I am new to streaming and it appears tobe what I have wanted for years. So, as many of the other members in this community have more experience than I do, I am looking for advice as to getting started in the streaming arena. I will list my desires & my current equipment set-up.
Desires:
Want to drop DirecTV subscription completely
Have watched some TV and sports programming via the Internet on my desktop PC
Want to copy all the DVDs (movie & music/concert such as Stevie Ray Vaughn, etc) currently owned to a hard drive
Want ability to watch DVDs on any TV or PC in any room of the house
Want to watch movies, sports, and TV shows from different on-line sources such as Hulu, Netflix, etc - to help cutting tie to DirecTV
Want ability for 8 yr old daughter to play games such as offered by a WII, Xbox, or PS3, in any room of the house with TV capability - living room, theater room, exercise room, etc.
Current Equipment:
Have a Clearstream OTA HD antenna that brings in HD programming - programming is sufficient for our needs
HD TV in 2nd floor living room
Epson projecter in 1st floor theater room
HD TV in 1st floor exercise room
Desktop PC (purchased in Sep 2010) in 2nd floor bedroom
Older Toshiba Laptop (purchased in Sep 2003) in 2nd floor living room
House has Cat 5e wiring to every room in house - well, 2 of the 3 bathrooms do not have Cat 5e - LOL
A/V distribution box is in 1st floor mechanical room
4-port Netgear switch
Universal Remote Control MX-350 Osiris IR/RF Remote Control with IR extenders on 1st & 2nd floor
Issues:
Netgear switch only allows 4 rooms to have Internet simultaneously although every have has the capability - Cat 5e
Clearstream antenna: when the TV is turned on the programming is slow to reach TV - acts like it has to fill the cable up with content - buffer - before it flows smoothly
Universal Remote Control MX-350 Osiris IR/RF Remote Control is maxed out with current equipment remote control needs
So, given your experiences, where is a good place to start for me, given my desires? From what I see purchasing the WD TV Live HUb and a Microsoft Xbox 360 with Kinect is the best place to start, although the WII had been our gaming platform of choice, in the past, until the Kinect came out, which seems pretty cool.
Thanks for the thoughts. I know this is a broad request but I have to start somewhere, correct?
Well I can say all this is possible, You would have to purchase a few things to make this happen 1 The live hub will do all the streaming of Hulu and netflix. You can use the hub as a media hub but you would then have to get other WD boxes such as a live plus for each desired room and you could watch movies in every room and the plus has its own streaming services as the hub has.
The DvDs you can use the hub a a server to store them on and as long as you have a device that would play the files this would work in every room that is connected to the hub. With an Xbox you would have to stick with a WMV or AVI format. I think ISO is better you can get players for the computer and the live pluses will play any file the hub will play
With the fact you want to move the Xbox around would be your biggest headache especially with Kinect it requires a setup aLthough no complex probably not something you want to move around alot.
Personally I would recomend a Gigabyte router with some sort of a NAS store all your movies on the NAS you then in the rooms that don’t have hard wired you can do wifi not sure how good this works I ve seen good posts and bad.
I am not super geniuos when it comes to this stuff but this is pretty much how I have mine My wife can access netfix always she can watch our movies most of the time without a hitch. I have a Netgear gigabyte router with a netgear stora NAS all hard wired with Cat6 and 2 live plusses and an Xbox with Kinect PS3 and a Wii.
Buy a WD TV Live Hub: to store my movie & music DVDs
Buy multiple WD TV Live Pluses: one for each room where I want to watch movies or a concert
Buy an Xbox with Kinect or a WII or a PS: BUT, this would be limited to just the one room where the gaming console is located; otherwise I need to have a gaming console for each room I want to play games in
Buy a Gigabyte router with NAS storage
Can you tell me what Netgear gigabyte router you have so I have an idea of what I need to look for?
Also, t=you have all 3 gaming consoles…a Xbox with Kinect, a WII, and a PS? If so, are they all in the same room?
The Netgear router is a WNR 3500L it has 4 hard wire ports in the back if you need more then you’ll have to buy a gigabyte switch I have a dynex 8 ports switch also.
The stora NAS is nice it has a usb port in the front and I put a 7 slot usb connector in that and it shows each hard drive I plug in as a separate folder and I have just piggybacked of that 7 slot with another 7 slot and that works too. I currently have 8 1TB portable drives with all my media on it. Plus the 1TB internal drive that the Stora comes with.
Yes all my gaming consoles is in one room I have kinda like a gaming room with my main computer in there also.
Another thing I would advise is that you plan on Backups for all your media I have complete backups for all my stuff and just recently Don’t know what it was but I lost all my media on one of my portable drives and it happened 3 times to date. It was not a huge deal cause I had the back up I just transfered back on it. For that I use regular SATA drives 2TB and when I get 2 portable drives on there I unplug it and put it in the safe. I have an off site computer for my computer back up in case of fire.
