Home Streaming Media Server

[BrianG]

Well, got IIS set up, but I didn't like MySQL. There were a few SQL inconsistencies compared to Microsoft's SQL Server (which is what I'm used to since I use it at work exclusively). So, I ended up uninstalling MySQL and using SQL Express 2012.

Getting SQL Express to work was pretty simple, but connecting SQL Server Management Studio client tools from my PC to the server was a bit of a chore. It's just a firewall issue, but even though SSMS is supposed to use port 1433, opening those ports on TCP and UDP didn't help. I ended up opening all ports, but only for traffic coming from my specific computer's IP address. Again, this was just for SSMS. If I wanted to stand at my TV screen and develop the DB part of the app from there, I wouldn't have needed to go through all that.

I started doing the web app coding. So far, just the basic site framework, menus, styles, images, etc is done, but at least it's a functioning site with database connectivity. I can access the site via IP address from any device/computer on my LAN, which was the intent.

Between all that, I'm still ripping DVDs to disc. What a PITA.

[BrianG]

Well, more progress!

All DVDs (544 total) have finally been ripped to ISO files. All those iso's, music mp3's, etc all fit on a 3TB drive with a little over 600GB to spare. Everything has also been duplicated onto an external 3TB drive.

The kids' PC has been set up to run Windows Media Center as well, except it is set up to get its media files from the server rather than storing them locally.

Here are a couple pics of the media center PC itself. Don't mind the substandard woodwork, but the entertainment center had glass doors and that won't do at all with kids around (not to mention poor cooling). So, I made a new door with a ~2mm thick steel screen to provide protection and cooling. I also had to fab a new shelf since the existing shelves were too short for the PC's depth.






I also finished the web music player. It was designed with the intent to run in any web browser, including/especially a cell-phone, so the interface is rather simple/spartan and links/buttons were sized up for easier use on a phone without having to zoom in.

After searching around for a while, I decided on a Flash-based player. However, since all their interfaces were rather small, I ended up using this player, completely hiding the interface, and manually scripting all the functions. The buttons on the interface were "borrowed" from a screen-shot of Windows media player, just resized and rearranged a bit. Operation is pretty simple: enter in some search text (supports partial matches) and the results automatically become the "playlist". You can either step through the songs via the buttons, or click the song link from the results section. The interface supports shuffle and repeat as well. Getting the web server to "know" where to find the MP3s from the browser was a simple matter of creating a virtual directory in IIS and pointing it to where the files are stored.

The other day, I used the web player on my phone while mowing the lawn and it worked swimmingly.

Here is a screen grab of the web music player with a search for "GNR" as an example:




As far as the web site goes, the "Music" link brings up the MP3 player, the "Movies" link will bring up the video player, and the the "Administration" menu item is where I can manage parameters, and rebuild music/video libraries.

When the site rebuilds the music libraries (only needed when files are added/changed/removed), the server simply scans specific folders for all applicable files on the server and saves the paths/filenames in the database. This is because file-system operations are much slower than database queries (relatively speaking), so doing this makes web searches much faster with less CPU overhead.

The site is all parameter-driven via the web interface; media file paths (physical and virtual), media file extensions (each media type can support multiple file extensions), etc can be adjusted on the fly separately for MP3's, videos, and recorded TV (not sure if the recorded tv will stay though).

So, that's it for now. I am starting to look more closely at video transcoding options, so it might be a while until the next update.