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[icedragonslair]

Seeking advice for j River MC

Right now I have an UnRaid server (12TB) running great, It has all my media, organized in shares, correctly for XBMC.
I am thinking of making the change to JRiver since I really want to have a central DB, meaning I can stop the program in one room and picking it up from the same point in another.
I also like the ability to stream my content elsewhere if I want to.

I have done a little research but would love some advice on which way to approach this and the best way to set it up.

The gear I have listed directly below is what I have attached right now and it seems to be very clunky and each device is isolated. This is why I want to change my network and make it all work as one.

Equipment:

UnRaid Server: Gigabyte GA-H57-USB3, Intel i3-530 CPU, 4GB 1600mHz GSkill, 7 x WD20EVDS (6 JBOD, 1 Parity)(I have no cache drive at this point, but I will get an SSD if I need to), PCP&C 750W Quad EPS 12v Power Supply

Bedroom 1/2/3: 2 Blu-ray players and 1 (master) has Smart LED

Theater HTPC:  ASUS EVO H57, Intel i3-530 CPU, 8GB 1600mHz GSkill, 2 x 120gb Kingston HyperX 3K SATA III SSD’s, Corsair TX750 Power Supply

Thank you for any advice given here,

Ice

[MrHaugen]

I don't understand how the bluray players come in to this, but other than that I could give you a few pointers. As you know MC only works on Windows platform so far. UnRaid is linux, right? So, you'll have a problem installing MC on the server. If you have DLNA capable TV's, those can be used as DLNA recievers. Only other PC I see you having is the HTPC. So, you'll probably have to install the "server" there. You can add media through shares or mapped drives. This should be the same on server as well as clients. If you want to be able to stream and access content all the time, the server have to be on 24/7. You'll have to activate the Network options on the Server and enable some port forwarding on your router. Then you should be good to go. Sure, there will probably be some importing and setup issues, but I would suggest that you ask for help about such in separate threads.

If I were you, I'd think about getting a dedicated Windows server next to the UnRaid. Or to convert to a Windows installation on that server, and install MC there. You don't need a beast to run MC. Only a computer with a decent CPU. GPU is important when you want High Quality video settings and Theater View.

I don't know if this was the answer you were looking for? If not, please ask again, and we'll give you some more answers.

[icedragonslair]

Okay let’s take this one question/item at a time and see if JRiver is for me or do I have to keep looking elsewhere, with a little more history first.

Everything here currently works with XBMC (and has been since the release of eden 11.0), it just doesn’t work together as one system, each one acts as its own separate client and I am looking for something better. I used Mediabrowser for 2 years prior to this and had nothing but freezing issues. So as you can see I have been playing this game for a while now…lol. Now back to the questions.

1. Blu-ray players = LG BP620 Smart players so they actually read off my server right now without issue. I only mentioned the Blu-rays because that‘s what we use to control and view everything in those rooms due to the fact that they do everything the monitors do and more. We just switch between the inputs to select cable TV or home media (server).

2. All 4 monitors are DLNA capable as are the 4 PC’s (in those rooms) that are part of the network. The PC’s in 2 of the 4 rooms are not attached to the TV’s, my wife has enough problems dealing with the Blu-ray/Cable TV switching.

3. The HTPC is in the theatre and I was thinking of using it to run server side JRiver software.

4. The PC in the Master Suite is a set-top design/build of mine and is indeed part of the entertainment system and runs great with XBMC, but therein lies the problem. When watching a show/movie in the theatre and we move to the other room, we would like to have the show be able to continue in that room without starting it over, it just seems more seamless and more intelligent a solution. XBMC will do that now but it needs a lot of coding and modification to make it happen correctly.

5. Windows server & windows home server have way too many issues at this point to even make it viable… I also need a parity drive raid setup that can handle. I had a windows based server already and gave it up for unraid since it just works smoother and much simpler to deal with the maintenance. Not to mention the cost factor of mirroring vs. parity. Also all of the PC’s in the house run win7 pro 64bit, waiting to move up to Win8 pro media pack (software is here, just waiting for this to get done).

6. I also have an office that I manage the server from remotely (there is no keyboard/mouse/monitor), I also do all the scrapping, uploading to server and manage the shares from there.

So I guess my question really is will JRiver do what I need t to do or am I still looking for answer?

Thanks loads,
Ice

[MrHaugen]

Yes, it should do everything you've asked for. There's no reason why your DLNA devices should not work. If they don't, JRiver will most likely help adding support for it.

There are no need to have a 2008, 2003 server, home server or anything similar to run MC. It can just as easily be done by a client OS like Win7. I just mentioned a server because it has a role like a server, housing a 24/7 app like MC running as a server, and perhaps holds all the media. It's up to you if you want to use one of your clients as a server, or have a dedicated server for the media and/or MC server.

