermedallion]

@Jed has it correct. Use the Mac as your server- Nas for storage. I use the new Apple TV as the client and it works very well.

 

 

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[Jed Peters]

just to clarify, I meant you could play on the Mini via Plex Media Player.

The reason your NAS may have difficulty pushing to clients is the limited computing power of the NAS--or a limitation in the network. I don't have any difficulty transcoding and streaming .h265 4k .mkv's on a mini. 

[ecschnei]

On 6/25/2017 at 1:31 PM, Jed Peters said:

Set up the plex server on the mac mini (download it) and go through the steps. 

When you add the media via plex media server, you will have mounted the NAS as a network drive and point the plex media server to that. 

Then, the mini will act as your server. the clients on the network will automatically "see" the server on the same network. 

Depends on what NAS he has...I have a Qnap and it runs my plex server with hardware transcoding. It allowed me to drop down to one box instead of 2 for the same task.  You solved his situation but like has been pointed out, more than one way to skin a cat.

And the Chowmain drivers for Kodi and Plex are perfect.  Thanks @alanchow

[Jed Peters]

On 10/13/2017 at 6:23 AM, ecschnei said:

Depends on what NAS he has...I have a Qnap and it runs my plex server with hardware transcoding. It allowed me to drop down to one box instead of 2 for the same task.  You solved his situation but like has been pointed out, more than one way to skin a cat.

And the Chowmain drivers for Kodi and Plex are perfect.  Thanks @alanchow

That won't run what some of us want...at all.

I run my plex w/ full 4k HDR movies, and HD audio. Need something strong enough for that...and the NAS drives aren't enough ooof.

[Jbbrenner90]

@Jed Peters maybe I am not understanding correctly or I did not explain the best. I use my NAS and run plex media server on that. I have 24tb of stuff. I stream off my nas to apple tvs and rokus throught the house. I am not sure how your Apple tv can stream everything according to things I read it can not handle all the different media types like a mini can. Certain things the way they are transcoded it does not stream. I know they have so many settings, maybe it is a setting in my plex if it works for you?  Does this explain what I am doing better. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks man!

[Jbbrenner90]

@Jed Petersand you are correct. It does have a hard time transcoding and I get the dreaded message server is not powerful enough. What would be the best way to test your network.. I use the nighthawk x6 for my router and everything is hard wired. I have to assume this is more than powerful enough. The dealer reccomend switching to an araknis router with hubs throughout the house. I did not think this was necessary.

[ecschnei]

4 hours ago, Jed Peters said:

That won't run what some of us want...at all.

I run my plex w/ full 4k HDR movies, and HD audio. Need something strong enough for that...and the NAS drives aren't enough ooof.

I must have misread the specs on this then.

http://files.qnap.com/news/pressresource/datasheet/TVS-x82_P28_(EN)_51000-024112-RS_0815_D_web.pdf

[Steelermedallion]

Others can answer better- but my setup is a maci mini running plex server with NAS storage...then using the Apple TV as my client / player

 

 

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[Jed Peters]

You didn't misread. Please see the issue of processing HDR content, not merely "4k2k" which is advertised. 

4k at 30hz is great if you're happy with that. But if you want to go further, with full color gamut processing (4k @ 60hz) AND the processing of HD audio, you will have to use something "a bit" stronger.

 

[Jed Peters]

Simply put, move your Plex server off the NAS and onto the mini. The mini will be able to transcode any "normal" and push it to the clients.

[Jbbrenner90]

How do i do that with all the storage? Can you assist? Just getting this as I am typing this. "Server is not powerful enough" most annoying thing in the world!

[Jed Peters]

Set up the plex server on the mac mini (download it) and go through the steps. 

When you add the media via plex media server, you will have mounted the NAS as a network drive and point the plex media server to that. 

Then, the mini will act as your server. the clients on the network will automatically "see" the server on the same network. 

[digitaltrader]

There is a driver that will control the plex interface on  a Mac mini.  Another option is to use the driver for the IR remote for the Mac mini.

[Jbbrenner90]

thanks @Jed Peters just did what you said and works like a MOTHER FLIPPING CHAMP! Appreciate it! I can acutally watch things that would not work before.