Question Movie-DVD Streamer Help

[jthorpe]

I was hopping to reuse the hardware (a Boxee Box) that I have, since it's suppose to play in 1080p, however I'm not sure what distro, etc that it's running or how to access it.


I'm looking for a system where it can play digital copies of DVD's (VOB, etc.) from a NAS/Network drive. I'd also like to have the system separate Movies from TV Shows (and preferably allow me to specify that TV Shows that are from a DVD are to be in the TV Shows section ... Boxee would put the TV Shows from DVD into the Movies section) (examples are in the images below). I'd like it to have the DVD Movie Cover (as shown in the image below), rather than a file tree, for both the Movies & TV Shows. The main purpose of the system (box) would be to play my local content over the network. I do have some Blu-Ray DVD's that haven't been copied yet, so a system that can play those and possibly 4K DVD's at a later date would be nice.


Boxes/mini pc's/single board pc's I've seen mentioned are:

1. SMXQ Box
2. ASUS Media Streamer
3. QDroid-XU4
4. Raspberry Pi 3 B+
5. Tinker Board (ASUS)
6. Intel NUC
7. WD TV Live Hub Plus
8. Mini X8-H
9. Mac Mini
10. Zidoo Z1000
11. Micca TV Media Player
12. Orange Pi 3
13. Apple Pile
14. Panda Latte (or Latte Panda)
15. Gigatron TTL
16. Android TV Box
17. NVIDIA Shield
18. Bean Canyon NUC
19. Mini ITX
20. Nano Pi M4
21. Rock Pi
22. Rock Pro 64
23. Rock 64

What options would work best for my project, and what system (raspian, etc.) would be best?

 

[jthorpe]

I was hopping to reuse the hardware that I have (a couple Boxee Box's), since it's suppose to play in 1080p, however I'm not sure what distro, etc that it's running or how to access it.





I'm looking for a system where it can play digital copies of DVD's (VOB, etc.) from a NAS/Network drive. I'd also like to have the system separate Movies from TV Shows (and preferably allow me to specify that TV Shows that are from a DVD are to be in the TV Shows section ... Boxee would put the TV Shows from DVD into the Movies section) (examples are in the images below). I'd like it to have the DVD Movie Cover (as shown in the image below), rather than a file tree, for both the Movies & TV Shows. The main purpose of the system (box) would be to play my local content over the network. I do have some Blu-Ray DVD's that haven't been copied yet, so a system that can play those and possibly 4K DVD's at a later date would be nice.





Boxes/mini pc's/single board pc's I've seen mentioned are:

1. SMXQ Box
2. ASUS Media Streamer
3. QDroid-XU4
4. Raspberry Pi 3 B+
5. Tinker Board (ASUS)
6. Intel NUC
7. WD TV Live Hub Plus
8. Mini X8-H
9. Mac Mini
10. Zidoo Z1000
11. Micca TV Media Player
12. Orange Pi 3
13. Apple Pile
14. Panda Latte (or Latte Panda)
15. Gigatron TTL
16. Android TV Box
17. NVIDIA Shield
18. Bean Canyon NUC
19. Mini ITX
20. Nano Pi M4
21. Rock Pi
22. Rock Pro 64
23. Rock 64

What options would work best for my project, and what system (raspian, etc.) would be best?

 

[jthorpe]

I was hopping to reuse the hardware that I have (2 Boxee Box's), since it's suppose to play in 1080p, however I'm not sure what distro, etc that it's running or how to access it.


I'm looking for a system where it can play digital copies of DVD's (VOB, etc.) from a NAS/Network drive. I'd also like to have the system separate Movies from TV Shows (and preferably allow me to specify that TV Shows that are from a DVD are to be in the TV Shows section ... Boxee would put the TV Shows from DVD into the Movies section) (examples are in the images below). I'd like it to have the DVD Movie Cover (as shown in the image below), rather than a file tree, for both the Movies & TV Shows. The main purpose of the system (box) would be to play my local content over the network. I do have some Blu-Ray DVD's that haven't been copied yet, so a system that can play those and possibly 4K DVD's at a later date would be nice.



Boxes/mini pc's/single board pc's I've seen mentioned are:

1. SMXQ Box
2. ASUS Media Streamer
3. QDroid-XU4
4. Raspberry Pi 3 B+
5. Tinker Board (ASUS)
6. Intel NUC
7. WD TV Live Hub Plus
8. Mini X8-H
9. Mac Mini
10. Zidoo Z1000
11. Micca TV Media Player
12. Orange Pi 3
13. Apple Pile
14. Panda Latte (or Latte Panda)
15. Gigatron TTL
16. Android TV Box
17. NVIDIA Shield
18. Bean Canyon NUC
19. Mini ITX
20. Nano Pi M4
21. Rock Pi
22. Rock Pro 64
23. Rock 64

What options would work best for my project, and what system (raspian, etc.) would be best?

 

[jsmithepa]

I keep hearing good things about the Shield (hardware) and Plex is your mature front end.

 

[jthorpe]

I keep hearing good things about the Shield (hardware) and Plex is your mature front end.

I thought about using Plex, however in order to use Plex, I'd have to convert the 1 to 1 DVD copy to MKV (as an example). I've tried a few conversions over to an MKV format, however that didn't keep the DVD menu, special features, etc; which was the point of copying the DVD 1 to 1. Do you know if the Shield is capable of playing DVD VOB/ISO formats?

One I seen a video on was the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ (

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y-Nt14AOUA
). He's using Kodi on it, however I don't know if that would be able to read and play DVD file formats, how it'll handle Blu-Ray DVD file formats or if it'll be possible to do 4K video.

Hence the reason I'm looking for suggestions from people who are versed in streamers, where they can point me in the direction of a reasonably priced, small form factor streamer that'll work with the file formats I have.

Some of the DVD file formats are:

VIDEO_TS.BUP
VIDEO_TS.IFO
VIDEO_TS.VOB

 

[jsmithepa]

Don't know the answer to your question but easy enough to Google because it's very specific. Is a software thing, so u should be asking can Plex do ISO? that's it. Simple.

If all ur interested is DVD, no problem, proceed. But be aware the industry have basically stamped-out ripping BluRay to ISO, the only way to rip BR these days seems via Makemkv.