Guest Yogimax Posted July 14, 2011 Report Share Posted July 14, 2011 (edited) Folks I just wanted to share how my Vega has revolutionised how I consume media in the house/kitchen (with my wife's approval)! I have all my media on my Windows Home Server on various shares - music, TV shows and Movies, and needed a way to make these available on my Vega and eventually other devices. I wanted: 1 Someway I could listen to music streamed from my server with no copying locally. 2 Someway I could watch my downloaded and saved TV shows, with again no copying locally. 3 Someway I could watch my films which I have saved in >= 720P which I play from my media PC to my TV, but make them playable on my Vega. 4 Something I could watch iPlayer etc on. So what I now have... For 1 - I installed Mount Manager which creates a local CIFS folder on my SD card where all my music etc is virtually mounted. I bought Poweramp from the market because not only does it support CIFS shares, but it also has a good graphic equaliser to get my music the way I like it! For 2 & 3 - I installed Plex media server on my server, and bought the Plex app from the market. This catalogues my media, gets the metadata for it, and then either direct streams my movies/TV shows to my Vega or else transcodes them to H.264 which the Vega natively plays with hardware acceleration. For 4 - Corvus5 ROM with Miren browser set to desktop emulation along with Flash 10.3 This is all mounted on a PadTab in the kitchen which is next to invisible when my Vega isn't there, but is securely mounted when it is (thanks MaxiP for the tip) My total outlay for the above is about £20 (I firmly believe that if an app is good enough to use on a daily basis, it is good enough to pay for! I have bought all the above, but the most expensive item was actually the PadTab from eBay at about £16) See low res photos and video clip for it in action (I apologise for the photos - they were all taken on my HTC Desire which has one of the poorest cameras on a phone) With the new site design I couldn't attach the photos etc, so here is a SendSpace link to them - enjoy... http://www.sendspace.com/file/lpsnye ps Paul - please fix this new version of the site - it is next to impossible to edit posts or comment accurately on previous posts!!!!!7 GI Joe example.mp4 Edited July 15, 2011 by Yogimax Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest simonta Posted July 14, 2011 Report Share Posted July 14, 2011 FolksI just wanted to share how my Vega has revolutionised how I consume media in the house/kitchen (with my wife's approval)! I have all my media on my Windows Home Server on various shares - music, TV shows and Movies, and needed a way to make these available on my Vega and eventually other devices. I wanted: 1 Someway I could listen to music streamed from my server with no copying locally. 2 Someway I could watch my downloaded and saved TV shows, with again no copying locally. 3 Someway I could watch my films which I have saved in >= 720P which I play from my media PC to my TV, but make them playable on my Vega. 4 Something I could watch iPlayer etc on. So what I now have... For 1 - I installed Mount Manager which creates a local CIFS folder on my SD card where all my music etc is virtually mounted. I bought Poweramp from the market because not only does it support CIFS shares, but it also has a good graphic equaliser to get my music the way I like! For 2 & 3 - I installed Plex media server on my server, and bought the Plex app from the market. This catalogues my media, gets the metadata for it, and then either direct streams my movies/TV shows to my Vega or else transcodes them to H.264 which the Vega natively plays with hardware acceleration. For 4 - Corvus5 ROM with Miren browser set to desktop emulation along with Flash 10.3 This is all mounted on a PadTab in the kitchen which is next to invisible when my Vega isn't there, but is securely mounted when it is (thanks MaxiP for the tip) My total outlay for the above is about £20 (I firmly believe that if an app is good enough to use on a daily basis, it is good enough to pay for! I have bought all the above, but the most expensive item was actually the PadTab from eBay at about £16) See low res photos and video clip for it in action (I apologise for the photos - they were all taken on my HTC Desire which has one of the poorest cameras on a phone) With the new site design I couldn't attach the photos etc, so here is a SendSpace link to them - enjoy... <a href='http://www.sendspace.com/file/lpsnye' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='nofollow external'>http://www.sendspace.com/file/lpsnye</a> Hi Yogimax. Thank you for taking the time to write about this. I've just started to go through the same exercise and have been trying Skifta, which I am underwhelmed by. Based on your post, I'll try these apps. Thanks again Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yogimax