This is my new features request and I thought I'd do some background on how it's all held together.
About my current set up.
It is predominantly used for video playback. We ripped our dvd collection (2 book cases worth) to original mpeg 2 files (to preserve 5.1 soundtracks) and threw away the cases. Now the DVD collection gathers dust in the loft in large dvd wallet folders. The vast majority of files are .mpg with some .avi in there and in the work section there are lots of .m2t (1080 hd files) I do video editing work for a living.
There is audio on there but as there was so much it is often a pain to navigate and we use the computers with windows media player to navigate that pile of 'stuff'.
Pictures/JPEGs are not something I'm really bothered about on the telly.
Tech:
Windows 2003 Server, with multiple TB drives attached
Attached to 100base network hub via a dual channel network card.
Network has attached:
D-Link DSM520 (in a home theatre set up) [wired]
D-Link DSM320 (attached to TV in Kids room) [wired]
Multiple Windows 7 computers [mostly wired]
Also couple of Nokia phones, a PSP and a PS3 before long - [wireless]
Layout:
On the various drives on the server (don't know if this is a fault or a feature, but it ain't broke so don't fix it) but as long as the directory structure is the same they appear as one 'folder' on the D-link boxes so the folders are as such:
Code: Select all
my videos
|
+ - Kids
| |
| + Movies +
| | + Action
| | + Disney
| | + Comedy
| + TV Series
| | + Dr Who
| | + Futurama
| | + Looney Toons
| | + Roald Dahl
+ - Grown Up
| |
| + Movies +
| | + Action
| | + Horror
| | + Sci Fi
| + TV Series
| | + Bones
| | + 24
| | + Angel
| | + Lie To Me
|
+ Music Videos +
| - Concerts
| - Videos
+ - Work +
+ Conference
+ After EffectsThe features request:
Parental control:
I'd like to be able to set up 'kids' boxes and 'adult' boxes.
The kids boxes would not to be able to see 'grown up' and 'work' folders.
The Kids boxes need have access restricted so they only work between 08:30 > 20:00 Sunday to Thursday and 08:30 > 22:00 Friday to Saturday. If something is playing past that time the server just issues a stop command.
It would be nice to have layers of this control. So that a teenager can have 'later access' than a 10year old. That could be different access for each DMR or Computer.
Computer Playback:
Is there a front end player that will go onto a computer? The twonky:9000 browser just opens a quick time window and downloads the file to the local computer. Running Firefox here. I might be doing something wrong. Internet Explorer on the same url opens windows media player, but still seems to buffer a lot.
Filtering:
As I understand it Twonky will play out anything it likes. It's down to the device at the other end to decode it? So if your DLNA device only plays .mpg files then it's no use having a batch of .mov files. It is possible to filter based on DMR so that you can have all your media in one 'place' but the DMR will only see the media it will play.
Many thanks to all
Marcus
( This is what I need to restrict based on content and timing.