[Shop-talk] tv - home theater cabling problem

[Ronnie Day]

Thanks, Ian. I'll keep your offer in mind. I received the Tiny PC and the
Monoprice scaler/switch, but haven't plugged the switch into the system
yet. I'm just moving the HDMI cable from the 4K DVD player to the computer.
It's best to deal with only one variable at a time, IMO. I've "added" the
4K movies and files from the other large drive to the Plex library, but I'm
not getting smooth playback of the 4K files via Plex, however, they play
fine using VLC! 'Splain that one to me Lucy! I figure I have some Plex
configuration issues to sort out. It'll come as I learn more, I'm sure.
Once I get it all working as I want I'll start  getting ready to move the
hardware to my office, but no big hurry on that, unless the Boss decides
she wants closets built where the hardware is right now.

Ron

On Fri, Aug 21, 2020 at 10:21 AM Ian McFetridge <shop-talk2 at mcfetridge.org>
wrote:

> RD, I’ve had similar challenges with evolving AV tech (4K) and I’ve
> essentially done what you did (Plex server).  I’ve moved all of my movies,
> DVD, pictures, etc. onto a Synology Network Attached Storage (RAID 10) that
> runs Plex Server.  I have a mix of clients all over the house, everything
> from mini-PCs, to Amazon Fire sticks/boxes, and Nvidia Shields.  I’m not an
> expert, but I’ve been running Plex for about 10 years now if you have any
> questions.
>
> Best,
> Ian
>
> On Sat, Aug 15, 2020 at 3:03 PM Ronnie Day <ronnie.day at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> John & group -
>>
>> Things got complicated when I decided to playback 4K movie files from
>> hard drives or other removable devices. I've got a couple of USB3 8TB
>> drives full of movies. One is all 4K files. Some of these are formatted
>> slightly differently than others and require a seperate audio codec. plus
>> the TV has only 1 USB port. After posting questions to a worldwide media
>> list I've been on since the late '90s when I built my first digital A/V
>> editing system, the consensus was that I needed a "media player" to connect
>> the two hard drives to the TV, so I ordered a MyPin M29 media player, $60
>> from Amazon. It supported the file formats I needed, but it wouldn't let me
>> turn off subtitles/closed captioning (bummer) and I get frequent, subtle
>> "stuttering" in the audio (MAJOR bummer). If I plugged the 4K hard drive
>> into either my Mac or PC and used VLC, everything worked fine, but I want
>> to watch these movies on the 55 inch in our bedroom. An added problem was
>> that the output of the MyPin player is HDMI and I was already out of HDMI
>> ports on the TV. So, after several discussions with several folks, I
>> ordered a Lenovo M75 Tiny mini PC and plan to run Plex server as the core
>> of a home media server down the road. The hard drives plug into it, and
>> there's plenty of room for expansion.
>>
>> Now, how to get these additional souces into the TV? While working to
>> connect all of these input devices I noticed that TESmart has a 4 x 1 HDMI
>> switch. I'm using one of their KVM switches to let me control a couple of
>> Macs and a PC with a single keyboard and mouse for some time and it works
>> great. I sent their tech folks a note describing my issues with 4K and they
>> said try it. The switch was $25 and they offer a 30 day return.
>> Unfortunately it won't work with 4K so it's going back next week. After
>> talking to a Ford AV systems engineer in Austin that I've worked with
>> before, I ordered a Monoprice (31057) switch/scaler that Monoprice promises
>> will do what I need. It, too, has a 30 return.
>>
>> Sorry if i've been a bit long winded but setting up all of these boxe to
>> work together, especially with 4K is a bit complex. The reason I'm going
>> through all of this detail is that if anyone's not doing 4K video, all of
>> the simpler routing and switching should work fine. However, if you have
>> ANY thoughts of going to 4K, plan for that now. Hopefully I can save other
>> folks some blood, sweat & tears!
>>
>> RD
>>
>>
>>
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