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How to Create a TV Network?

Comprehensive Home Network Setup

  • I have a few questions about a home server / backup / HTPC solution and I would really appreciate some help. Details inside. Overall, I'm attempting to create a home network where I have the following major requirements: 1. Windows 7 laptop primary machine 2. a centralized data repository (server) on some piece of hardware (music, movies, pictures, documents in one location; currently predicting 4TB in size) 3. audio is streamed from this repository to desk speakers in bedroom 4. HD movies streamed from this server to bedroom HD TV 5. HD movies streamed from this server to living room HD TV 6. all data is backed up onsite 7. torrents will constantly seed on the server (since the laptop will be in sleep mode overnight) I also have a few minor requirements: 8. Blu-Ray ripping ability (would probably have to happen on the server due to how long it takes) 9. some secondary computing capability in case laptop breaks I've been hashing this out for weeks and I really need some help from someone who has actually done something like this before. With all of the above requirements in mind, I have a few questions: A. Is a Windows 7 desktop machine with 4 TB of storage a good solution for this server and requirements 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7? Or is a full Win7 installation overkill? Power consumption and heat are of some interest to me. A Win7 box would also satisfy requirements 8 and 9. B. If Win7 happens to be overkill for processor, power, or heat reasons, will some sort of pre-built NAS have enough processing power to pull off requirements 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7? C. What type of processor would I need for this server in order to serve HD movies to my TV (via some client) and audio to my speakers (via either laptop client or Squeebox client)? How processor intensive is this type of thing on the server and client? Which does the most work? The box pushing the Blu-Ray rip or the box catching the Blu-Ray rip? D. What type of issues might I run into with pushing audio and video around on a home Wireless-N network? Is HD video possible over wireless? There will be 2 other roommates connected to this network, as well, so it won't just be my traffic. I currently have a FiOS router but an upgrade might be in order to satisfy my requirements. E. When looking for something to be the "client" for the streamed HD video, how to set top boxes and custom-built HTPCs compare? I suppose a Blu-Ray player / set top box combo could have the same capabilities as a custom HTPC with Blu-Ray drive. Which would you create? I would imagine HTPCs are MUCH more flexible than set top boxes when it comes to codecs and types of streaming Internet video. F. If I were to have uTorrent running on a central Win7 server, would I have to "log into" this server via my laptop to set up the torrents and file save locations? Or is there some other way? If I had dual monitors attached to my laptop, could one be my laptop's view and the other be what's going on on my Win7 server? I don't quite understand how 2 Win7 machines would interact with only the laptop having a monitor. G. Does anyone out there have any experience with Squeezeboxes or simliar devices? How easy is it to play audio from my server on speakers that are not connected to anything but Squeezebox "client" hardware? Any help would be absolutely fantastic. I have a PDF of a potential network setup https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B1j1drd_uO0jNjM5Y2JmZGItMTgzNy00MzhmLThkZmUtODM4M2RkNzczMTdi&hl=en&authkey=CM3G6dwE anyone is interested. Next to each hardware location, I have the requirements it satisfies lit up in green.

  • Answer:

    Sorry to be the Linux evangelist, but someone's gotta do it. I'm currently running a hacked Pogoplug that is capable of most of the tasks you're looking for in a server, although the specs fall short (128mb ram, just one sata port). There are some higher-end NASes available (almost all hackable) but none I know of that could transcode a Bluray disc in under a week. Keep in mind also that choosing any of these would sacrifice your ability to use the device as your backup PC. Building a desktop to use as a server is probably the most cost-effective, but Windows 7 is still overkill because all the features you're looking for are available from free software. There are http://mediatomb.cc/ of http://minidlna.sourceforge.net/ http://www.serviio.org/ http://coherence.beebits.net/. (Honestly this is probably a bad thing, it means people weren't satisfied with the existing solutions.) There's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samba_%28software%29 for transferring files to/from your other machines. http://www.transmissionbt.com/ is a good torrent client that has a nice web interface, does everything uTorrent does, and uses blocklists internally. There are http://www.tightvnc.com/download-old.php http://www.softpanorama.org/Xwindows/VNC/vnc_on_linux.shtml, but you could save a tiny amount of RAM and earn massive hacker cred by not running a GUI and http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~rlug/help/tips-ssh.html'ing in from your laptop. Bluray ripping is http://themediaviking.com/software/bluray-linux/ but https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/BluRayAndHDDVD. There are http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/wiki/index.php/Quick_HOWTO_:_Ch26_:_Linux_Software_RAID#RAID_1 http://www.junauza.com/2010/06/8-of-best-online-backup-services-for.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_backup_software. (You could also back up your laptop with some of these - it's not just your music that's important, right?) You could use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythTV#Operating_system_bundles meant to be used in HTPC servers, or alternately, you could download a http://www.ubuntu.com/ and then install all these things. So on the plus side, you could get everything you're looking for for free, with great uptime and a base from which to run crazy side projects like a home automation system or your own HouseholdFilter site. On the downside, it's Linux. You will run into crazy configuration problems. Maybe less than on a personal machine (servers are Linux's area of strength) but they will happen. Often solutions are documented online. Sometimes they're not. Maybe something won't run when you install it, or your different machines won't play nice on the network, or your file permissions will be inexplicably wrong. 99% of the time you spend fixing these things will be on the command line or hand-editing configuration files. My Pogoplug took a mere 12 hours to set up thanks to some good fortune and helpful tutorials. But hey, you'll learn a lot and in a twisted way, it could even be fun! Lastly, G. I have no experience here but it should require, at most, that the Squeezebox devices have network connectivity and maybe that you enter their IPs somewhere. The http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Squeezebox_Server is very comprehensive and even has instructions for installing the server software to NASes.