Posted July 14, 2011 Report Share Posted July 14, 2011 Hi Yogimax. Thank you for taking the time to write about this. I've just started to go through the same exercise and have been trying Skifta, which I am underwhelmed by. Based on your post, I'll try these apps. Thanks again Cheers No probs - it really works for me! (and my wife is "content") Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wasps Posted July 14, 2011 Report Share Posted July 14, 2011 yes, thank you very much. I've been using 2player for streaming mp3's from windows media centre that works pretty well my next step was looking to stream movies so i'll check your apps out anyone know a good windows media centre remote control app? I'd like to use the tablet to control the media that is played on the PC (as opposed to streamed) I tried a few but none had a particularly good ui. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yogimax Posted July 14, 2011 Report Share Posted July 14, 2011 <br />No probs - it really works for me! (and my wife is "content")<br /> The only glitch is with the current version of Plex on my server, it times out occasionally unless I go and waggle a mouse. Hopefully the next version will address this. It is a community type project at www.plexapp.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tony barnes Posted July 15, 2011 Report Share Posted July 15, 2011 How are you finding Plex - I thought it was god awful...!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yogimax Posted July 15, 2011 Report Share Posted July 15, 2011 How are you finding Plex - I thought it was god awful...!! Initially I wasn't sure, but now it works well for me. :) The windows server is a bit of an afterthought from the original apple product, and the Android client is a bit fiddly to try and fast forward, but everything then plays nearly flawlessly. It plays all the videos I have in various formats, but occasionally some sound is missing - but this may be from missing codecs on my home built Home Server. If I convert the video sound to a different codec e.g. AAC using one of Handbrake, Freemake, AVIDemux or GotSent it works fine. It currently doesn't autoupdate the library so you have to do a manual update after adding stuff, but this just needs a click of a button from a browser on the server or on a different PC. They have also now produced a Linux client which should run on a Linux based NAS box! I don't use it for music as it doesn't understand the concept of compilation albums and is truly crap for this, but use Poweramp instead which "just works". B) Hope this helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tomolewis Posted July 15, 2011 Report Share Posted July 15, 2011 The Sample is only 480x288? Most of my movies are 1280x720 ........... and the vega struggles to play some of them......... can't find a player that will cope with them........ re encoding them seems to be the only other option...... or swapping tablets maybe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yogimax Posted July 15, 2011 Report Share Posted July 15, 2011 (edited) Th The Sample is only 480x288? Most of my movies are 1280x720 ........... and the vega struggles to play some of them......... can't find a player that will cope with them........ re encoding them seems to be the only other option...... or swapping tablets maybe. The sample is a video clip from my phone of a video playing downscaled to fit the site. The video itself is the full 720P (which is 1280 x 720) version of GI Joe playing with no issues via Plex. :P Edited July 15, 2011 by Yogimax Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest iSpike Posted July 16, 2011 Report Share Posted July 16, 2011 Thats all well in good.. But you could just use Tversity as your media server, then use the built in browser on the tablet and use the default player to play them.. Cost : £0.00 and supports all media files (excluding mkv unfortunately) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest neblap Posted July 16, 2011 Report Share Posted July 16, 2011 I use Windows Media Server to stream to UPnPlay and MoboPlayer which can play just about any format. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yogimax Posted July 16, 2011 Report Share Posted July 16, 2011 Thats all well in good.. But you could just use Tversity as your media server, then use the built in browser on the tablet and use the default player to play them.. Cost : £0.00 and supports all media files (excluding mkv unfortunately) Hi Spike I considered TVersity but plumped for Plex because of 2 reasons: 1 It plays nearly every format including MKV irrespective of quality - it either direct streams if the Vega supports it or else transcodes video and audio to supported formats (H.264 etc) 2 It automatically downloads all the metadata associated with the video - I have about 480 films and numerous full TV series on my server. Having the meta data makes it much easier to find the correct episode out of a series of 22. I tried to upload a screenshot but it didn't work (again) Have a look at this link for an example http://www.flickr.com/photos/8429433@N08/5943318795/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yogimax Posted July 16, 2011 Report Share Posted July 16, 2011 I use Windows Media Server to stream to UPnPlay and MoboPlayer which can play just about any format. Hi Neblap I also have Windows Media Server, but wanted to "pull" the media from the Vega on demand rather than push from a networked PC / Server. This along with the metadata makes Plex easier for me (and my wife!