Is there a Roon equivalent for video?

One of the big reasons I bought Roon was to be able to easily play my content stored on my of uptairs via my computer downstairs (which is connected to my tv) and controlled using my phone. Is there anything that can do that does this with video? I have all my blu rays ripped

Thanks

That would be fantastic!

Hi,

https://www.plex.tv/
https://emby.media/

I prefer Plex, but Emby also fine.

Best regards,
Maciek

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Kodi is worth looking at as well.

www.jriver.com would do that too.

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Plex
Kodi
Mediaportal

My suggestion is Plex.

You would need a plex server install near your media similar to roon core. For clients: Plex has an app for most modern smart tvs, Apple TV 4th gen, roku, ps3/4, xbox 360/one, android devices etc etc

I use both Kodi and Plex. Kodi is preferred as it has more codecs for different video formats and also converts rar files on the fly. It has better sound decoding as well. Plex is more user friendly (pay the lifetime subscription) and allows for more flexibility across mobile devices and platforms including Synology NAS (Synology has its own video app which is on par with Plex). Good luck.

Now I’m finally over the experience of ripping my CDs (took a year to get over it), I’m about to embark on starting to (slowly) bring my films to streaming world too, so this topics great for me.

I was looking at Plex, but I have a Synology NAS and the films will most likely live there. I noticed your comment and wondered if you know if it has similar apps (fire tv box would be my main playback point to start with).

Also, what do people digitise with? I’m Mac based and read handbrake did the job? I’m thinking of ignoring bluerays for now as I don’t have too many and don’t have any hardware I could do it with - so just DVD.

The problem with running plex on a Synology NAS is transcoding. If any video needs to be transcoded for playback, the NAS devices can be short on processing power. Processing music on a NAS is one thing but trying to do the same with Video can quickly show performance issues.

Example of transcoding:

  1. Subtitles. They need to be burnt into the video stream in many cases.
  2. Blu-ray quality down to a quality that can be streamed external to your network.
  3. Lesser extent unsupported audio format. DTS-MA, TrueHD may not be supported by your playback device.

If you are only dealing with 480p DVD content, a NAS might be sufficient to start.

Personally my multiple NAS devices are storage only. I have a dedicated 6 core i7 box running Plex Server. It can handle transcoding 4 or more blu-ray movies at time.

Synology has its video app - DS Video - its excellent and and allows for streaming on both Andriod and Apple. I even have it on Apple TV. It’s more reliable than Plex and has uses the same databases for metadata. Only thing is you cannot leave the files in original torrent format (rar). Kodi is now available as an app on Windows - that app using the transparency skin is my preference. However if you are new to this I would start with DS Video on Synology.

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Thanks. That’s helpful, I will probably start there and keep my Mac mini purely for Roon until I’ve explored the video side a bit more.

Tried Plex but it cannot play 4K and 1080i 24Mpbs files .ts + .mpg + ,mkv
like I have on my Video Server who plays ALL but without metadata posters.

I dont want Transcoding , just DIRECT PLAY as Roon does with TAGS + POSTERS , ETC…

Thousands of clients waiting for a Roon type for 500 LIFE FEE or more… to cover their video file needs…Roon is listening ???

Lets’ wait some good news…

Are any of these really Roon equivalents? I see Roon’s secret sauce being its abstraction layer of metadata over your local and streaming libraries. I don’t know these software enough to know if they really do the same thing?

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Kodi should playback 4k and usually scraps the metadata from various sources (you can customise it) - Kodi playback (once configured to your needs) is the best currently - I have Plex lifetime, rarely use as it does not deal with torrents files (Kodi converts during playback) or it can’t link it to sites where you can stream HD content directly without needing to store files on your server. There are a few others like VLC and http://www.cccp-project.net - both these also deal with most video codecs.

@Dan - Yes Plex has a scanning process that does add all the metadata to your movies/tv etc… in a similar way to what Roon does for music.

Much to my chagrin, I debase myself by using JShiver, I mean, JRiver.

So do I, although I don’t know why we should say it debases us. I rarely use JRiver for music any more, but it does a fine job as far as it goes, and Roon still has a very great deal to learn from its range of options and sheer functionality. Roon may offer what nothing else does, but it should not be allowed to hide behind the thin-ness of its offering in the areas where it does have competition.

I’ve had many disagreeable interactions with the CEO on the Shiver forum. The very fact that I still use the software for movies shows that I think it’s the best out there for video.

Sorry, I don’t understand this comment in the context of this post. Roon doesn’t do video.

I was referring to the music aspect, but I can only agree with you about the bizarre attitude of the JRiver boss on his forum, and similarly I stick with the program because the video offering is good.

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@Simon_Chick -

Don’t get many people from Jakarta. You may be the first. You should sign in here, for the record -

:sunglasses: