[mccorkled]

I am hoping to hear from some experts or anyone with any awesome tips to help me finish my setup. I have been working on this project (mostly the games) for about 6 years now and I would really like to wrap it all up here soon. I am using Kodi as my main front end that pulls from my Synology server running Plex and launches Hyperspin for my games. I will get into much more specific detail further down.

PC:
Moneual MonCaso 932 HTPC Case with 7" touch screen

stock image

Intel Core i7-6700K 8M Skylake Quad-Core 4.0
Corsair Hydro Series H75 CPU Water Cooler
ASUS Z170 Ppr Gaming Motherboard
G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 64GB (4 x 16GB)
EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (I HATE this POS)
Samsung 850 EVO M.2 2280 250GB SATA III
LG Black 16X Blu-Ray ReWriter w/ 3D Playback

SERVER:
Synology 3615xs
8x WD Red 8TB NAS Hard Disk Drives

I used to have a Drobo (still do if anyone is interested in purchasing it with drives included 29TB total. $2,700) and I needed more storage so I moved up to the Synology device. Synology has a bunch of applications that you can run directly off the server that handles most anything. I recently learned about Docker and Linux containers which were a huge pain to setup the other day but now that it is all working it's great. The containers are a better way to run programs because they do not alter the Synology in any way and rather... run in a container. Anyways, I am running Radarr, Sonarr, Lidarr, LazyLibrarian, SABnzbd, and Plex off of the server currently. Working on trying to get Calibre and Lychee working currently.

Here is a video of our setup.

As you can see, the HTPC case is great for displaying console information and then game information. I set this up using HyperMarquee and EDS. My Hyperspin theme is AeonNox. I was helping to work on this theme but I was banned over at HS because I did not like the way the mods were treating paid members. Anyways... everything is finally working great and I am really happy about everything. As I mentioned, I have got into a lot of other projects since I was last here and one of those projects happens to be building a tiny home. You can read all about that here. Sasquatters

We are planning on making it very modern inside and one of the things we would like to do is bring our home theater setup into the bus. We have a 64" curved Samsung right now but we will be down grading to something like a 32-36" Samsung but we have a screen and projector for watching movies on the rooftop deck. We also want to make it a smart home using the Synology as the main hub but this has not been looked into very much.

So...

Does anyone have any ideas or anything really that can help bring this setup to the next level? We have all of the hardware to make it happen, but just lack ideas. Perhaps there is nothing else we can do and we have reached the end? I hope not, I need more tech in my life! Hope to hear some great ideas.

[curtn]

Great setup. I have the same case, but am new to Kodi, and am trying to gain some information. Could you provide a summary of what software you installed on your HTPC? I had tried following the Moneual manual, but things didn't turn out nearly as clean looking as the setup you have.

If it's too involved to describe how you set up your system, any references you could point me to would be greatly appreciated.

Curt

[nickr]

I think a 64 inch screen in a house bus is about right

No doubt you'd want to reduce power consumption as much as possible, and I would ditch the power hungry PC an go for a raspberry pi/odroid c2 or arm based s905 box (in all cases with LibreELEC.

Also IMHO an important part of enjoying movies is a good sound system. 5.1 is a minimum for me. But if I was building a space from scratch I would allow for 7.1 + ceiling speakers for Atmos/DTS:X. Whether you cn fit hat in your bus is another matter LOL.

[mccorkled]

Great setup. I have the same case, but am new to Kodi, and am trying to gain some information. Could you provide a summary of what software you installed on your HTPC? I had tried following the Moneual manual, but things didn't turn out nearly as clean looking as the setup you have.

If it's too involved to describe how you set up your system, any references you could point me to would be greatly appreciated.

Curt

Well I use the iMon software that comes with the case. Unfortunately it's no longer supported. The weather doesn't work, and it doesn't for most. Years ago I fixed it by editing some config file in the appdata folder but I forgot to back it up and no the weather doesn't work again. I also changed the RSS feeds within iMon to be about science and technology news instead of who's shooting who this week. Lastly, I used Event Dispatch System and HyperMarquee to display game/console information upon hover and load. I also am using the Aeon Nox skin which I really liked at first since it matched the Kodi Aeon Nox skin, but I have since switched Kodi over to the Arctic Zephyr skin since it's super clean and more modern (like the bus will be) and now I am a bit unhappy with the Hyperspin theme.

I was considering switching to a different front end for the emulators, but then my custom HyperSpin remote theme, and HyperMarquee will not work. From what I have found, there is still no elegant designs for game front ends and I hope they soon catch up to the skins offered by the designers that do good work here. Once you get those programs installed, if you need more help let me know and we can do a TeamView or something.

I think a 64 inch screen in a house bus is about right

No doubt you'd want to reduce power consumption as much as possible, and I would ditch the power hungry PC an go for a raspberry pi/odroid c2 or arm based s905 box (in all cases with LibreELEC.

Also IMHO an important part of enjoying movies is a good sound system. 5.1 is a minimum for me. But if I was building a space from scratch I would allow for 7.1 + ceiling speakers for Atmos/DTS:X. Whether you cn fit hat in your bus is another matter LOL.

I made a really powerful NES PC years ago. I need something bigger than a Pi because we play a lot of systems such as Wii U, and PS3, that the Pi just cannot handle. We were looking into Sonos systems since they are wireless and can be controlled via ISY99i home automation controllers. I am hope to have full offline (local) automation in the the bus. I have been gathering a lot of info but there is not much.

[nickr]

Something like Home Assistant may be preferred, it is open source and in very active development.

[mccorkled]

Something like Home Assistant may be preferred, it is open source and in very active development.

I actually have HA installed on the NAS. I will be using the ISSY controller along side with it. I think that's how it works anyways. I have not purchased any Insteon devices yet. We will see as the bus progresses and we get some electric in there. I added a new video in the op.