So you’ve got a lot of videos, home movies, pictures, etc., that you want to have access to from all of your devices and get them on your big screen. Sounds simple, right? Its anything but. With the huge amount of competition and proprietary solutions out there it can be very confusing and extremely frustrating trying to figure out what the “best” solution is.
Continue ReadingThe infrastructure I’ve had our media setup on has changed quite a bit over the years, too. When I first started streaming stuff, I was using UPNP servers to serve a D-Link streamer. It worked pretty well for the first generation of this type of product. I used DiVX to encode our DVD collection, and things weren’t bad. I then migrated to MythTV and things were significantly better. It could handle more video containers, more codecs, and it could handle our recordings. We used nothing bug Myth until about 3 years ago, when I got a deal on a Sony streaming box. The Sony device was clunky and not fun to use, but it did let us stream Netflix. It was quickly replaced with a Roku 3 that I picked up at Costco when it was on sale. That was the beginning of the end for MythTV.
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A couple months ago, my parents finally replaced their old Sony console TV (a tube TV) with a bright shiny new Samsung 60" Smart TV. Its a thing of beauty. The picture is crisp and sharp and has excellent color. Being one of Samsung’s Smart TV’s, it also has networking capabilities and can stream things from the Internet. It also has Netflix and Amazon Instant Video buttons right on the remote. It also includes an IR blaster to control the Comcast supplied DVR/cable box. Now they have just one remote, don’t have to change inputs or fiddle with things to stream movies and it has greatly simplified their setup. This is good because if its not easy to do and easy to remember, they won’t do it.
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