Appliances on Central Unraid Server **PROBLEMS with no apparent solution**

[garycase]

I can live with 9 seconds  :)

 

FWIW, the new PC I built for my wife a few months ago has a Core i7-4790 with a 512GB SSD ... boot time from pushing the button to desktop is ~ 20 seconds.  (~ 6 seconds to POST, 14 seconds to boot)

 

Heck, I could even live with that 

 

But 9 seconds is clearly better.    Wonder how fast it would boot OpenElec ...  [i suspect, however, that a 4790 with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD is a bit of overkill for that]

 

[garycase]

By the way (no spoilers) ... the season finale of Arrow that you're watching certainly leaves some interesting questions about what's going to happen in Season 4 !!   

 

[johnodon]

Just wait til you see the OE VM that jonp is working on. 

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=35802.0

 

It uses a single 300MB OE image file to run as many OE VMs as you want.  All OE configuration/settings files for each VM are saved in their  own folders on a cache only share.  Pretty slick.

 

There is also a status update thread buried in the KVM forum somewhere.

 

John

[jbrodriguez]

Longer term, there is definitely a potential use case for streaming the entire media center experience from one powerful server to remote displays throughout the home.  4k content will help push that envelope quite a bit.  Gaming is another good reason. Getting input devices to the remote display isn't a challenge as its possible with various methods and low latency, even over wireless.

 

Plex definitely offers a world of convenience, but where it falls short is in customization and high quality playback experience. Media enthusiasts love Kodi because of its myriad of codec support, high level of customization support for the UI, and wide 3rd party application support. When it comes to playback, transcoding is fine for a number of scenarios, but in my own personal experiences, it makes little sense to do it inside the home on a LAN except to mobile devices. Direct play is better suited to your TVs it offers higher quality A/V and less stress on the server at the same time.

 

What I'm getting at here is that we can have our cake and eat it too!  Why be forced to choose between two solutions (Kodi and Plex) when there is a perfectly viable way to get both?

 

@jonp, is this scenario possible ?

 

server: unRAID running a Windows 8.1 guest on KVM with GPU passthrough

workstation: "somehow connect" to the Windows guest to play PC games ?

 

By "somehow connect", I would think VNC, just not sure what the lag experience would be (on a gigabit wired network)

[c3]

Longer term, there is definitely a potential use case for streaming the entire media center experience from one powerful server to remote displays throughout the home.  4k content will help push that envelope quite a bit.  Gaming is another good reason. Getting input devices to the remote display isn't a challenge as its possible with various methods and low latency, even over wireless.

 

Plex definitely offers a world of convenience, but where it falls short is in customization and high quality playback experience. Media enthusiasts love Kodi because of its myriad of codec support, high level of customization support for the UI, and wide 3rd party application support. When it comes to playback, transcoding is fine for a number of scenarios, but in my own personal experiences, it makes little sense to do it inside the home on a LAN except to mobile devices. Direct play is better suited to your TVs it offers higher quality A/V and less stress on the server at the same time.

 

What I'm getting at here is that we can have our cake and eat it too!  Why be forced to choose between two solutions (Kodi and Plex) when there is a perfectly viable way to get both?

 

@jonp, is this scenario possible ?

 

server: unRAID running a Windows 8.1 guest on KVM with GPU passthrough

workstation: "somehow connect" to the Windows guest to play PC games ?

 

By "somehow connect", I would think VNC, just not sure what the lag experience would be (on a gigabit wired network)

 

Possible, yes. But as previously mentioned, the graphics end up being rendered twice (on the VM and on the display), increasing the overall GPU requirement (and power/heat/cooling/noise). The lag is not just the network, but also the time to render/capture/transfer/render.

[jonp]

Longer term, there is definitely a potential use case for streaming the entire media center experience from one powerful server to remote displays throughout the home.  4k content will help push that envelope quite a bit.  Gaming is another good reason. Getting input devices to the remote display isn't a challenge as its possible with various methods and low latency, even over wireless.

 

Plex definitely offers a world of convenience, but where it falls short is in customization and high quality playback experience. Media enthusiasts love Kodi because of its myriad of codec support, high level of customization support for the UI, and wide 3rd party application support. When it comes to playback, transcoding is fine for a number of scenarios, but in my own personal experiences, it makes little sense to do it inside the home on a LAN except to mobile devices. Direct play is better suited to your TVs it offers higher quality A/V and less stress on the server at the same time.

