Building and setting up Mac media server?

[macunkie]

I have a basic idea that I'm hoping someone can get me started with.
Basically, I want to be able to serve my dvd's that I've converted to mpeg4 directily to my home entertainment center. I want to store my mpegs on my server and stream them to my panasonic HDTV.

What is the best way to get the video and audio signal from my server to one of the component connections on my Tv?

What hardware do I need to get the best picture and sound to my system?

Thanks for any help?

MacUnkie

[rumplestiltskin]

El Gato's EyeHome. $199. Wired Ethernet. Will also do wireless if you have the appropriate hardware (wireless router or AirPort Base Station).

http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyehome

I am not sure, however, whether the EyeHome will support HDTV signals. Check their website.

[macsyrinx]

I use Elgato's EyeHomehttp://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyehome. Hardwired from comp to system. s-video for video and optical audio for VIDEO_TS folders. As far as .mp4 sound, I would assume you would use the component audio cables. We leave the DVDs intact if we like them and watch them on our system through our EyeHome from our Mac. Cool thing is quality is almost the same as having the disc in the player and it doesn't matter PAL, NTSC, or SECAM. That's my opinion based on what we do.

[rumplestiltskin]

If your server is close enough for direct cabling, another possibility is the use of the appropriate adapter to convert DVI to component.

I wonder, however, if your mpeg4 from the ripped DVD's even requires component to display the quality of the resulting compression. Are the DVD's "HD" or are the mpeg4 files just 640x?

[macunkie]

I use Elgato's EyeHomehttp://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyehome. Hardwired from comp to system. s-video for video and optical audio for VIDEO_TS folders. As far as .mp4 sound, I would assume you would use the component audio cables. We leave the DVDs intact if we like them and watch them on our system through our EyeHome from our Mac. Cool thing is quality is almost the same as having the disc in the player and it doesn't matter PAL, NTSC, or SECAM. That's my opinion based on what we do.

Thanks MacSyrinx, it looks like the EyeHome is just what I need. I've done a "basic" test with the compression thing, (720x304) and the quality of my mp4 using http://handbrake.m0k.org/ seems to be very good. I'm testing for now with my 1.25Ghz PowerBook and s-video out to my system. I'm attempting to do the "compression thing" as opposed to the streaming from the VIDEO-TS folders to save space. The only thing I'm concerned with is few things: 1.) By compressing to mp4 I'm loosing the 5.1 sound? ( Not sure if this is encoded in the mp4 using Handbrake. 2.) Should I upgrade to at least a 1.8 G5 to run my media server? Will this improve my output? And finally, by going over the manual of EyeHome a bit I noticed it has some great options like component out and optical out, but how does it CONNECT to my Mac?

Thanks for any help!

[rumplestiltskin]

Cheapest price I've seen (without rebate) is around $168 at pagecomputer.com.

El Gato has a $50 rebate if you buy it from "an authorized Apple reseller". There's an eMail address given on the rebate form so you may check whether the vendor is "approved".

Alternatively, El Paso has a refurb'd unit for $129 at their online store.

I checked with a friend last night who has the eyeHome and he sings its praises. Absolutely satisfied.

[rumplestiltskin]

"connect to the Mac"

Ethernet to your switch or router. Other cables directly to your TV and stereo. It will also work wirelessly if, for example, your router has wireless capability (and your Mac connects to the network wirelessly). Probably require 802.11g for this, though, if your multimedia assets require high-bandwidth.

[macunkie]

"connect to the Mac"

Ethernet to your switch or router. Other cables directly to your TV and stereo. It will also work wirelessly if, for example, your router has wireless capability (and your Mac connects to the network wirelessly). Probably require 802.11g for this, though, if your multimedia assets require high-bandwidth.

Thanks Rumplestilskin,
I think I'll initially order the EyeHome and test it out on my network through my wireless. I'm wondering if the quality of the picture to my system may be better if the signal is fed trough Ethernet. I'll run my tests... thanks again!

[AntnyMD]

I didnt notice a significant difference in picture quality when I had my EyeHome wired by Ethernet and then wireless by AirPort. You really should stick to the component connection though. Everything I had encoded at the time would have required me to upgrade to 802.11g so I boxed up EyeHome for a future use. Also at the time it would not stream protected content purchased from the iTunes Music Store so I had to wait anyway to get my stuff decrypted.

[macsyrinx]

Guess it depends on the quality of the vid. We have seen no difference between the wireless and wired. In fact, we are pretty much just using wireless now to clean up the clutter and it looks just as good. I love my EyeHome. Don't use discs much anymore. One thing, though. Keep the EyeHome out of the sun. We have gone through 2 EyeHome's in 1 year. The first one we had ended up in the sun for a few days without us thinking about it. Next time we used it, nothing but a green screen.

[macunkie]

I use Elgato's EyeHomehttp://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyehome. Hardwired from comp to system. s-video for video and optical audio for VIDEO_TS folders. As far as .mp4 sound, I would assume you would use the component audio cables. We leave the DVDs intact if we like them and watch them on our system through our EyeHome from our Mac. Cool thing is quality is almost the same as having the disc in the player and it doesn't matter PAL, NTSC, or SECAM. That's my opinion based on what we do.

