[motorider]

hello all,

first off I would like to thank all the developers and those that make this software what it is today.

i have been using xbmc on my main pc for a while now and running a second video output to my tv via hdmi. Now I am going to move my pc to a bedroom and have built a new dedicated machine. it is currently running windows 7 ultimate 64bit. The machine is as follows:

Silverstone grandia gd-07
Silverstone 400W silent fanless p.s.
Asus f2 A85-M Pro Mainboard
AMD 5400k APU
8gb ddr 3
Silverstone TEK Cooler

Now what I want to do with the pc is to make it like a server. it currently houses 7 hard drives with 12 TB of storage. I will eventually add more. in the meantime i want to use the box to play movies, music and what not to my home theater. XBMC will be the exclusive software that i want to function more like an appliance. in the background i want to be able to stream the media to my pc, laptop and second tv in the bedroom. the other devices will be connected via gigabit Ethernet.

So the box will serve 2 purposes. one will be to play media like an appliance for my family to enjoy and the other is to provide all other machines and devices on the network with the same media via streaming of some sorts. This is where my knowledge drops off. I am not sure what operating system i should be running. Netflix is a must as well as the other streaming providers as i do not have cable any longer. i have read a lot of data here, but im just as lost as i was before.

so can this box be both a server in the background and a media machine upfront? any help would be greatly appreciated. at least point me in the right direction. if i know what to look for i can figure it out from there

[motorider]

Just some FYI, I rip all of my blurays to iso. All of my music is apple lossless. Everything else will be streamed media from Netflix or some other service.

Also I have set up the new box to share using windows sharing. On my PC I just mapped the drives from the box. This works for computers, but how do I stream to my phone and other devices

Thanks for the advice

[Neroes]

well, what kind of phones and other devices are we talking about, iphones, win, android phones, ec.

if you are using windows sharing, you may be able to use the share media function instead, it works with somethings, though not all

also if you want to have a dedicated server i recommend setting up an MySQL on you dedicated server, that way you don't have to have multiple databases of the same thing, and xbmc doesn't delete your database if it can't find the computer on the network
(see http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW...g_up_MySQL )
this way xbmc doesn't have to running on the machine for the other machines to connect to it's database

you can use netflix with pritty much any OS though their software is mainly made for windows so if you are still not that good with these things i surgest windows

i use a system similar to this where i run windows 8 and use win+tab to shift between the netflix app and xbmc, i just boot up start the netflix then start xbmc and i'm good to go

[motorider]

I'm want to stream to ipad 4, galaxy nexus, galaxy s3, kindle HD fire, tv in bedroom, and I guess that is about it for now. I was hoping to not have this be a dedicated server as it sits at thetv in the living room. If it can do both that is great. I will check out the MySQL.

Thank you for the idea

[Neroes]

as far as i know you can't use xbmc to stream to a phone, you can use your phones and ipad as a remote to the xbmc computers
the ipad may be able to run one of the ios versions though i'm unsure.
no idea about the kindle

[awp0]

I do this. I have a Windows box with 6 TB of media. It runs XBMC for my living room, and it also serves media to some other clients. For example, it serves media to a RaspberryPi XBMC in the bedroom, it runs iTunes which serves music to various Airport Express "zones", and it has Plex for access to media over the web and iOS devices.

It's working flawlessly right now, but it did take some time to fine tune. I have an app that keeps XBMC "on top" so that any popup messages (updates, etc) stay behind XBMC. I use SAMBA and MySQL library sharing with the RaspberryPi so everything stays in sync. Windows has turned out to be very reliable and my 4-person family loves the setup! I recently ditched my cable box and my Boxee Box and my ATV2 for this setup.

One issue you will find is Netflix. I don't know how or if anyone has managed to create a good XBMC/Netflix experience in Frodo. Netflix recently killed their API, so it's hard to imagine another plugin coming to XBMC. There are launchers that can launch external apps from inside XBMC, but I don't think Netflix has proper remote control support in their windows app. My advice? Buy a Roku to go alongside XBMC. Or, if you're content with SD content, you can buy PlayOn.