User friendly media player

PascalG

PascalG

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Does anybody know a good user friendly media player app for ios or that could be loaded on smart TVs?

Or if not a player, something that would catalog a movie library of a network drive.

I am upgrading the TV and AV system on the boat... I ve replaced the 10 year old monster plasma with a new 40" Bravia as well as the older Panasonic in the master with a 28" vizio. For the saloon I have added an AppleTV as well as a WDTV live along with a WD my cloud network drive.

I ve bAcked up about 20 DVDs to the network drive so far and it all works pretty well. The issue is that once we have a couple of hundred movies in there, choosing one will be a tedious affair.

With the WD TV, all you get is the movie name and the movie cover but no info. On the smart TVs you only get the file/movie name, it doesn't read the embedded cover...

On my iPad, I have installed the Infuse player which reads the library from the network drive and pulls movie info from the web. Unfortunately it doesn't store the info and cover which means that it s useless off line (in the Bahamas...) and it only plays the file on the iPad.

I ve also tried Player Xtreme which let me play a movie either on the iPad on the WDTV but doesn't show any info to select a movie...

There has to be an app or a way to go the last 1% of the way which is browse a library, show movie data stored offline incl . Cover image and then play it on the ios device or on the WDTV, or on the smart TV directly.

Any tip?
 
Why a WD TV and not a Roku? I have a Roku 3 and the new Roku Streaming Stick. Love them both.
 
Because unless I misread the specs roku can only stream, I don't think it can access a local media library which is really what I need. Streaming don't do us much good in the Bahamas...
 
Pascal,

Take a look at Plex (plex dot tv) it's a client and server media platform that does a really good job of managing the media, giving a great interface for browsing it with clients for most platforms (roku, appletv, iOS, android, etc.)

Many NAS drives can act as the server as can most any Windows, Mac, Linux machine. I run it both at home and on the boat. For me a large part of the media consumption are my 4 & 7 year olds. Both they and my wife are able to use it and find it quite intuitive, which isn't always the case.

Ben
 
The only systems that I know about that will do what you want to do are Kaladascape or Crestron.

I used media players by Western Digital that I hooked to hard drives that have about 1000 movies on them. While the would not show the DVD cover art they would alphabetize the movies and you could create categories that made it easier to find a movie.

I still have the hard drives with the movies on them if you would like to borrow one and copy the movies off it to add to your library I could send it to you.
 
Ben,

D you know if the movie data incl covers is stored locally or is it fetched on line everytime.

Bill

Pricey solutions though... Thanks for the offer! I may take you up on it when we come back from an upcoming exumas trip.
 
quote:
Originally posted by PascalG

Ben,

D you know if the movie data incl covers is stored locally or is it fetched on line everytime.

Bill

Pricey solutions though... Thanks for the offer! I may take you up on it when we come back from an upcoming exumas trip.

Click to expand...


Stored locally. Artwork, Metadata and descriptions are all local after the initial match.

Ben
 
But plex needs to run on a computer on your network, correct? Not just a network drive
 
Bravia TVs will play media directly from an DLNA device [Digital Living Network Alliance]. A Windows 7 PC can be a DNLA server. Most NAS devices can be DNLA servers.
 
Yes the Bravia plays the movies directly but only lists the name, no info. At least the WDTV shows the embedded covers.

The vizio lists the movies too but throws a codec error when played. Need to figure out how to update the software...
 
quote:
Originally posted by PascalG

But plex needs to run on a computer on your network, correct? Not just a network drive

Click to expand...


Either on a computer or on one of the compatible NAS drives. Those are primarily from QNAP, Synology and ReadyNAS (Netgear).

Ben
 
Get a program called ThumbGen which will create the files you need to store to the NAS. These files contain the covers and movie info screens in convenient jpg format and should do exactly what you need. Works for me.
 
Not sure if this would be too complicated, but I'm a huge fan of XMBC. It has by far been the best setup for music, videos, pictures, movies etc.

Take a look at it if you're looking for a feature rich option
 
Pascal,
I've been using media center computers for about 9 years now. You WDTV is actually probably about the best unit as far as simple units go. You "CAN" get it to show more metadata for movies with a little effort.

There are a few programs out there: Media Center Master, and Media Companion are just two. They will scan your library and add metadata that WDTV can read.

I have 2 WDTV units on my boat for the kids. The salon, my cabin and the bridge have tiny "NUC" style windows computers running XBMC. Both work great, but XBMC is more work to understand and maintain than the WDTV. WDTV doesn't do as well with certain BluRay or 7.1 encoded sound, it's a 100MB connection (unless they've updated that), and that's the limiting factor.

My media library on the boat right now is about 60TB (used) using a 24bay Synology NAS with 3TB drives. The Synology draws power, even in standby so I do turn it off when at anchor. For the kids WDTV, they have 32GB USB sticks in the WDTV and copy (using TV tools) movies or TV to their stick to play when the Synology is down.

One other thing, if you do use computers as media centres, use solid state drives. Less power, quieter, faster, less prone to errors from vibration.
 
"use solid state drives"

Great idea, but isn't that a bit expensive for 60 TB of SSD? ( I come up with something over $10,000. Maybe $30k? )
 
Sorry, I should have mentioned use SSD drives for the computers. I use regular drives in the NAS. 60TB of SSD would be cool, but not feasible :)

The NAS has a RAID 6 config, so I can lose 2 drives and still retain data. It also parks the drives when not in use so it's pretty safe (Been using these for 4 years).

I just like the SSD on the NUC computers for speed, quiet and reduced power. I put the smallest, cheapest SSD I can find when i build these.
 
This needs to be said trying to stream video from a distant or even a fairly local hot spot is a bad idea. You will not like the results constant freezes and buffering.
Now using an on board storage media and streaming via broadcasting it over the 802.11 A & N band is a great idea.
I'm following this thread because I'm an RF and backhaul provisioning guy not an IT guy it's interesting and there is real potential here.
Bill
 
DLNA-certified products[edit]
Some examples:[31]

AwoX mediaCTRL[32] is a commercial server. It is based on AwoX DLNA Technology component software development kits.[33]
CyberLink SoftDMA 2.[34] Appears to be just a DMP.
Nokia N9 shares multimedia including music, pictures or videos.
Nokia Lumia 520 / 521 shares multimedia including music, pictures or videos.
Nokia Lumia 620 / 720 / 820 / 821 shares multimedia including music, pictures or videos.
Nokia Lumia 920 / 925 / 928 shares multimedia including music, pictures or videos.
Nokia Lumia 1020 shares multimedia including music, pictures or videos.
Nokia Lumia 1520 / 1320 shares multimedia including music, pictures or videos.
Samsung Galaxy S II shares multimedia including music, pictures or videos.
Samsung Galaxy S III mini shares multimedia including music, pictures or videos.
Samsung Galaxy S IV mini shares multimedia including music, pictures or videos.
Sony Xperia acro S shares multimedia including music, pictures or videos.
Nero MediaHome 4 a commercial media server for Windows with realtime transcoding and live TV streaming functionality. Free trial version is available.
Microsoft Xbox 360[35] is a DLNA Certified DMP.
Sony PlayStation 3[36] is a DLNA Certified DMP.
Microsoft XBOX ONE[37] is a DLNA Certified DMP.
BlackBerry Q5 shares multimedia including music, pictures or videos.
BlackBerry Q10 shares multimedia including music, pictures or videos.
BlackBerry Z10 shares multimedia including music, pictures or videos.
BlackBerry Z30 shares multimedia including music, pictures or videos.
Servers
 
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