Re: [gentoo-user] Software for LCD Data Center

[Stroller]

On 24 August 2011, at 12:57, czernitko wrote:
> … From what you say I will give DLNA a try (no other choice, I simply want to watch movies stored on my pc). …

The *choice* may well be to connect some kind of external box to your TV and use that to stream and decode the videos from your NAS.

The video codecs available in your TV will be somewhat limited, and the selection will not be upgradable.

My ideal "television" would not even contain tuners, but only HDMI / DVI / component inputs - I would prefer a screen which is nothing more than a display.

You can get set-top boxes which will stream videos across the network from your Samba shares for about £80 (e.g. PlayOn HD Mini, Western Digital TV Live). The contain dedicated decoder chips for h264, do 1080p and will play most any video codec you throw at them.

Alternatively, if you want a bit more flexibility, you can get a dual-core 64-bit Atom box with a 250gb hard-drive, 2gig RAM and Linux pre-installed for £130. I believe that using the nVidia drivers this gives slightly more grunt for decoding than the STBs. Slap Gentoo on it and emerge XBMC - plenty of people report it working fine.
http://www.ebuyer.com/267867-emachine-er1401-desktop-pt-nbzec-004
http://www.emachines.com/products/products.html?prod=ER1401-57


I appreciate that "go and spend more money" is not what you're expecting hear, and that you're thinking "but it's already built-in to my TV", but AFAICT you don't actually have a clear idea of *what* is built into your TV. My crystal ball shows frustration in your future. I have a bunch of guitar tuition videos here in VP6 format - will your telly play those? 

On AVforums the single most common response to the question "what video player do you wish you'd bought in the first place, if you knew then what you know now?" was XMBC.
http://www.avforums.com/forums/streamers-network-media-players/1478323-ok-knowing-what-you-know-what-player-would-you-buy-tomorrow.html

Stroller.