Accessing my media files.

[just_laze]

Hello,

Here's my idea, please feel free to poke holes in it, followed by suggestions of improvement.

I have an original XBOX that I'm going to softmod. I know very little about this procedure but searching google I came across this guide. Seems easy enough?

I plan to add a NAS box to my network on which I'll place all my music, movies and photos - suggestions welcome. I'll then map this drive to my soft-modding XBOX. This will enable me to watch my movies, listen to my music and browse my photos through the TV. And it will still allow me to do all that on my computer too, again, by mapping the NAS drive. The selling point being that neither the computer or xbox will need to be on to allow the other device to access media as it'll all be on the self-powered NAS drive. I also plan on buying a laptop too, that will also have the NAS drive mapped to it.

I don't have a PVR, but I do have a TV card in my computer so what I plan to do is record programs using the computer, place them onto the NAS drive, making them viewable via the XBOX on my TV... Not the most elegant solution ever conceived but it's workable.

Now it's a reasonably roughly thought out plan but seems to work? I don't know a great deal about XBMC or if there are any alternatives but it appears to be an excellent OS?

I'm looking for a host of opinions on my above plan and if there are any improvements or if I'm overcomplicating things or perhaps it's not complicated enough, is there something I'm missing etc... :-)

Thanks guys.

laze.

[Funkstar]

That all seems pertty straight forward.

Something to think about though, if you are using your PC for TV recording, is it going to be on all the time so it can record on timers? If so do you really need the NAS? Just put the disks in the PC and share them across the network.

Have a look at MEDIAPORTAL - free MediaCenter HTPC Software - Home. It's a free open source alternatice to Windows Media Center. It's not without it's problems, but it is a very interesting piece of software. I think you can use an xBox with XBMC along with MediaPortal.

Might not be right for you, but worth a look.

[just_laze]

I see where you're coming from in regards to not needing a NAS box but what about when I come in from work, turn on the TV and fancy watching a movie or an episode of something or even listening to some music... I'll have to turn the PC on first.

I'm familiar with Media Portal, it's a little ropey but considering it's free it's great value for money ;-)

Thanks for your reply.

laze.

[just_laze]

Anyone else?

[this_is_gav]

Sounds like a well-thought-out plan.

As an alternative to Media Portal there's also GBPVR, and if you're happy going down the Linux route, MythTV is probably the best alternative to Media Center.

I only use mine for TV, so Media Center is easily the choice for me (I mean to try MythTV during an upcoming install though). If I were using it to view other media I might put more effort into trying GBPVR. I'm not a fan of Media Portal at all. Everytime I've tried it, no matter what system it's on, it crashes when I try to make it full screen 1920x1200.

[just_laze]

Yes.

I've used GBPVR, it's not as shiny as Media Portral, heh.

To be honest I've only had a chance to dabble with both applications as I wasn't getting great reception with a standalone antenna. However, in my new apartment I have access to the roof antenna so can now begin seriously using the TV card in my machine.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a NAS enclosure? I'd like to be able to store files larger than 4GB so support for NTFS would be a must.

laze.

[Funkstar]

You won't get NTFS support in a consumer NAS (you do in massive enterprise NAS boxes based on Windows Server though obviously). They are all linux based so they are EXT2 or 3, or something like that.

[Minimos]

I personally had the same dilemma.

I started with a NAS device (Freecom FSG) but got frustrated with the lack of firmware updates for the device relating to the media serving software.

As a solution I used an old athlon 800, stuck in an old 512MB stick of ram to replace the 128MB, bought a 500GB disk and installed the latest version of Ubuntu. I then purchased a copy of Twonkyvision, which fully supports most popular devices. It currently streams stuff to my 360 & Pinnacle sound bridge flawlessly.

In addition to this I installed Samba server and now use the network box as a backup server.

The computer is on a timer, so just before I get in from work it fires up and I shut it down just after my normal bedtime using a cron job.

Minimos

[just_laze]

Interesting.

I've sent you a PM.

laze.

[mycarsavw]

File Sharing: The $80 file server

EDIT: I may be off the mark but I've recently done a lot of Googling on the subject of NAS and this kept popping up.

[Minimos]

Sent you a PM Laze