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Recommendations for NAS-based home media set-up
This topic was created by Le Adder Noir .
Recommendations for NAS-based home media set-up
Right, apologies if this is in the wrong section (the question doesn't seem to fit neatly in any one category), but I'm looking for a bit of a steer on a project for a new house.
As the title suggests, I'm looking to build a NAS-based home media set-up. I live outside the UK, where TV media is, dare I say it, even worse than in Blighty, so most of our stuff is purchased online and stored on drives. Up until recently, I've been using my PC as a media hub in the lounge (using a mixture of internal and external drives), hooked directly to the receiver/amp and TV.
Now, it looks like I'm going to have a proper office, so I want to move the PC there, and use a NAS to store media that is accessible in the office, lounge and bedrooms. It's how I go about this that is causing me some difficutly.
In terms of the NAS unit itself, I'll probably go for an off-the-shelf unit, if only because getting parts where I am can be tricky and expensive. I'm thinking of Synology or QNAP.
The intention is to have fully wired broadband connectivity throughout the house, or at least fairly decent wifi.
The questions I have then are:
How to I get stuff from the NAS to the TV(s)?
Do I need separate media players for each TV and, if so, which ones would work best (files are a mixture of the usual, MP3, FLAC, MP4, MKV, AVI etc. and I'd prefer not to lose quality for HD files through transcoding or the like)?
WIll I be able to stream either different content or, more importantly, the same content to different devices simultaneously (sort of like the set-up on an aircraft entertainment system) and do I need some sort of programme for this?
How can I ensure my NAS is secure - i.e. read/write only from PC, read-only from certain devices, no access externally?
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
Re: Recommendations for NAS-based home media set-up
Personally I have 2 mini-itx systems both with built in CPU (AMD E-350). One in a mini itx case in the living room as a media center and one in a micro atx case with multiple HDDs in hidden away under the stairs serving as a NAS. The E-350 boards can be picked up fairly cheaply so are great for doing your own bespoke build NAS or running XBMC
Whether this or off the shelf NAS is better for you is really a matter of personal taste. One warning I would make is that be careful when picking an off the shelf NAS just because it has Gigabit Ethernet doesn't mean it can come close to that speed. Many of them have under powered ARM CPUs that simply cant handle that kind of traffic which can become a problem if you're streaming 1080p or higher video with HD audio.
Re: Recommendations for NAS-based home media set-up
+1 On the GbE connection, because its true. But, I would ask you how much 'leccy your Mini-ITX AMD-E350 rigs are chewing though per hour. I'm not versed in Mini-ITX Wattages. But the "Off the Shelf" stuff is generally greener by design. Assuming that these Mini-ITX Rigs burn about what 200w peek? An off the shelf NAS is usually >40w. For something that has to run neigh 24/7, this is where your concern should be lying. As chances are these Devices are likely going to tied behind a Wireless Router. Which is as likely as not ONLY has 10/100 Base-T Ethernet... So, so much for having GbE then!
Re: Recommendations for NAS-based home media set-up
Gigabit Ethernet on home routers is actually increasingly common. The recent models of BT HomeHub and both the Virgin Media SuperHub and SuperHub2 have it, as do many main brand router models Netgear and Asus notably have many models with Gigabit Ethernet.
As for power consumption, the E-350 isnt the most power efficient Mini-ITX option but it is one of the cheapest (except maybe the new AMD AM1 socket cpu/motherboards).
I've not measured it at the wall but on paper my NAS build should be using no more than 60-80 watts under full load on paper, the CPU is rarely under full load and with power saving settings and spinning the disks down when idle it still makes a nice option.
For even better results power wise, an Intel Celeron Mini-ITX build would be better but significantly more expensive.
The other advantage to a proper PC build as opposed to have the shelf is you can backup software of your choice, and run it from the server end rather than the client if you wish. As it's likely to be switched on 24/7 it can come in handy to remote desktop to from a smartphone while away from home.
