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A media browser for leveraging (browsing, and surfing) multi-terrabyte home media servers: Problem: I've got 2TB of videos, music, and images on my hard drives

by sdrinf 12y ago

A media browser for leveraging (browsing, and surfing) multi-terrabyte home media servers: Problem: I've got 2TB of videos, music, and images on my hard drives, and I've found my available tools to be too low-leverage on managing this anymore. Context: about 2 years ago, I've stopped the directory structure madness, and embraced search as first-order link for media files. As a byproduct of this, I notice I don't have a clear mental structure of what videos/music is downloaded to my computer anymore, and to where (good riddance!). Neither do I want it to; instead, I'd like to have a "youtube for local hard drive": Basically, I'm looking for a local Media Browser application for windows: specifically, an app which allows: * thumbnailed preview of all videos & images * Automagically categorized based on all online, or within-file available meta-information * With a built-in search To perform the following operations: * Preview a thumbnail on video files (similar to file explorer) * Display categorized lists of all media available locally on my drives * Channelsurf, similar to youtube: be able to start from one movie file, and have "similar" videos around it * Double-clicking on the file to start mplayer * typing the first 2-4 letters of the movie/image to instantly bring up the list of media with that part in it While specifically not doing: * Anything that requires me to touch any of the files in any way shape or form whatsoever * Any upsale (I'm looking at you, windows 8 "personal videos"), advertising, or introduce any friction during interaction * Bringing up any browsers: solution must be windows-native, and responsive (<20ms results) Specific things I've tried so far: * The closest thing I can wave towards "want" is apple's itunes, and JRiver's media center; they both share the same weakness of not being able to use mplayer as playback engine * Banshee on windows is unable to show video previews, have multiple stability issues, and can't use mplayer for double-click (I've posted full details of this to http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/2646/media-browser-recommendation http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/2646/media-b... a month ago, to no response avail, but getting upvotes, which evidences a market to be had for this )

olalonde 12y ago
Have you tried http://www.plex.tv http://www.plex.tv?
- s3cur3 12y ago
  +1 for Plex. I almost gave up on the idea of a HTPC after the headache of correcting hundreds of mislabeled files in XBMC. Since I switched to Plex, the problem has all but disappeared (I can think of 3 or 4 things I've had to manually correct).
- th0br0 12y ago
  Plex isn't open source though, is it?
- sdrinf 12y ago
  Plex shares the terminal disability (with itunes, and JRiver) of trying to be two things at once: a media browser, and a media player; quite similar to how file sync programs before dropbox were terminally unusable by trying to include redundant functionality ( http://qr.ae/rwZF4 http://qr.ae/rwZF4 ). Regarding built-in media players, not one vendor takes usability of playback seriously. Specifically, when I hit "enter" on a file, that means I'd like to see it played back, like, now. Not "queueing", nor 5 seconds later. When I scroll left & right, that means I'd like it to go +-1 min / hour, like, now; and not 5-10 seconds "seeking". On my quadcore 3.4ghz battlestation, this remains a problem for every single native, and web-based app. MPlayer is, to date, the only one which consistently delivers on sub-second videoplayback, and it does so from cold start. (There are also major problems with how subtitles are handled by players, but I grant you that might be a niche) Hence my strong requirement above for the app to go with shell.exec, instead of half-baked non-implementation of every single video codec under the sun.
jonathanwallace 12y ago
I started on something like this here, https://github.com/wallace/zuggy https://github.com/wallace/zuggy. I imagine a sqlite3 db with a rails app with vlc in a docker container. One day I'll have the time to make it happen but for now, there's too many other projects on my plate. edit: Also, I'm not sure how to make it a viable business.
goofygrin 12y ago
The wife approval factor of Windows software is zero. This won't fly in the living room. I want this on a set top box... And anything like yamj or xbmc absolutely chokes on my collection and I spend hours fixing incorrectly identified files.
dmritard96 12y ago
started doing something with this with my automation system https://github.com/dandroid88/webmote https://github.com/dandroid88/webmote. endedup just leveraging mpd instead but when i was working on it it was much like you described where you could walk the server/discs and just play music from the browser screen. From there I planned on all the meta data enhancments but then got busy with other things. Ill find the computer with that branch and push if i can. agree with the idea/problem

by sdrinf 12y ago

olalonde 12y ago

Have you tried http://www.plex.tv http://www.plex.tv?

s3cur3 12y ago
+1 for Plex. I almost gave up on the idea of a HTPC after the headache of correcting hundreds of mislabeled files in XBMC. Since I switched to Plex, the problem has all but disappeared (I can think of 3 or 4 things I've had to manually correct).
th0br0 12y ago
Plex isn't open source though, is it?
sdrinf 12y ago
Plex shares the terminal disability (with itunes, and JRiver) of trying to be two things at once: a media browser, and a media player; quite similar to how file sync programs before dropbox were terminally unusable by trying to include redundant functionality ( http://qr.ae/rwZF4 http://qr.ae/rwZF4 ). Regarding built-in media players, not one vendor takes usability of playback seriously. Specifically, when I hit "enter" on a file, that means I'd like to see it played back, like, now. Not "queueing", nor 5 seconds later. When I scroll left & right, that means I'd like it to go +-1 min / hour, like, now; and not 5-10 seconds "seeking". On my quadcore 3.4ghz battlestation, this remains a problem for every single native, and web-based app. MPlayer is, to date, the only one which consistently delivers on sub-second videoplayback, and it does so from cold start. (There are also major problems with how subtitles are handled by players, but I grant you that might be a niche) Hence my strong requirement above for the app to go with shell.exec, instead of half-baked non-implementation of every single video codec under the sun.

jonathanwallace 12y ago

I started on something like this here, https://github.com/wallace/zuggy https://github.com/wallace/zuggy. I imagine a sqlite3 db with a rails app with vlc in a docker container. One day I'll have the time to make it happen but for now, there's too many other projects on my plate. edit: Also, I'm not sure how to make it a viable business.

goofygrin 12y ago

The wife approval factor of Windows software is zero. This won't fly in the living room. I want this on a set top box... And anything like yamj or xbmc absolutely chokes on my collection and I spend hours fixing incorrectly identified files.

dmritard96 12y ago

started doing something with this with my automation system https://github.com/dandroid88/webmote https://github.com/dandroid88/webmote. endedup just leveraging mpd instead but when i was working on it it was much like you described where you could walk the server/discs and just play music from the browser screen. From there I planned on all the meta data enhancments but then got busy with other things. Ill find the computer with that branch and push if i can. agree with the idea/problem