After months of planning and a lot of work my home network project is complete. The plan was to get rid of cable and have the media we want to watch/listen to available on all devices not only in the home but also anywhere there is an internet connection.
I ran cat6 ethernet to many locations in the house, and use wifi to all others.
Converted my old desktop into a dedicated media server using Plex.
Incorporated a HD antenna for reception of major network content.
I am very happy with the way Plex is working out. My entire movie and music collection resides on the 'server' and is available on every client device from the living room TV to an old ipad and our phones. Between Netflix, Hulu, and all of our own content via Plex we have not missed cable in even the slightest way. I also like the idea that we do not have to rely on itunes or similar "cloud" storage provided by someone else and stored on hard drives I don't have access to with network admins that I don't know.
Picture below shows the network distribution center I built in the basement. The old desktop has a 6-core AMD cpu with enough power to trans-code 2 blu-ray quality 1080p streams to 2 different devices simultaneously with enough juice left over to send a music stream to a 3rd device. I know FreeNas ZFS gurus may take issue with my use of the term 'server' but it certainly is serving me, pun intended.
[img:center]http://s1153.photobucket.com/user/jquib1/Media Server/story[/img]
I ran cat6 ethernet to many locations in the house, and use wifi to all others.
Converted my old desktop into a dedicated media server using Plex.
Incorporated a HD antenna for reception of major network content.
I am very happy with the way Plex is working out. My entire movie and music collection resides on the 'server' and is available on every client device from the living room TV to an old ipad and our phones. Between Netflix, Hulu, and all of our own content via Plex we have not missed cable in even the slightest way. I also like the idea that we do not have to rely on itunes or similar "cloud" storage provided by someone else and stored on hard drives I don't have access to with network admins that I don't know.
Picture below shows the network distribution center I built in the basement. The old desktop has a 6-core AMD cpu with enough power to trans-code 2 blu-ray quality 1080p streams to 2 different devices simultaneously with enough juice left over to send a music stream to a 3rd device. I know FreeNas ZFS gurus may take issue with my use of the term 'server' but it certainly is serving me, pun intended.
[img:center]http://s1153.photobucket.com/user/jquib1/Media Server/story[/img]