Re: Recommendations for NAS-based home media set-up
I have an old QNAP TS-439 PRO. As others mentioned Gb ethernet does not mean you'll be getting 125MB/s on your file access - RAID mode, hard drives, and processor all affect that. I get about 70MB/s write speed which is as expected given the data available on the smallnetbuilder website. I recommend looking there for off the shelf reviews and speeds. The device manufacturers (QNAP, Synology etc) are putting out x86 units these days (TS-470?) that can host VMs also.
If I were buying again I'd look at these, possibly a Synology as they seem to be a bit ahead and definitely more speed for the dollar than QNAP in my experience. Your alternative is to get an HP Gen8 Microserver or build something using a tower (mini or maxi depending on drive requirements) and install FreeNAS - just depends on whether you want the hassle. My QNAP is pretty lower power (CPU and electricity) - check out their comparison page for power draw on their units.
As for media streaming I make use of the Twonky Server on the NAS and a WD TV Live box hooked up to the TV. Plays anything you care to throw at it. Just make sure to turn off the UPnP setting in the MyQNAPCloud settings if you get a QNAP as it plays havoc with the WD and is a b*stard to diagnose.
Almost forgot to mention that the file security is taken care of on any system in a similar way (users, groups and shares) and these systems (QNAP, Synology, FreeNAS) all have app/plugin capabilities so they can be setup as RADIUS servers, DB hosts (normally MySQL), Downloaders (torrent, http(s), NZB / Sickbeard) and a whole host of other functions.
Re: Recommendations for NAS-based home media set-up
70-80MB/s is actually really decent for a NAS box. I was thinking more about really poor devices like most of Buffalo's range that have Gigabit Ethernet but only give 10-15MB/s. Those are really best avoided.
Re: Recommendations for NAS-based home media set-up
I have a similar setup in my house. Synology NAS. It's a few years old but can stream HD video to a single device no problem. The new ones are obviously better, they're really easy to set up and the OS is great. You can configure the security and prevent access from outside. Also, you'd be able to stream multiple videos at once, but may hit problems if streaming multiple HD films (router limitations, spec of the NAS if it's a lower end one, WiFi signal etc.)
You didn't mention if you had any games consoles, but if you have a PS3 connected to one of the TV's this can pick up the content on a Synology NAS no problem, although it (disappointingly) won't play mkv vids. I'd assume a PS4 will do the same thing.
In addition, I have my main PC upstairs in the office (connected through WiFi), and an old HP SFF PC hooked up to the TV in the front room, wired to the router. Intel Core2 Duo, 4GB RAM, low end graphics card with HDMI out, Win7 running XBMC on startup. Not the best spec but works perfectly well as a media player/ occasional browser. You can get some really smart looking, low power, compact media PC barebones setups if you're willing to fork out. It all depends on your budget really. A PC has the added benefit of being able to store files for playback if other devices are eating up bandwidth.
As others have mentioned, there are some cheapo Linux plugin devices that can play a host of media files, as well as RPi. These would be a bit less power hungry than a PC. Also, some smart TV's will pickup NAS content.
Re: Recommendations for NAS-based home media set-up
Myself, I've got a Synology 2-bay box and the telly has a WDLiveTV box strapped to it. Upsides are that the WD box has iplayer (and other) apps on it - I assume stuff like Chromecast et al will have a similar feature set.
With regards to file permissions - stear clear of a media server implementation with DLNA as (unless they've changed it very recently) that protocol doesn't support user permission schemes. I had my box all set up with folders for kids stuff for the sprogs to be entertained with, and then grown up stuff in different folders - the media server indexes the lot and presents all of it to anyone with permission to use the media server app. The media server does look good, though - it's just not good for a household with kids around as they soon figure out how to use the remote for the WD box (although you could hide it and use the phone/tablet app instead).
So instead I log in via the file-share option, which does preserve user rights - so kiddies can only read their folder, and I can go in and read/write anything.
