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Streaming Movies to Smart TV


demonmaestro

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It's difficult to say without knowing what TV you have, but I know that a fair few smart TVs can run a Plex client, so you would need to run the Plex Server on your Unraid box.

 

There are a fair few docker versions, but personally I would go with the Linuxserver.io version.  No doubt others will disagree..  ;)

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I don't have any experience with smart TV at all, I use my Openelec box for everything so I'm afraid other than suggesting Plex I can't help.

 

In my opinion it's worth the time organising your media according to the general standards as it makes it much easier to stream from and to a wide variety of devices.  I use Kodi, Openelec, Plex and Emby..

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I don't have any experience with smart TV at all, I use my Openelec box for everything so I'm afraid other than suggesting Plex I can't help.

 

In my opinion it's worth the time organising your media according to the general standards as it makes it much easier to stream from and to a wide variety of devices.  I use Kodi, Openelec, Plex and Emby..

 

I agree. Any media solution is going to expect a similar structure for the data. It's worth the time to get yourself inline with the accepted norms as it will open up a world of possible solutions for you. Maintaining a unique naming/organization structure is only going to complicate things in the long run.

 

Chances are that if you've done this because you believe you have a unique scenario, there is likely an accepted solution that will achieve the same (or similar) results, while still keeping you in the expected structure.

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Your Unraid machine is just a network server, it's all going to boil down to whether your TV can access the  media via a network share or not and whether it can play the media it finds there. (If the codecs are "readable" by your TV)

 

As this isn't really an Unraid support issue it's difficult to help, it's more of a LG support issue.

 

I can only really offer advice, TVs tend not to be able to decode as wide a range of video and audio codecs as HTPCs or indeed Android devices, which is one of the reasons Plex has been so popular on Smart TVs.

 

The Plex server that is installed on the Unraid box will transcode (convert) the media in real time (on the fly) to a suitable format for your television to cope with.

 

At the moment this is what you need to do to proceed.

 

1. Figure out if your TV can play media from a network share and if it can, then try it and see if it can cope with the formats that you have.  If it can then all well and good and you're sorted.

 

2.  If it can't, then as I see it you have two choices.  See if Plex can be run on your TV, in which case install the Plex server on your Unraid server and the client app on your TV, but like it or not you're going to have to rename stuff to fit in with convention.  There are programs to help with automating the renaming so it actually doesn't take that long and isn't as tedious as it sounds.  The second option would be to get a set top device to stream the media and output to your TV.

 

Hope that helps clarify things.

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No i use a different naming solution because my android devices i can browse my entire network directory with out any issues. I don't need a special program or server to serve my videos. It is just trying to get it to work on my smart tv is a different story.

 

Plex isn't a viable option anyway since you have the Atom Avaton for a server. Not enough grunt to transcode to multiple clients, if even one. Seems like an Kodi setup might work as it just catalogs media and leaves the playback to the client.

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... Plex isn't a viable option anyway since you have the Atom Avaton for a server. Not enough grunt to transcode to multiple clients, if even one. Seems like an Kodi setup might work as it just catalogs media and leaves the playback to the client.

 

I'd certainly think an Atom C2758 could transcode a single stream with no problem -- it scores 3758 on PassMark, which is more than any of the G series Pentiums and most i3's.

 

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All the file formats are mp4 or m4v. Both formats the TV can read. I put the movies on a thumb drive and have no issues playing the movies.  It would just be nice to use the network for streaming instead of using the USB method.

 

Look carefully at your SMART TV's menus => not all, but many of these TVs can browse a network ... and if so, you should be able to directly play them via that connection.

 

How is your TV connected to your network?  Wired?  Wireless? ... and are you sure it's on the same subnet as your home network?

 

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All the file formats are mp4 or m4v. Both formats the TV can read. I put the movies on a thumb drive and have no issues playing the movies.  It would just be nice to use the network for streaming instead of using the USB method.

 

Look carefully at your SMART TV's menus => not all, but many of these TVs can browse a network ... and if so, you should be able to directly play them via that connection.

 

How is your TV connected to your network?  Wired?  Wireless? ... and are you sure it's on the same subnet as your home network?

 

It is wired and yes it is on the same network.

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So, the TV is on the network and it's wired, you know you can play the media as you've tried it with a thumb drive, so you should be good.

 

Unless any of the guys here have the same TV you're probably going to have to do some of the legwork from here..

 

DLNA would probably be the way forward if you don't want to use Plex, but it's not something I've ever bothered with, not enough eye candy for me...

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