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Using WHS as a Direct Media Center RRS feed

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    Hi All,

    So I did some tinkering with WHS 2003 and had it setup with a HDMI Video card and 5.1 sound. Streaming movies from a NAS onto my HD TV. I use an old Sony VAIO destop which I installed myself. Bought DVD Codecs, Installed WMP with the help of this forum on how to force that install. In all, it worked very, very well and a connected HDMI Entertainment scenter and a server. Run a bit slow sometimes and had to kill processes/program and prioritize WMP. But, it work well. I would run WMP directly from the WHS destop (not remotely) and stream via HDMI to the HD TV.

    You may ask "why would anyone do that?", well I started with a NAS at first for about a year, had allot of movies and music. But didn't want to try to transfer all that data to the WHS. Plus a like to tinker.

    Was wondering if anyone has successfuly been able to crack the WMP installation as was done before on this forum for the WHS 2003.

    Wednesday, August 17, 2011 3:10 AM

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    Yeah, I know. This really came about because I already had 2Tb of movies on a NAS and all in ISO format. This was long before I had the WHS V1. Once I converted my desktop into a WHS for the benifits, I lost my media tower. And there is no DLNA compliant devise that will mount iso file on the fly. At least not that I know of. And I wasn't going to go through and convert all those movies. So started my tinkering with the WHS v1. And like I said, it works quite well.

    And I now want to take advantage of the WHS v2, so migrating to the same setup is one of my goals.


    Just a heads up, if you want to be able to play ISO files streamed to your network there are inexpensive set-top boxes you can get to do this for you. I have a Western Digital Live Plus HD box. Tiny little thing but man it's powerful. It has built in DLNA capabilities, but it can also detect multiple sources sharing media.  You can use WHS for what is intended - backups, or have it stream videos contained within its own drives within it's supported containers. Use your NAS to stream your ISO's. The WD Live Plus HD will play them just fine. Thats what I'm doing now. I wasted so much time looking for information on how to do exactly what you want it to do, and the results are mixed. I can easily find my media across multiple sources. It reads ISO formats just fine (My wife loves retaining the menu's in her movies, and this method supports it). They look as if I have a dvd or blue-ray disk in the blue-ray player. And yes its native true HD (1080p) and has a HDMI connetor.

    The WD Live Plus HD is not the only box that is out there that supports ISO streaming.  This is just the unit I have experience with.  I suggest keep looking. Visit your local BestBuy and find the media center that fits your needs. For me it was 3rd party support/modification which I found through custom firmware (search for B-rad on google). And if your a Netflix person, it has built in off-the-shelf support for it.

     

    File Formats Supported
    Video - AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB/ISO, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9, FLV (h.264)
    Photo - JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
    Audio - MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS
    Playlist - PLS, M3U, WPL
    Subtitle - SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI

    Note:
    • MPEG2 MP@HL up to 1920x1080p24, 1920x1080i30 or 1280x720p60 resolution.
    • MPEG4.2 ASP@L5 up to 1280x720p30 resolution and no support for global motion compensation.
    • WMV9/VC-1 MP@HL up to 1280x720p60 or 1920x1080p24 resolution. VC-1 AP@L3 up to 1920x1080i30, 1920x1080p24 or 1280x720p60 resolution.
    • H.264 BP@L3 up to 720x480p30 or 720x576p25 resolution.
    • H.264 MP@L4.1 and HP@4.1 up to 1920x1080p24, 1920x1080i30, or 1280x720p60 resolution.
    • An audio receiver is required for multi-channel surround sound digital output.
    • Compressed RGB JPEG formats only and progressive JPEG up to 2048x2048.
    • Single layer TIFF files only.
    • Uncompressed BMP only.
    • For details, please refer to the user manual.
    File Formats Not Supported
    Does not support protected premium content such as movies or music from the iTunes® Store, Movielink®, Amazon Unbox™, and Vongo®

    • Marked as answer by YoyiNari Thursday, September 8, 2011 2:36 AM
    Wednesday, August 31, 2011 5:13 AM
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    Thanks for the great info Carlos. Maybe I was confining myself within the box (WHSv1), when I should hav ebeen thinking outside the box. I'll look into that WD Live Plus unit or something similar. And even if this is a cheaper and easier way to go, once I get the WHS2011, i love a chanllenge, I'll be trying the same thing.