I've run a few test using my EyeHome with some success.
The first thing I'm attempting to do is encode a mp4 file using handbrake. The quality is very good with just testing output with quicktime pro and my powerbook. I have my EyeHome connected via component out to my stereo reciever and the opt out from EyeHome to my reciever as well. My signal is being served via AirPort Extreme to a AirPort Express and ethernet. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but the mp4 plays and displays well on my Panasonic HDTV at 1080p, but the audio does not sync well with the video? Next I bypassed the my reciever and connected the EyeHome directly to my T.V. via component and audio L&R cables. This seemed to improve the image quality even better but I'm sitll having problems with the audio sync.
Question I noticed that EyeHome will only serve content from the "Movies" folder on my home directory. This is a challange because I have my "OS" on a 20 gig partition and only have so much space?

How are you serving the audio from the VIDEO_TS folders?
Is it possible to configure EyeHome to server from a different source, i.e., partition or Firewire drive?

Thanks for any help!

[rumplestiltskin]

To serve up movies from folders other than the "Movies" folder, drop aliases to those folders into the "Movies" folder. (This according to El Gato's FAQ.)

[macsyrinx]

We only use our 2nd internal hard drive to store our movies. In our primary Movies folder there are 4 aliases to this 2nd drive (movies, music vids, tv eps, family). When we select Movies on the EyeHome menu, that is what we see and EyeHome goes through it's menu just as fast as if all movies were on your primary drive. As far as firewire drive, have not done that, but I would guess it would be fine.
As far as serving audio from the VIDEO_TS folder. If the VIDEO_TS folder is selected in EyeHome, you will then see all VOBs. Select play all. Will need to chapter forward through the silly credit / warning VOBs, then the movie plays. When a movie is played through VOBs, EyeHome only uses optical out, in case you had both connections going. If we don't watch movies from VIDEO_TS folders, we use ffmpegx and encode into XviDs. This format seems to work the best with EyeHome. Each video is between 800MB - 1.4GB in size. We used to be concerned with HD space as well, but each DVD is roughly 4-7GB so we just got over the fact that storage is a MUST with this type of setup and got another HD.

[rumplestiltskin]

Macsyrinx,

Have you tried to play H264 content through th EyeHome (like that intended for iPod)? If not, would you mind trying a short clip and letting us know how (if) it works?

Thanks.

[macsyrinx]

ok

[macsyrinx]

Used Handbrake (rarely use it) with the following settings:
File format MP4
Codecs MPEG-4 Video/AAC Audio
Encoder XviD

Just did one chapter of a DVD. The resulting file played fine in the beginning, but towards the end it did seem start to have very slight audio sync issues. Am now doing the same, but with the Codec AVC/H.264 Video/AAC Audio and Encoder .264 (Main Profile).

Just finished and EyeHome says unknown video codec. I will try ffmpegX next.

Same with ffmpegX(h.264 mencoder preset). unknown video codec.
With my limited intelligence on this subject, MP4 may have better compression, but XviD is SO easy on EyeHome. That's why we use this option, in case anybody is still reading this.....

[macunkie]

Used Handbrake (rarely use it) with the following settings:
File format MP4
Codecs MPEG-4 Video/AAC Audio
Encoder XviD

Just did one chapter of a DVD. The resulting file played fine in the beginning, but towards the end it did seem start to have very slight audio sync issues. Am now doing the same, but with the Codec AVC/H.264 Video/AAC Audio and Encoder .264 (Main Profile).

Just finished and EyeHome says unknown video codec. I will try ffmpegX next.

Same with ffmpegX(h.264 mencoder preset). unknown video codec.
With my limited intelligence on this subject, MP4 may have better compression, but XviD is SO easy on EyeHome. That's why we use this option, in case anybody is still reading this.....

I've tried the Xvid as well with HandBrake and had the same audio issues. Thanks for the feed back though....

[macunkie]

Used Handbrake (rarely use it) with the following settings:
File format MP4
Codecs MPEG-4 Video/AAC Audio
Encoder XviD

Just did one chapter of a DVD. The resulting file played fine in the beginning, but towards the end it did seem start to have very slight audio sync issues. Am now doing the same, but with the Codec AVC/H.264 Video/AAC Audio and Encoder .264 (Main Profile).

Just finished and EyeHome says unknown video codec. I will try ffmpegX next.

Same with ffmpegX(h.264 mencoder preset). unknown video codec.
With my limited intelligence on this subject, MP4 may have better compression, but XviD is SO easy on EyeHome. That's why we use this option, in case anybody is still reading this.....

I've tried the Xvid as well with HandBrake and had the same audio issues. Thanks for the feed back though....

I finally got the out put I wanted with HandBrake with the following settings:

File Fromat: AVI file
Codecs: MPEG-4/MP3 Audio
Framerate (fts): 29.97
Encoder: XviD
With Quality I encoded at an Avg. bitrate (kbps): 2000
With regaurds to audio I left the Sample rate (Hz) at 44100
but changed the bitrate to 96.

The resulting avi ended up being about 1.76 gbs and streams perfect with my EyeHome.

What do you use to encode to avi with?

Thanks again for your help!

[macsyrinx]

Glad it is now working. EyeHome is the best. As far as what we use, from a few posts back, "If we don't watch movies from VIDEO_TS folders, we use ffmpegx and encode into XviDs. This format seems to work the best with EyeHome. Each video is between 800MB - 1.4GB in size." Handbrake seems to work faster, but ffmpegx offers more tweaking so you can get the settings that work the best for your system.