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Ask HN: What is your home media player setup?

5 points by roystonvassey ↗ HN
I download movies on to my external HDD and plug that into the TV to watch them.

The issue with this is the frequent plugging (and un-plugging) to copy movies, fix bugs (e.g. audio track not working), adding subtitles and so on.

I am looking at ways to hack this to make it simpler. I have a Chromecast and PS3.

Is there any way I can use these to make this process simpler?

Thanks!

12 comments

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marcofiset
Take a look at the Videostream app for Chromecast.
roystonvassey
Thanks! This looks very promising and it works without streaming over the Internet (from what I could gather on first pass).

Will try this and post a quick review here.

mijndert
I have a PC that I sometimes turn on that acts as a Plex server. I download my movie, it gets automatically added to the Plex library and my Sony Android TV set has a Plex client installed.

My Sony tv also runs Kodi that has some interesting plugins for watching movies.

TurboHaskal
Desktop PC, TV, wireless keyboard/mouse and a fifteen meter HDMI cable.
raffleslodge
Android phone, Kodi (Exodus) and a Chromecast.
jenkstom
I lived without Plex for a very long time, but could not find a good media player now that the WDTV is no longer in production. Plex is ubiquitous. Smart TVs have a Plex app, nearly every media player has the ability to load a Plex app.

And my five year olds can use it. And I can prevent them from watching anything I haven't allowed them to watch. I kind of wish I hadn't resisted for so long, but now I'm on board.

My Plex server runs Ubuntu, which connects via NFS to a Synology that stores the data on a mirrored array. Since it is connected via network files are placed on the server over the network using rsync over ssh or just scp depending on the source.

paulcole
Apple TV and Amazon Fire stick. Subscribe to Hulu for recent shows, and a bunch of sports (NFL, MLS, WNBA) season streaming packages. Buy/rent whatever else I want to watch from iTunes or Amazon.
Stoo
I use Twonky for media streaming movies / music over the local network. It supports DLNA/UPnP so should work with most players. I use either a blu-ray player or Xbox One to play movies streamed from Twonky but the Xbox One sometimes refuses to connect for unknown reasons.

Aside from that I have a Chromecast for playing anything else that I don't have stored locally.

Vaskivo
Raspberry pi with Retropie. Connected it to a large external HDD, set up samba and installed KODI. Input with a Logitech f710 gamepad and a Logitech k400 keyboard.

Problems: - I couldn't find a way to control kodi with the gamepad. - I can't restart the Raspberry Pi in KODI. It just hangs the system. (And it's only way to go back to "gaming mode")