    Thanks

    • Marked as answer by YoyiNari Thursday, September 8, 2011 2:35 AM
    Thursday, September 8, 2011 2:35 AM

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    Windows Media Player is installed as part of the core OS under Windows Home Server 2011. That said, Windows Home Server isn't designed for use as a home theater PC; you will have a dramatically better media experience if you use Windows 7.
    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Wednesday, August 17, 2011 10:30 AM
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    Is this due to hardware or software? If I do go this route I'll do it for the WHS, Media Server capability will be a bonus. Plus I will be using a PC that was a Media Center in the first place. Not an HP WHS tower. So it will have the Hardware (Video, Audio, CPU, and Ram) that can stream HDMI already. Again, if you believe its software, do you have any more info on the specific limitations?

     

    Thanks

    Wednesday, August 17, 2011 9:30 PM
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    Sounds like a software problem to me. WMP appears under the list of installed programs on my WHS machines.
    Phil P.S. If you find my comment helpful or if it answers your question, please mark it as such.
    Wednesday, August 17, 2011 9:50 PM
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    You should really look over the Windows Home Server section of the Microsoft web site, to get a better picture of what it's intended to do.

    If you want to deliver data to DLNA compliant devices, though, that will be fine. If you want a home theater PC, complete with tuners, PVR capbility, 10' interface, etc. you will be disappointed.

    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Wednesday, August 17, 2011 10:01 PM
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    I'm familiar with WHS and its intented functions, in fact, I resently had a OS crash/coruption and I uses my WHS 2003 to restore the image back to my hard drive. Worked flawlessly. Except the fact that the start up disk boot S/W could not detect my WHS until I disconnected averything off my network, even wireless devises. That could have been a tip in the Docs somewhere. Otherthan that, I was happy. And I use it to store pictures and publish to the web via an add on.

    The bonus comes when I can use it as a media server to stream my ISO movie files to my HD TV is 1080i/5.1 sound. Yeah its not a full Media Senter but it works.

    So from what i'm hearing is that it is just as possible to set up a WHS 2011 setup similar to my existing WHS 2003. Plus the new features. And if WHS 2011 already has WMP installed, then I don't have to go through that trouble like I did on WHS 2003.

     

    Thanks

    Wednesday, August 17, 2011 11:51 PM
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    So I did some tinkering with WHS 2003 and had it setup with a HDMI Video card and 5.1 sound. Streaming movies from a NAS onto my HD TV.

    This sounds quite complicated compared to just using WHS and Windows 7 as intended.

    You realize that WHS *is* a NAS, right?  By keeping your media in network-attached WHS libraries, you can stream to your TV in multiple ways: 

    1. Use a Windows 7-based HTPC directly connected to your TV

    2. Using an Xbox 360 as a set top box (streaming directly via the native dashboard, or as an extender to a Windows 7 HTPC on your network)

    3. Use another TV-connected DLNA-compatible set top device, such as a Sony PS3. 

    Trying to force WHS into being a TV-connected device and streaming from an external NAS box might be doable, but seems much harder than it needs to be.

    • Proposed as answer by Ken Warren Thursday, August 18, 2011 3:01 PM
    Thursday, August 18, 2011 2:56 PM
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    Yeah, I know. This really came about because I already had 2Tb of movies on a NAS and all in ISO format. This was long before I had the WHS V1. Once I converted my desktop into a WHS for the benifits, I lost my media tower. And there is no DLNA compliant devise that will mount iso file on the fly. At least not that I know of. And I wasn't going to go through and convert all those movies. So started my tinkering with the WHS v1. And like I said, it works quite well.

    And I now want to take advantage of the WHS v2, so migrating to the same setup is one of my goals.

    Friday, August 19, 2011 1:45 AM
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    Yeah, I know. This really came about because I already had 2Tb of movies on a NAS and all in ISO format. This was long before I had the WHS V1. Once I converted my desktop into a WHS for the benifits, I lost my media tower. And there is no DLNA compliant devise that will mount iso file on the fly. At least not that I know of. And I wasn't going to go through and convert all those movies. So started my tinkering with the WHS v1. And like I said, it works quite well.

    And I now want to take advantage of the WHS v2, so migrating to the same setup is one of my goals.