Also, Synology do some apps to sit on your tab/phone of choice for remote access if you open up your home router a bit.
Re: Recommendations for NAS-based home media set-up
Can't recommend highly enough to AVOID buying a NAS.
All NAS have the following 2 features:
a) hugely overpriced for they do, and
b) performance so bad that you'd be faster getting a slug to sort your files by hand
The above features are rubbish, but people LOVE to say they have a NAS ("I've got a NAS man !") so the brainless should definitely go for the above features and drop £500 on a Synology ("ka-ching!, another sucker born every day!" say the people at Synology).
Alternatives are simple. i.e. buy a decent specced system like an HP Microserver, which are only £120 (compare that to a Synology even though it blows the Synology away in features / performance) it also features 4 easy-access drive bays, proper gigabit ethernet, almost silent, very low power, and you can run ANY operating system you want on them (from simple things like FreeNAS (then you can still say you have a "NAS"!, right up to Win Server 2012 or Ubuntu etc).
8-bay Synology's are £720 !!!
or you can not be insane and buy 2x HP Microserves to have 2x 4-bay, systems that are about the same size, but MASSIVELY better performance, and less than 1/4 of the cost ...
common sense and logic seldom come into play when people want to have a "NAS" though !! ;)
Re: Recommendations for NAS-based home media set-up
@adobob: Although something like a Gen8 microserver will no doubt trash most NAS devices in terms of performance, price, and functionality you need to accept that some people seriously couldn't give a flying f*ck for maintaining yet another box in their spare time and so something like the (kerching) Synology you mention fits their needs perfectly and they are happy to pay the associated "convenience premium".
However, the gen8 will set you back over £350 for the g1610T and is a fairer comparison to the DS412+ you seem to have priced. I sincerely doubt a N54L has massively better performance, in fact I'm pretty bloody confident it doesn't. I'd like to see the benchmark of a 4xHDD N54L against a Synology DS412+ that smallnetbuilder has benchmarked at 106MB/s. I think the N54L would be lucky to hit 70MB/s, ergo feature (b) in your list is a false assertion.
I work in IT and have built plenty of file servers in the past but these days I value my spare time just a bit more than back then. Other folks likely share this outlook.
Re: Recommendations for NAS-based home media set-up
@Mark 65, you took something that I said that was factual (HP Microservers for £120) and then made up something completely unrelated to what I said (£350 for the Gen8, which I wouldn't touch for a storage system). Microservers cost between £79.99 to £150 depending up on the deal at the time.
Maintaining the 3x HP Microservers that I have is about as difficult as making a cup of tea (once every 3-6 months).
I do agree with the convenience factor of NAS, and that's fine, but HP Microservers are unbelievably convenient. In fact, probably more convenient than the Synology etc which have their app setups and all that. Plus, the unbelievably awful internal components of all of these NAS system cannot compare to a normal system. I'm interested, but I'd be pretty surprised if they come close performance wise (i.e. check out the *actual* specs on these NAS dogs-wrapped-up-in-expensive-shiny-covers).
Re: Recommendations for NAS-based home media set-up
Errr, the Gen8 is a microserver - the HP Gen8 Microserver - the replacement/upgrade for the N54L.
You also stated that the £120 unit (must be a N54L or lower) offer massive outperformance over a NAS. Given you were trash-talking the Synology for £500 (which would be the DS412+) I offered a simple comparison, N54L vs DS412+, and stated it highly unlikely a N54L could outperform it, whereas the Gen8 perhaps could thus making the £350 Gen8 the fairer comparison as there's no point slagging off NAS performance to then compare it with a device likely to give a lower performance is there? You were not comparing apples with apples and I merely corrected this so that readers get the facts and not what seems like your personal bias. NAS units offer a valid alternative depending on the needs of the individual.