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest pillowshot Posted July 16, 2011 Report Share Posted July 16, 2011 Can anyone else using Plex tell me if it supports 1080p out for them? I tried it once but it looked hideous on my 32" television, but I really loved the interface. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest simonta Posted July 16, 2011 Report Share Posted July 16, 2011 Hi Neblap I also have Windows Media Server, but wanted to "pull" the media from the Vega on demand rather than push from a networked PC / Server. This along with the metadata makes Plex easier for me (and my wife!) Hey your Yoginess. Does Windows Media Server use MS-DVR or WVT for recordings? I'm guessing it's the same as Windows Media Centre on Windows 7. I can't find a definitive answer on Plex suppor for MCE. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yogimax Posted July 17, 2011 Report Share Posted July 17, 2011 Hey your Yoginess. Does Windows Media Server use MS-DVR or WVT for recordings? I'm guessing it's the same as Windows Media Centre on Windows 7. I can't find a definitive answer on Plex suppor for MCE. Thanks I'm not sure as I don't record directly onto my media PC (no TV signal and I don't have a satellite card for the PC). AFAIK if it is Win 7 it is WVT now. There isn't a windows client yet for Plex. For my Windows PCs in the house, I use My Movies on my Windows Home Server to scrape the metadata and stream the media to the PCs as a plugin within Media Centre. Hope this helps Y Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tony barnes Posted July 20, 2011 Report Share Posted July 20, 2011 Initially I wasn't sure, but now it works well for me. :) The windows server is a bit of an afterthought from the original apple product, and the Android client is a bit fiddly to try and fast forward, but everything then plays nearly flawlessly. It plays all the videos I have in various formats, but occasionally some sound is missing - but this may be from missing codecs on my home built Home Server. If I convert the video sound to a different codec e.g. AAC using one of Handbrake, Freemake, AVIDemux or GotSent it works fine. It currently doesn't autoupdate the library so you have to do a manual update after adding stuff, but this just needs a click of a button from a browser on the server or on a different PC. They have also now produced a Linux client which should run on a Linux based NAS box! I don't use it for music as it doesn't understand the concept of compilation albums and is truly crap for this, but use Poweramp instead which "just works". B) Hope this helps. So quality is fine? I was finding that it was sending a pig of a signal through, really poor quality. Though I was running it over 3G, so that might have been the issue, overcompensating for speed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yogimax Posted July 20, 2011 Report Share Posted July 20, 2011 So quality is fine? I was finding that it was sending a pig of a signal through, really poor quality. Though I was running it over 3G, so that might have been the issue, overcompensating for speed. Quality is excellent over WiFi. :D My home server is connected to my router via homeplug, and then wireless G to the Vega. I get an occasional stutter at high action scenes, but apart from that it is very good.:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tony barnes Posted July 20, 2011 Report Share Posted July 20, 2011 Hmm, I might have another play with it then, see if I can't sort out some 3g settings - that or just sort out a tversity profile that works a bit more consistently Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Yogimax Posted August 22, 2011 Report Share Posted August 22, 2011 A quick update - I am now running VegaComb 3.2 build 7, and Plex works great with it. :) The previous 1.7 VegaComb didn't work due to not having native hardware acceleration - this is now totally solved. :lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest qwertymz Posted September 8, 2011 Report Share Posted September 8, 2011 How did you find the PadTab? Does it leave markings on the tablet/wall? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now