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A lot of questions here. I'll just take an easy one: C. What type of processor would I need for this server in order to serve HD movies to my TV (via some client) and audio to my speakers (via either laptop client or Squeebox client)? How processor intensive is this type of thing on the server and client? Which does the most work? The box pushing the Blu-Ray rip or the box catching the Blu-Ray rip? The server doing the streaming does very little work here. The client side, viewing the content, does most of the work. A good video card can take a lot of the load off of the CPU for this kind of processing. My HTPC setup uses Linux, where I have an nvidia video card with good support for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDPAU ; I'm not sure what the state-of-the-art is for Windows 7, though.

jozxyqk

The server doing the streaming does very little work here. The client side, viewing the content, does most of the work. A good video card can take a lot of the load off of the CPU for this kind of processing. My HTPC setup uses Linux, where I have an nvidia video card with good support for VDPAU ; I'm not sure what the state-of-the-art is for Windows 7, though. So, if I built a fairly small HTPC to act as the HD video client, I'd really need to focus on the video card more than the processor or memory? I wouldn't store anything on it locally. I don't have much knowledge of this but I'd probably install something like XBMC on this little box.

decrescendo

Well, a half decent video card. You don't need anything particularly cutting edge to do full mpeg4 hardware acceleration these days.

pharm

Well, a half decent video card. You don't need anything particularly cutting edge to do full mpeg4 hardware acceleration these days. So set top boxes don't have any problems with mpeg4? WD Live, Roku, Boxee, etc.

decrescendo

Ill take a stab at question F. The short answer is no. For a torrent server, check out uTorrent with its web gui. You access utorrent through your web browser on your laptop. I have utorrent running as a service on my windows home server box (so I don't need to be logged in and it starts even if the server is restarted), and I access utorrent through its built in web interface. I can add torrents from any of my other computers in the house, as well as when I'm away from home via the internet. Google utorrent web ui for tutorials. Your saved torrents will be accessible via the shared folders on your server. For general access the server, you can use Remote Desktop to access a windows machine, or VNC to access a Linux or Mac or windows machine. If you needed to set something up on the server itself, you would just remote-into the server from your laptop. In either of these methods (remote desktop or vnc) you'll see the screen of the server come up and move the mouse around etc. as if you were sitting at the computer.

Arbitrage1

Well, a half decent video card. You don't need anything particularly cutting edge to do full mpeg4 hardware acceleration these days. posted by pharm at 2:00 PM on May 18 Right. My video card cost $50, the cheapest one that handles all of the requirements of VDPAU (which is a Linux-specific thing, as far as I know). It is http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814134089 (or at least something very similar). Without hardware acceleration (which a lot of flash video doesn't support anyway, for example), you'll just have more CPU load, but it won't stop the video from playing. You just won't want to be doing a lot of stuff at the same time as watching a video on the same box.

jozxyqk

For general access the server, you can use Remote Desktop to access a windows machine, or VNC to access a Linux or Mac or windows machine. If you needed to set something up on the server itself, you would just remote-into the server from your laptop. In either of these methods (remote desktop or vnc) you'll see the screen of the server come up and move the mouse around etc. as if you were sitting at the computer. Oh, very awesome. Thank you very much. I see Remote Desktop is only included in Professional versions of Windows 7. Apparently, I just have to make sure that version is on my server. I take it VNC has more features since it's not a free app?

decrescendo

You're correct about remote desktop, but VNC should be free. I've used ( http://www.uvnc.com/ ) Ultra VNC. You'll just set up the service side of VNC on your server box, and then run the client software from your laptop whenever you need to connect.

Arbitrage1

Also check out Windows Home Server for your server operating system. Its got built in backup solutions, as well as Remote Desktop. Its what I use.

Arbitrage1

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