Need some guidance on HTPCs

[peanuthead]

So my wife will be taking some time off of work for when the baby comes. I'd like to make it as easy as possible for her to be able to access our movie library or video from a DVR from the couch. I don't have anything in way of hardware or a DVR. I presently just use Charter via a set top/cable box. As fair as requirements I just want it to work and work easily for my wife. I'm not looking for add to my pc support load and darn sure not at 2AM.I thought about a Plex server (virtualized) handling our movie library and a NUC handling the GUI front end for the TV but that is about as far as I got. Any guidance is appreciated. There is not a budget presently but I don't plan on going over a realistic price (i.e. - $500 for a HTPC is a bit much IMO)

 

[whrswoldo]

When my wife was home recently for our baby I bought an Amazon Fire TV and a small TV for upstairs. I don't know about access to your movie library, but navigation to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and HBO is a breeze on the Fire TV. Even if you didn't already have the subscriptions and needed to purchase them for a few months it would definitely be cheaper than building a new HTPC.

I recently upgraded my HTPC with a new i3 processor, mobo, and memory and my total was around $260. If you're starting from scratch you'd also need a new case, PSU, hard drive,etc. You could definitely go cheaper with the hardware, but it would certainly be more expensive and labor intensive than a Fire TV (or Roku, nexus player, etc.).

On the other hand, if you're just looking for a fun project...

 

[peanuthead]

Thanks for the feedback. I purchased the AppleTV and quickly found that we needed to purchase a bunch of subscriptions. I wasn't really feeling that and the UI with that remote wasn't the best. It wasn't hard but wasn't as easy as I would like. My wife is very intelligent but I am trying to keep this on the parents/grandparents level, if possible. It would be really cool if we could control it with an Ipad, but certainly not a requirement. I already have hardware laying around so I am not too worried about not having something.

 

[Deleted member 88227]

If you already have a computer where all your media is stored I do highly recommend just installing Plex Media Server on it and setting up the media directories for it.

Then get yourself a cheap roku or other streaming device that has the Plex app.

No need for an HTPC these days if you're not playing PC games on it or watching OTA/Cable content. Even the latter might not even require an HTPC these days, but I haven't needed to do that in a while now.

The great thing about Plex is the fact that not only can you stream your media to a wide range of different devices on your home network, but when you're away you can pickup where you left off on many devices too including your Internet connected phone, laptop or tablet.

 

[EricGRIT]

I agree with the above. I used to run my Plex server and client off the same PC and had an HDMI cable running to my main theater TV. Other TVs had Chromecasts and streamed from the Plex server. The main reason I did this on the main, large, TV was to get the highest quality media to my display.

Recently I have switched to having my Plex server stuck in a closet and streaming to Chromecasts everywhere. I wasn't able to stream 10mbps or higher to the original Chromecast, but Chromecast v2 can handle even my highest bitrate files (15-20mbps no problem). This is running on a wireless AC network with the server connected to the network via Ethernet.

To organize everything I use Filebot to automate the moving and renaming of media files to the appropriate media folders.

EDIT: I also have a Plex setup like this at my brother's house (non tech-savvy) and they have minimal questions while using Plex to cast to their TV. Pretty simple once it's up and running.

 

[maclem8223]

Agreed, been running Plex for quite some time as well and just set my boss up with a system. Not tech savvy at all and he and his wife have had minimal questions and picked right up on how to work everything.