Current Issues and tweaks:
1. Video playback: As you know, I am having the Mac Pro sharing folders to the mini over the network (wired with Netgear wall plugs). The .avi files generated from the torrent downloads are great. Full screen, sharp, looks very good and no playback issues. The Video TS DVDs though are another story. It seems to take a longer than hoped time to actually start playback once you select a DVD. I would say about 15 seconds or so. And once it starts playing it pauses for a second or two every 15 seconds or so of playback as if it needs to buffer. This seems to happen regardless of skin. I have played with the cache size in the settings but that doesn't seem to have any effect on it. So I'm working on this issue. I would rather not have to plug it in direct to the mini, but we'll see what happens.
2. Mounting Shared Volumes/Disks: This leads to the related problem of mounting the disks. I'm not sure why, but if I sleep or reset the mini, I have to CMND+K to remount both the shared folder and the movies USB drive in the shared folder. I have both mountings in the login sequence, but the mounting fails. Of course, this is annoying because I want to sleep the mini when not in use, and hence, this affects the Harmony remote login macro sequence.
Keep in mind, I am working on making this system as easy and seemless as possible. I want anyone to come in, pick up the remote, and without any instruction (or very very little) be able to start watching TV or movies and be like "wow cool! wait, this is a computer?"
I want the login sequence on start up input from the Harmony to be: Turn on TV, Turn on Onkyo receiver, Wake mini, mount the shared drives and folders, open plex, go full screen on plex. From there, user uses the Harmony to select what they want to watch. I basically have this setup, with the mounting error being the one snag for now.
3. Aeon Stark vs. Plex Mediastream skin: Stark looks fantastic. No doubt about it. That being said, I have been playing with the standard mediastream skin. And while the homepage interface isn't quite as nice and visually wowing as Stark, I think, at least for now, mediastream might be more to my liking. Once you select the TV shows or Movies, and get in there, there is just much more information readily available on screen to see. Like with Stark (or Aeon in general), you do get fan art in the background, but unlike Stark/Aeon, you get a lot more information right there immediately. All the TV episode info is there, including episode number, description, ratings, etc... I just know that myself and my GF, and really other people that might be over, I think will prefer the information all being there easy to see and get to than the skin which is a little more visually appealing. And the mediastream skin does look good too! One other thing is that the Stark is currently not officially supported with Plex. It still is an Xbox deal, although there is talk the Plex version will be released in the future. I think I'll end up staying with the Mediastream and wait to see what the Plex version of Stark does. I'll just do some screen shots later and repost them so you can see.
I think that covers my current issues. really not that much. Playback studdering and mounting of drives and folders. As soon as I get it worked out, I'll post the solutions. And I'll post some screenshots of the Stark v. Mediastream soon. Ok, here are the pics of the MediaStream in action. Keep in mind, the main screen shots, of the TV in the field and the movie seats, you can change to whatever you want, just like in Aeon / Stark
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