"I'm interested, but I'd be pretty surprised if they come close performance wise"
The performance I gave for the Synology is for the benchmark off of the smallnetbuilder site, i.e. they tested it when they reviewed it in order to verify manufacturer claims. You can verify it's speed on a variety of RAID setups from fastest to safest. As an example the DS412+ hits 102.4MB/s on RAID 5 write performance - that's pretty bloody fast. A Gen8 using SSD caching which cannot, to my knowledge, be configured in a 4 bay from Synology or QNAP would offer vastly greater performance. Simple RAID5 HDD to RAID5 HDD I'd like to see but have had trouble getting benchmarks for the HP - faster processor is not the be-all if other components are not well matched.
"unbelievably awful internal components of all of these NAS system cannot compare to a normal system"? These devices are SME targeted and hot-swappable - which the beloved HP Microserver most certainly isn't. The more expensive 4 bays units (£500) also come with dual 1Gb/s ethernet. The microserver, especially the N54L is basically the same as one of these (without dual LAN) in that it's a prepacked spec and you're adding drives. The only freedom is really the OS. It does offer an expansion slot and may take more drives but that's by fiddling with the layout. I do not for one minute believe the internals of the HP would be superior for the given price than a NAS. I also know the actual specs, they are there on the review sites and the manufacturer sites for all to see.
"NAS dogs-wrapped-up-in-expensive-shiny-covers" - your personal bias is showing through and it isn't fair to give someone asking a genuine question an answer based upon this. The HP stands up on it's own merit without personal bias but Synology and QNAP offer valid NAS alternatives depending upon needs, budget, and desire to play with/configure FreeNAS vs the embedded offering. They will outperform a N54L, for example, but be similar price to a Gen8 Microserver when it is dual LANed. A Gen8 is better if you want to run ZFS (stack it with RAM) but is not hot-swappable (may be achievable with added card).
Give them the facts and let them make the decision rather than try to force your viewpoint upon them - I feel no need to trash-talk the HP to make the point that the Synology offers a valid alternative because I'd rather them make the right decision for themselves than try and sway them to any bias I may have.
Re: Recommendations for NAS-based home media set-up
I picked up a pair of the N40L Microservers, nothing too powerful, but they set me back about 130 quid a pop at the time after cashback redemptions. Threw 4x3TB WD Red NAS drives at it (£140 each or so at the time, as they'd just come out, but a whole lot cheaper than the enterprise class drives I'd been looking at for the 24/7 usage) and 8GB of ECC RAM (not hugely expensive), throw a copy of FreeNAS on a 4GB USB stick which can be stuck in the internal USB port, and run the lot on raidz1, including torrent clients and the like (see http://www.freenas.org/ for full details of what it can do). Bit of tweaking and I can easily max the gigabit link out. Took the 2GB of RAM and the 250GB drive that it shipped with and put it in the other server giving it 4GB and 2x250GB, slapped a cheap fanless Radeon 5450 in it, and used it as a HTPC and Plex server/client on a basic Win7 setup, pretty much just works. Coupled it with a 3 quid Cyberlink infrared USB remote and a couple of USB extension cables so the remote sensor is somewhere reachable. Not all the buttons work, but the volume, play, pause, arrows and OK do, which suits me to a tee.
One thing to note - while you can run Plex (one of the best media server/clients I've had the pleasure of using, the client forked from XBMC a while ago) on the FreeNAS box, if it's a basic CPU unit like the microservers, it's going to struggle doing the transcoding to UPnP hosts such as consoles or TVs. My setup manages with one box doing the file serving and one box doing the transcoding, but it's borderline at times with 1080p content, but if you run the Plex server on the NAS and a Plex client on a box of some sort, no transcoding is necessary, so you can get away with fairly low CPU requirements on the server and client end. But if you want to transcode you'll want something with a reasonable processor in it. Same goes of course for most of the lower powered NAS boxes, many can run the Plex server, as long as you run a Plex client on the other side that doesn't require the NAS to do anything fancy to the video on the fly. Sending to Plex on an Android device etc usually means it needs to transcode, so it won't work too well on the lower powered CPUs, although you might get away with it for SD video.