The way JRiver MC handles videos is that it uses bookmarks to figure out where you left of. It's a simple tag. This have to be synced to the server, then back to the other clients for you to be able to resume playback from other devices. You'll have to manually find and start the video you left watching in another room, and there is a slight delay for the bookmarks to be synced, but other than that it works like expected. The delay seems to be around 1-2 minutes from what I've seen. But I have not used this function much, and can not guarantee anything.

I'm sure UnRaid is great. But a cheap raid card, or even the built in HDD software raids can probably do almost the same job. And it can be run on windows. That leaves you with only one server and maintenance point. That's my point of view, and I know there are lots of opinions here. I love windows. It's the only thing I work with, and it does what I want. That might not be your case. So, you decide what suites you best as a server. I can not tell you otherwise.

If you do maintenance on a MC server, you CAN do this from a MC client on another Win machine. You'll just have to drop everything that can change something on the disk it self. Like renaming media files or adding or editing cover art. You'll have to log on to the server with Remote Desktop to do such things. The negative point here will be that you'll have to take over the session from a client PC running the "server". If you decide to use one of your HTPC's as a server.

That's all I got for not. Shoot again if you need something specific. I'd like to recommend testing it for your self though. It's not that hard to set up. It's mostly the Media Network settings that needs to be activated for it to start rolling.

[icedragonslair]

Thank you MrHaugen, I will give it a shot when I have a bit of time on my hands.

I too am a windows fanboy (I know it didn't sound that way at first) but as far as windows or windows based software is concerned i have yet to see anything parity based that is anywhere near as efficient or smooth and easy to setup as an unraid server, except possibly windows 8 pro storage spaces (also JBOD parity).

I am setting a client up this week with it and will get a chance to play win that to see how it works. I will post here with results.

[MrHaugen]

Perhaps you should take a look at disk pools. Or you might have already? It's supposed to be a new thing in Win7. I've not looked at it my self, but it should at least be an improvement of software based disk array solutions. I do not know about parity though.

[icedragonslair]

I have now looked at Disk Pools (storage spaces for windows , and I must say if the product ever matures to be able to use parity as it should be used, than this would be the answer.

I have also looked at Windows Server software and since the loss of home server (it's parity system was also woefully inadequate & slow for a true media server), also Microsoft really shot itself in the head (IMO) with the new server software since the price point will probably make so no one will use it at home, or possibly even in a small office environment.

I guess I will definitely have to wait until the product mature a bit more before actually having a decent full media experience, and since I can no longer test this software (never got the chance to since I didn't install it immediately after downloading it...who knew, right?), I will have to check out other products like servio or maybe even Win8 with xbmc primary and do the DB work to make it work correctly.

A better solution would be a mature JRiver server based on an unraid/Ubuntu Linux environment running together on an SSD cache drive would be so fast, responsive and probably the perfect solution.

Thanks for all your help with this.

Ice

[MrHaugen]

If you have not installed MC yet, the trial period should not kick in. Even if it did, you can ask one of the moderators for an extension.
There is really no better media center out there, and if you have to ditch MC because of this, it's a real shame. You should find a way of running a Windows client, connecting to your linux shares imo.

[csimon]

I'm not quite understanding what your questions are or objections are and why you feel unable to progress with MC, to be honest!  Is it because it's Windows-only?  It will work with media files stored on a NAS elsewhere...

I'm not sure about the "follow me" function, but I suspect you could do it with MC if you had several client PCs running MC and when you want to move from one to another then you can "link" the zones so that they are in sync. In theory, I think that should work.

Apart from that, MC is certainly a flexible, powerful, audiophile client/server media cataloguing, playing and distribution system - any more questions!!

[icedragonslair]

Sorry for necro'ng this thread and all, but I find myself with a few last questions now that I have done more research and am ready to take the leap (server expnded, etc.)

Not wanting to tie up one of my office PC's, am I better off just building a small mini-system (nettop type device etc), just to run the JRiver server on, then use my client systems (3) just to access and sync to the mini server, while just using it to access my shares on my unRaid server?

Are the system hardware requirements for running JRiver as a server the same as running it as a client?

[MrHaugen]

Yes and no. If you plan on ONLY using local playback (over the network), then no. The requirements are low. But as soon as you need any kind of transcoding from the server to the clients, then the hardware must be pretty much equal or better than local playback requirements. The server have to pay and then encode the stream. Perhaps to multiple sources at once. This is mainly used with DLNA or when the clients can't see the shares directly. You can also adjust the encoding on the server, reducing the quality for example. But it's probably not what most people want to do. At least not for their home network.