Media folders vs. streamings + DLNA issue

[embe]

Hi,

I am new to both FreeNas and also home media streaming including DLNA. I installed freenas few days ago, later on plugin jail, then plugins, all of them working OK. Browsing this forum and also google i realized it will not be that easy to stream music and movies over the netowork, at least for me. Plex is not possible, minidlna/upnp doesn't support subtitles and all media types. I am from eastern europe so for me subs are very important.

I have huge movie library and i thought it will not be necessary to create datasets or folders for each genre (commedy, drama, sci-fi, horror etc) and also for music genres (rock, pop, jazz etc). I was thinking there will be something like Plex or XMBC in FreeNas and i am dissapointed that it is not. But i am not giving up.

So i would like to ask you what is your Media folder setup in FreeNas, what hardware setup you have in your livingroom (if you stream through some media player or directly to your TV over DLNA) I have mediaplayer Xtreamer Pro which is able to play 99% of files. Upnp capable and it runs on Linux. It has some kind of Movie Jukebox but it's not what i am looking for (not possible to sort movies based on genre, artist, length, director, actors etc...

So is there some kind of "ideal solution" either how to set up media folders in FreeNas, or solution so i don't need to create several genre folders - some media player which will scan movies inside the FreeNas and give me a possibility to view custmizable movie library (sort based on genre, actor, director and so on)? Something like my Xtreamer and Plex :)

Just additional question - have no clue how exactly DLNA works, i mean how does it work - if i installed 8player to my iphone and i tried miniDLNA it worked but it lagged like over wifi - is this normal? It was 720p movie. VOB file was ok. 1080p movie lagged even more and sound was far ahead of picture. Is this OK?

How can i force content played in Iphone to be played on my Ipad (which should be also DLNA capable) or TV (i don't have DLNA TV yet)

Additionaly, all DLNA aps i downloaded and tried with miniDLNA Freenas sorted mp3's in folders alphabetically and not based on number of song. Is this also common?

Sorry for so many questions at once :)

Thanks!

 

[joeschmuck]

FreeNAS doesn't have much in the way of DLNA except for the one MiniDLNA which works for most people. You could add different DLNA servers but it's a manual task. As for streaming HD content over WiFi, well it depends on your WiFi connection but I'd recommend not streaming such high quality content and reduce it to something more suitable with a small screen and WiFi.

 

[embe]

Okay clear. MiniDLNA is not the best for me since no subtitles support. Therefore i would like to ask you for some solution - media streamer or media player box, which will play every file type. I have no time to DIY one :( I have now tried in my desktop pc XMBC and also Plex but both somehow don't want to read my files in FreeNas and put them into libraries. Thinking if it's because it's fre verion (Plex) or some other probelm, maybe permissions?

 

[joeschmuck]

Not sure what you mean by MiniDLNA doesn't support subtitles. I now create MKV files from my DVD/Blu-Ray discs and in my MKV videos I have subtitles which work flawlessly on several DLNA devices but I can't say I've ever tried subtitles for a VOB video in the past. I don't know why other applications are having problems reading your files, like you said it could be a permissions problem.

I recommend that you try something like DVDFab to convert your videos to a format where the subtitles are build in the container video. You can also create videos that are of proper size for mobile devices or WiFi bandwidth with the click of a button. This is an excellent product and takes you out of the DIY arena. I believe they have a free limited functionality version you could try first. Also I think there is a batch feature so you can just tell it to convert all your existing files and let it run. It's worth looking into if you're serious about keeping things simple.

Now if you're looking to keep things free, well it's more complicated but doom9.org would be the place to start.

 

[embe]

Yes, i am just converting my DVDs to mkv files using makemkv software and you are right, subtitles are there :) However, and her ei return to my first post, i would like to solve somehow the issue, that i would like to have some kind of software or something like Plex where, instead of loooong list of files, i would like to see/sort based on genre, actor, director etc etc...is there something like this out there?

 

[joeschmuck]

Yes, i am just converting my DVDs to mkv files using makemkv software and you are right, subtitles are there :) However, and her ei return to my first post, i would like to solve somehow the issue, that i would like to have some kind of software or something like Plex where, instead of loooong list of files, i would like to see/sort based on genre, actor, director etc etc...is there something like this out there?

Try posting your question on the doom9.org forum and I'm certain someone will give you a proper answer. We are FreeNAS here and MiniDLNA is not very powerful but it's what we currently have. I would be looking for an application that can run on FreeBSD and then once you have located it, manually install it into the jail, assuming you want the program to run on the FreeNAS server that is. Also keep in mind your system hardware, if you don't have enough RAM and CPU horsepower then transcoding isn't for you so remember that.

 

[embe]

Hi Joe,

first of all many thanks for your assistance, appreciate it!

