Question Media Server for Two TVs

[WillyB88]

We have two different TVs that are only connected via the antenna. We are traveling with our kids soon and want to see what a relatively cheap and easy solution to setting up a media server.

We will be in many areas that do not have cell or wifi service so just looking for something to run on both tvs.

Thank you in advance for any help and advice.

 

[lemondrop9344]

Relatively cheap is very subjective. How are you storing existing media now? Conceptually, if you have a media server at your home, you need something somewhat similar in your RV.

 

[WillyB88]

Relatively cheap is very subjective. How are you storing existing media now? Conceptually, if you have a media server at your home, you need something somewhat similar in your RV.

everything is on a external HD that is running on a laptop and connected to PLEX. House runs on Roku's. The problem is we are going to be travelling a lot of places that have no service (wifi or very poor cell). So connecting to PLEX server at home is not going to work. Looking for something in the RV that can run independent of wifi.

I hope that makes sense.

 

[lemondrop9344]

OK, good answer.
I'm a big fan of Roku's. You can add them to the TV's in your RV, or, bring the ones from your home. Does PLEX run on a dedicated server (like a NAS device) or just your PC? I run PLEX on a Syhnology NAS connected to a cellular router/modem & distribute stored media to the TV's on the RV via ROKUs. On the surface it would seem all you would need is a router to manage the LAN in your RV.
Bring the stored media with you on the RV.

 

[CaptainGizmo]

I can consult with you for a whole coach processor that provides extra backend horsepower to take care of tasks within the Coach rather than constant work on the modem/router.

This custom processor has 4-6TB of storage and will act as a media server.

To do it right is not cheap, if you want best in class service, though. There is more to explain; PM if you’re interested.

Steve

 

[Neal]

I'm a big fan of Synology NAS units and have one at home and in the RV. At home I have a Synology 4 bay unit with SSD drives, max RAM, etc.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087Z34F3R/?tag=rvf01-20

In my RV I use a smaller 2 bay version:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087ZCBWFH/?tag=rvf01-20

Outstanding systems for backups, media servers, whatever your need.

 

[WillyB88]

OK, good answer.
I'm a big fan of Roku's. You can add them to the TV's in your RV, or, bring the ones from your home. Does PLEX run on a dedicated server (like a NAS device) or just your PC? I run PLEX on a Syhnology NAS connected to a cellular router/modem & distribute stored media to the TV's on the RV via ROKUs. On the surface it would seem all you would need is a router to manage the LAN in your RV.
Bring the stored media with you on the RV.

I have PLEX just running through my laptop. I don't have a dedicated NAS for it.

 

[MapNerd]

The big question you need to answer is whether or not you will need to transcode your video streams or if you’ve already stored them on the HD in a format that will not require transcoding for them to play on the client device(s)

To support multiple TVs with simultaneous streams, both requiring transcoding - you’re going to need something with a pretty good CPU and a decent amount of memory.

 

[lemondrop9344]

WillB88,
As I understand your requirement, you have media on a hard drive that you will process (as in generate a media stream) on you PC & distribute it to multiple TVs on your RV. You are presently using PLEX & ROKU devices to accomplish this at you home. You are looking for an inexpensive solution.
Inexpensive typically requires a little effort on the part of the person looking to save money. Depending on your technical acumen, this solution may be fairly easy to implement. On the other hand, it may appear to be such a 'Rube Goldberg' setup that you want nothing to do with it.
What I am proposing will work & the only possible out of pocket expense should be a wireless router to distribute the signals in the RV. You may already have one you can use.
I would take advantage of the existing ROKU's and use them to control the TV's on your RV. In lieu of using PLEX, I would install an open source application (VLC is a good one at $0.00 cost) to play the media. VLC: Official site - Free multimedia solutions for all OS! - VideoLAN. This application has built in codecs & will play just about any media. There are tutorials on line that instruct you on how to install it on the ROKU menu. Specifics will depend on what hardware equipment (PC & router) utilized.
You can run multiple instances of the VLC application on your PC, with each instance playing different media streamed to a specific ROKU via the wireless router.
As MapNerd indicated, you PC may not be able to have the horsepower to process multiple media streams.
With all said and done, unless you like tinkering with 'stuff' & spending time messing with PC 'stuff'....... I would invest in a NAS device. The Synology NAS devices run PLEX & take care of any transcoding.
Good luck.

 

[MapNerd]

@WillyB88, two questions

1. What format are your videos stored as on the hard drive? MPEG4? AVI? MOV?
2. What video player will you be using? Plex, Kodi, Emby, VLC, etc.

Using VLC is a great solution if you can as VLC will supports most video formats, which would mean no need for transcoding as the player (eg. client) already understands the format in which the video is stored.

If you can’t use VLC, then you need to know what video formats your player supports. If your video is stored in a format that your player doesn’t support, then transcoding is necessary. Transcoding just means converting from one presentation format to another. For example if you are using Plex and your video is stored in DivX format, then you need to transcode from DivX to one of the supported formats that Plex supports, such as MPEG4. This conversion process typically happens on the system hosting the video player. If Plex is installed as an app on your TV, you want to avoid transcoding and store the video on your drives in a format that Plex already supports because your TV will not have the processing capacity to both play and convert the video at the same time. If it were installed on something like a computer and your RoKu is just connecting, then that would work because the computer would do the transcoding work.

It’s pretty complicated to set up correctly. If you don’t understand any of the above, I would tell you to seek help from a professional otherwise you’re going to end up with a disappointing experience.

 

[WillyB88]

Thank you all for your help and suggestions. you all have been great and i appreciate all the possible solutions.

Just recently i have found and purchased a device that was originally intended to transfer pictures from my SD Card to my portable HDD.

This device: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07M6P618P/?tag=rvf01-20

This fit my needs for picture transfer on the road without the use of a computer. However, it also can set up and run a DLNA server from the device with a external HDD attached with our shows and movies. So, we will be taking our Roku units for the two TVs and using the DLNA servers to access shows on the Roku much like we do at home.

Hopefully this will solve our issues. We will also be running a Plex server at home and access that when we have an internet connection. fingers crossed it all works like it is supposed to.

 

[flyboy013]

I use Amazon Fire Sticks on each TV. They are connected to the coach’s WiFi network. I have installed the Kodi app on each FireStick and have configured a source which points to my network storage. For the network storage I use a RPi with an external HDD. I either use a NFS or SMB URL to access the RPi storage. You configure it in Kodi once and you're done.

If you’re looking for an even easier and simpler solution, you can use a splitter cable to connect the Fire Stick to power. The other splitter connection is a USB connector which I can plug a USB flash drive into. So I can load the content onto the flash drive and plug it into the splitter cable port and then watch the media via Kodi or even using the VLC app loaded onto a Fire Stick.

There are plenty of ways to do this. It's all about which "tools" you like using and how much money you want to spend and how easy you want it to be.