NAS/HTPC recommendation for my setup

R

rage3324

Gawd
Joined
Aug 1, 2002
Messages
1,023
Setup:

Living Room
TV
AVR
PS3 (games, netflix, amazon prime)
Xbox 360 (games, netflix, amazon prime)
AppleTV 2 (airplay)
Router
Synology ds213air (just purchased) w/ 2x 3gb WD Red raid 1

Bedroom
TV
AVR
Roku 2 XS

I just purchased the Synology and I love it, however it has me thinking if I actually made the right choice for what I am trying to achieve now and in the future.

Right now, the Synology is running Plex Server (stream to roku, ps3, xbox, etc.) and Synology Videostation (stream to phones/ipad). In a nutshell, this is all I want to achieve and the Synology does it just fine, however the PS3/Xbox interfaces are lacking since they cannot run plex/xbmc and both the ps3/xbox do not support mkv so the synology has to do a container swap of a 10gb 1080p file on the fly (very intensive for an arm cpu). I truly would rather have a better interface for my livingroom to handle the streaming. I know I can jailbreak the AppleTV to run xbmc, but I would be limited to 1080p unless I upgrade to the ATV3.

So is there a solution (I'm thinking nas+htpc?) which will allow me to run xbmc and hook directly up to the receiver and control it via a remote (I have an rf receiver) in the living room?

Other considerations
1. Can the solution run netflix, amazon prime, in HD w/ 5.1 sound etc? Or do I leave this to the PS3
2. Can the solution play music?
3. I understand the bedroom could not run xbmc, but would have to run plex via Roku. Or is there a way to get the solution to integrate with the bedroom tv?
4. I highly doubt I will be doing any transcoding
5. The solution needs to be available via the internet remotely for streaming to pc, iphone, ipad, etc..


Ideally, I am trying to achieve a the simplest solution that gives me a house-wide media streaming solution.

I am open to building the hardware if cheaper than purchasing a pre-made solution

The Synology is stil eligible for return
 
Last edited:
XBMC on an htpc (a real PC) can certainly play movies & music. I have not gotten mine to do Netflix & Prime, but I can do that via the browser in Windows.

A NAS is good for media storage and access via a wired gigabit network. You can store the nas at a location that is hidden from view.
 
The synology has some features I really like (backup scheduler, cloudsync, cms, etc). If I built my own NAS with unraid or freenas, would software like this be available?

What would a budget htpc look like?
 
BTW, you may be able to avoid Windows to lower the cost. I haven't done it, but I believe it can be done, but you just have to ensure all the proper drivers exist.
 
AQ_OC said:
If I were building now, I'd start with this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856102002

(being sure to get the version with the Ethernet port. Add RAM (no more than 4GB), msata (64-128GB), Windows, XBMC, etc, and input kb/mouse, and your TV/receiver.

I would keep the NAS, too. Or build your own. You can back up over the network.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Is it upgradable? Can I feed two separate xbmc feeds to the two tvs?
 
Not much. You can up the ram to whatever the max is and then the size of the msata drive. It does have those two hdmi outputs, but I'm not going to say you can run to copies of XBMC and output a different signal on each....as I don't even have one of these...but I would have one if I didn't already have two HTPC and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Maybe you can be the one to tell us! :)
 
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