 

What I'm getting at here is that we can have our cake and eat it too!  Why be forced to choose between two solutions (Kodi and Plex) when there is a perfectly viable way to get both?

 

@jonp, is this scenario possible ?

 

server: unRAID running a Windows 8.1 guest on KVM with GPU passthrough

workstation: "somehow connect" to the Windows guest to play PC games ?

 

By "somehow connect", I would think VNC, just not sure what the lag experience would be (on a gigabit wired network)

Look up steam in home streaming, nvidia games stream, or even splashtop. This isn't just possible, you can do it with unraid RIGHT NOW!!!

 

[ysss]

Another point that baffles me is that this setup relies on HDMI/DVI/DP for bringing the image from the central server to the tv... that's all fine and dandy, since it gives the absolute maximum quality possible... but, it's also has a very short distance possible. So if you're centralizing because you need so many players, then it's likely that you'll have to spend more $$$ making the HDMI distribution channels... and when the cost of the player box is down to $50-100, it's very likely that your distribution cost (which is rigid too) will be easily higher than if you opt for distributed player\streamer model.

[dmacias]

... It boots in 3 seconds (on an NUC with an SDD) ...

 

THAT is really nice.    Guess I'll have to buy a bunch of NUC's ... just about any other system takes longer than that just to POST 

There is also an add on in Kodi for WMC so you can use it like an extender. Just no protected content like HBO. I haven't tried it though since I switched to mythtv awhile back and use the mythtv add on.

[danioj]

Well ...... I tested my design:

 

Unraid>Windows VM>Nested Openelec>USB3.0 to HDMI adapter>HDMI and USB 2.0 to Cat6e>Cat6e and USB 2.0 to HDMI>TV and IR receiver in Remote Bedroom.

 

with one VM.

 

Sort of works BUT doesn't work. The b/w throughput and lag was awful. Should have expected it but it as worth a shot and only cost me time with a hobby so I am happy. I managed to to return the convertor and extender equipment for a refund.

 

My alternative (which I have done in all rooms now not just the living room) is to buy more low end NUC's with 4GB memory and SSD's:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=40461.0

 

as the endpoints (running Openelec) and run my media library from a "Dockerised" MariaDB and Headless Kodi setup which is updated even when the endpoints are off and loaded when they boot up.

 

The closest I am going to get to what I wanted to achieve "I think" is the virtualisation of the gaming machine which is currently (and annoyingly) in the front room. I feel I am going to be able to virtualise this. Almost ALL the games run from this machine are run via Steam. So I am going to buy a VERY high end GFX card and put it in the main Unraid Server. Then I will create a SteamOS VM and get it running. Then I will buy the SteamLink:

 

http://store.steampowered.com/universe/link/

 

when it comes out in November which will stream the Unraid powered beast gaming VM (with the Highend GFX card passed through to it) to the HDTV over my Gigabit Network.

 

Thats the plan anyway! Hope it works.

[CHBMB]

Thanks Guys! I know that Plex seems to be the Goto for most people these days BUT I just hate it. I don't think you can get past Kodi. Plus the family are used to Kodi and know how to work it so it is VERY family friendly. I also like how I can customise the UI which helps everyone out which I can't do in Plex.

 

People seem to push low spec devices (and I am sorry I consider the Amazon Fire TV Stick to be one of them) BUT I have experienced that these don't work well with my Media Collection. All of my Movies have been ripped RAW from my BlueRay Disks with no compression in Video and Audio @ 1080p which results in a VERY big file (e.g. Matrix Revolutions ends up being ~39GB). As soon as I throw that at a lower spec'd device the device struggles (I've tried a Pi, Pivos Xios, Pivos DS and a unbranded Android box). However put it on a Celeron powered box with an SSD, 4GB of memory and a Gigabit LAN port running Openelec and Bob's your uncle! Flawless!

 

In addition - I HATE with a passion the whole apps running on an OS thing - like Android running Kodi (where you have to mess with startups and where a bad keyboard press can get the family back into Android)! I want an Appliance. Something that will boot up in seconds, requires NO interaction to run the Media Player software and more importantly with a reset or problem it all just comes back up! Which running Openelec just does!

 

Anyway - I am going to see if I can explore centralising if not - back to an NUC at each TV!

 

I'm a Kodi chap myself and agree with a lot of what you say.  I always build an Openelec HTPC after experimenting with a variety of App on OS type solutions.

 

Plex has a role & so may Emby (Still testing that one) for instance I use FireTV to allow my brother & parents access to my media collection remotely.