    Just a heads up, if you want to be able to play ISO files streamed to your network there are inexpensive set-top boxes you can get to do this for you. I have a Western Digital Live Plus HD box. Tiny little thing but man it's powerful. It has built in DLNA capabilities, but it can also detect multiple sources sharing media.  You can use WHS for what is intended - backups, or have it stream videos contained within its own drives within it's supported containers. Use your NAS to stream your ISO's. The WD Live Plus HD will play them just fine. Thats what I'm doing now. I wasted so much time looking for information on how to do exactly what you want it to do, and the results are mixed. I can easily find my media across multiple sources. It reads ISO formats just fine (My wife loves retaining the menu's in her movies, and this method supports it). They look as if I have a dvd or blue-ray disk in the blue-ray player. And yes its native true HD (1080p) and has a HDMI connetor.

    The WD Live Plus HD is not the only box that is out there that supports ISO streaming.  This is just the unit I have experience with.  I suggest keep looking. Visit your local BestBuy and find the media center that fits your needs. For me it was 3rd party support/modification which I found through custom firmware (search for B-rad on google). And if your a Netflix person, it has built in off-the-shelf support for it.

     

    File Formats Supported
    Video - AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB/ISO, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9, FLV (h.264)
    Photo - JPEG, GIF, TIF/TIFF, BMP, PNG
    Audio - MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS
    Playlist - PLS, M3U, WPL
    Subtitle - SRT, ASS, SSA, SUB, SMI

    Note:
    • MPEG2 MP@HL up to 1920x1080p24, 1920x1080i30 or 1280x720p60 resolution.
    • MPEG4.2 ASP@L5 up to 1280x720p30 resolution and no support for global motion compensation.
    • WMV9/VC-1 MP@HL up to 1280x720p60 or 1920x1080p24 resolution. VC-1 AP@L3 up to 1920x1080i30, 1920x1080p24 or 1280x720p60 resolution.
    • H.264 BP@L3 up to 720x480p30 or 720x576p25 resolution.
    • H.264 MP@L4.1 and HP@4.1 up to 1920x1080p24, 1920x1080i30, or 1280x720p60 resolution.
    • An audio receiver is required for multi-channel surround sound digital output.
    • Compressed RGB JPEG formats only and progressive JPEG up to 2048x2048.
    • Single layer TIFF files only.
    • Uncompressed BMP only.
    • For details, please refer to the user manual.
    File Formats Not Supported
    Does not support protected premium content such as movies or music from the iTunes® Store, Movielink®, Amazon Unbox™, and Vongo®

    • Marked as answer by YoyiNari Thursday, September 8, 2011 2:36 AM
    Wednesday, August 31, 2011 5:13 AM
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    Just a note about the WD device, and other similar devices: they don't stream .iso files. They do read/play them from network (SMB/Samba) shares, assuming permissions have been set appropriately.

    A .iso file is a disk image; it could contain any type of data, so it can't be streamed as is...

    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)
    Wednesday, August 31, 2011 1:17 PM
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    Just a note about the WD device, and other similar devices: they don't stream .iso files. They do read/play them from network (SMB/Samba) shares, assuming permissions have been set appropriately.

    A .iso file is a disk image; it could contain any type of data, so it can't be streamed as is...

    I'm not on the WHS team, I just post a lot. :)


    True. I used the word stream when I should have said read/play. But I think for what this individual wants, is to be able to view his movies that are within an ISO image on his NAS, to his TV with minimal configuration. As he originally wanted to have his NAS read/viewable by Windows Media Server 2011 and have the contents "streamed" or transmitted to his tv, which is not possible with Windows Media Server 2011.  A device similar to the WD Live Plus could facilitate in reading those ISO files on that NAS and it would suffice. He could there for continue to use Home Server 2011 to serve any avi/xvid/mkv/etc movies, photo's, or any music he wishes to his tv via DLNA as a lot of these devices are DLNA compliant. Win Win and inexpensive.  I've seen these media player units at Walmart starting at $50. The WD Live Plus was around $90 (on sale) a year ago at bestbuy. Why re-invent the wheel if you don't have to?

    Thursday, September 1, 2011 12:48 AM
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    Thanks for the great info Carlos. Maybe I was confining myself within the box (WHSv1), when I should hav ebeen thinking outside the box. I'll look into that WD Live Plus unit or something similar. And even if this is a cheaper and easier way to go, once I get the WHS2011, i love a chanllenge, I'll be trying the same thing.

    Thanks

    • Marked as answer by YoyiNari Thursday, September 8, 2011 2:35 AM
    Thursday, September 8, 2011 2:35 AM