Media player suggestions

[blue_nova]

>multiple users can stream different files, although you may quickly run into bandwidth
plex server must be ethernet wired to router, router should be dual band. Depending
on location and *other* RFI on boat (radars), usually the 5G band will work best.

>media player/hard drive in each room works well for us.
until you want to add/update content, then you need to update all drives.
otoh, no single point of failure except power.

 

[Capt. Bill1]

True. But adding files to each drive is a maybe once a year deal.

No one seems to mind that we only have 900 or so movies/TV show episodes on the drives.

Of course the other reality is with all the boats I've run, for charter and otherwise, very few people watch many, if any, movies on a trip. Unless it's a real rainy day or its back ground noise to fall asleep to.

They seem to watch mostly SAT TV. With some internet TV thrown in. But that can be iffy depending on the quality of the connection.

 

[PascalG]

Yes same here. Most charter guests don't care much about watching movies but when some do... You gotta have it

 

[mixman]

I totally get the non-streaming thing considering where you go. Would a DVR system like the Hopper from Dish Network fill in the gaps? On-demand from the hard drive to any connected TV.

 

[PascalG]

Not sure about DVRs, they re limited in capacity and don't contro l the content... Ex it when it fails and get replaced you start from scratch, plus we re set for directtv so chain everything do dish isn't an option.

I tried Plex. They claims it works without Internet access however I haven't been able to make it work when the Internet is down. A quick online search shows mNy people complaining about this, apparently Plex recently changed something in the server software and as soon as the connection goes down, you loose access to your local media. Pretty stupid.

Going to try infuse. It's a nice media player which can play just about any format, I've had it on my iPad for a while but now they have an AppleTV version. It doesn't seem to require Internet except to download metadata.