Maybe i need to explain more precisely what i am looking for because i am more than 100% sure almost everybody in this forum uses same or similar setup:

- NAS (running on FreeNas) in technical room with no graphic card, soundcard turned off (16GB Ram, Intel i3 3220T, 7x2TB HDDs)
- connected to router and through router to living room where i have 4port switch
- notebook, desktop PC both running WinXP, also I pad and iphones (Iphone will be changed to HTC One probably)

So the only thing i would like to have is streaming from NAS to living room to TV (no DLNA TV) as follows:

- video through some media streamer/player which is able to run either XMBC or Plex and thereofre scan files in NAS, so plex or xmbc will be executed from media player/streamer, not in NAS itself
- audio streaming - also some kind of media player/streamer where i don't want to turn on TV - this is most important. So controling this media streamer/player either from Ipad, or Iphone (future android HTC One). When i started thinking about NAS, i thought i could use any DLNA capable A/V receiver but then i realized that it is simply very difficult using diplay on A/V receiver and even worse using it's remote control. (the point is that these A/V receivers, no matter what price tag they have, their diplays are simply same as it was 20 years ago). So then i found audio media streamers like Pioneer http://www.digitaltrends.com/media-streamer-reviews/pioneer-elite-n-50-review/
The point is that these streamers are not that powerfull, any of them are either not able to play all music files or they are not able to play mp3 without gaps in between tracks or price is extremely high. I am also considering Sonos system, or Cabridge audio.
On the other hand, when music is stored in FreeNas and i tried 8player over from Apple appstore over DLNA, is doesn't sort music nor movies in some kind of library system, so you have looong list of folders when it connects to FreeNas. And that's what i am looking for - some application for both movies and music, which will work with these media players/streamers, scanning files in FreeNas and make some sort based on what i choose (genre, artist, director, etc etc...)

So the question is which media player would be the best for movies and separately music and would be able to scan files in FreeNas and sort it after that to some library order? I trust many FreeNas users run such setup..

P.S. I don't want to run any other computer or notebook while listening music or watching movies, I also cannot use any airplay stuff, Apple TV etc because here in my country it's not supported...:(

Thank you!

 

[joeschmuck]

Well all I can tell you is my setup and see what you think. I do not own Apple equipment although my daughter does but I haven't added any Apple specific streaming software to FreeNAS but the FireFly plugin I believe does handle Apple music streaming.

So my system is basically FreeNAS and my house is wired Cat 5E and I do have wireless for normal computer and smartphone use, no streaming video over wifi.
On FreeNAS I have MiniDLNA running of course and I also have CIFS (Windows Shares) enabled. Everything is basically default, no passwords required to access the data over my network. My A/V Receiver is a Onkyo which has very capable DLNA support for audio so my daughter does listen to music that way, but she prefers to use Pandora of course. As for video streaming, my Samsung TV does have DLNA capability but it's not very good, the picture is soft. I use my Sony Blu-Ray player, which does a great job of streaming the video. It does music too. No matter what, the TV must be on so you can see your selections.

As for organizing media, I group it by New, Seen, Keeper, and the client device organizes it alphabetically. Things I have seen and don't watch again I tend to delete. Keepers are movies I know I will watch again and again.

I've also used my PS3 to stream videos and it works very good, never a problem and the remote control is a bit more intuitive.

So I don't have the answer you are looking for, my files are alphabetically listed within folders, same with the music too. No sorting by any other type but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

I wish I could be of more help but I've accepted that MiniDLNA is limited in what it can do. It will offer up data to stream and it does it okay. I'd like to have something like mediatomb and I've tried an early version of it but it needed some tweaking. There is a thread discussing mediatomb on the FreeNAS forum, take a look for it, maybe it's what you're looking for.

And I fully understand what you mean by not using another computer to run some program and act as the in-between to make things work.

Just a thought... If you use iTunes and create your iTunes database on the FreeNAS system, can you access that database from some other component beside the iTune program?

Good Luck.

 

[Scareh]

the thing i'm currently investigating is a raspberry pi, attach it to an usb drive on your tv for power, insert an hdmi cable for use with your tv(aka monitor)

its limited to 10/100 speeds but its not lagging on streaming a blue-ray for me.
WHen you power down your tv you shut down your raspberry, and even when its connected i thought it was only 15w or something like that.

edit: it should be capable of using the xmbc things if i read correctly but havn't managed to get it working with that. I just use my samba shares to display video's on it, that works flawlessly.

 

[embe]

Thanks guys! I was thinking about BD Player but it is limited too, need to investigate and find out what would be best in terms of price and power. Will try to utilize my xtreamer Pro and see, it works but need to find out how to get XMBC or Plex into it since it runs on some Linux so it should be possible...