Of course, if you can stick a client on the other end, the likes of XBMC are also an option, without messing about with the likes of Plex. I just really like the interface on the big TV, the media management, and smart transcoding to my tablet.
just done this myself. :D
I was donated a old Duo Nas. I have just hooked up a Pi with XMBC on it to the telly and use that.
you can get an xmbc pi off ebay pretty cheap all ready to run.
If your running a smart TV just make sure your NAS supports DLNA. I havnt done this myself but if you buy me a smart TV I will be more than happy to try it for you ;) or check the following link.
Raspberry & XMBC is fine so long as you are happy with TV audio and not wanting to play anything using a "challenging" format without spending hours tweaking the software, but if you would like to output to a decent sound system you're better off steering clear of Linux systems in general - I've not yet managed to get any of them to deliver 5.1 audio properly for all formats that contain it. If you are content with XMBC limitations, you may as well get a smart TV set that can connect to your LAN and play your files directly.
I use a small cheap motherboard equipped with a good sound card and IR remote running Win XP and VLC freeware. VLC can be set up with an audio delay - necessary for many TV sets when using a separate sound system, and it won't barf if the BluRay you converted to MKV format to stream turns out to have Cinevia protection - which more and more media players honour (including the games consoles).
Not a NAS but...
I have 3 dumb LCD TVs in the house hooked up to 2 media players, 2 chromecasts and an HTPC. The media players are AIOS boxes and are hardwired into the network.
The HTPC is homebrewed and sits in the basement about 12 feet below the living room TV to which it is connected by HDMI. The media software on the HTPC is MediaPortal, it's free, highly configurable and can do a lot more than most other offerings can. The PC is now relatively old, 7 years, and is a quad core (Q6600) based machine and it now has an SSD boot, I used to use a dual tuner in it but the upgrade to digital TV by my cable provider (spit) means I don't use it as a DVR anymore. I do however have an external USB 3.0 Disk enclosure with 4x4TB drives in it and this is where all my TVs get their content from. 8TB in storage and 8TB of mirrored backup. The content drives are shared over the network and are mapped in the AIOS's, Playon and the HTPC. In the background I run playon server through which I can stream Amazon VOD (I live in the US), Hulu, Netflix etc to my dumb TVs via the AIOS boxes.
Pretty much the HTPC is on 24/7 and this is why I went with an external disk enclosure rather than a NAS. The external disk enclosure (iView HFR2-SU3) replaced a couple of 4 drive backplanes I had in the HTPC case, these were very compact and ran very hot. The disk enclosure is much roomier and the drives run a lot cooler. The iView has some bad reviews around the web but that is for the RAID setup, I use mine simply as a disk enclosure and have not encountered any issues.
The AIOS boxes are now almost obsolete but they are a good indicator of the sort of thing available out there, quite simply I haven't had a legit video file that these things couldn't play, the quality of their output in 1080 actually puts my HTPC to shame.
One thing I have seen with NAS is that the disk read/write speeds on the affordable end of the scale suck! My USB 3.0 connected box will write at about 100 MB/s, makes backing up and copying new BRD images across less painful. My disk setup cost about $650, $150 for each of the drives bought on sale and $50 for the enclosure bought on sale also.
Re: Not a NAS but...
Any reason its on 24x7? Most modern PCs will sleep to save 'leccy
My current situation:
1. Fibre internet conenction 70 Mbps but runs at 40 Mbps. Good enough for iplayer and youtube etc.
2. Seagate GoFlex 3Tb nas. Nice and fast. Awkward share names (with spaces by default) limited to 5 usernames.
3 1. Gb connection to LAN Cat5E with
4. Two Sumvision media-players (1 per communal room).
5. Two Neuros OSD players that can record MP4 (though not HD) direectly to LAN/NAS
6. Firewall blocks any external communication to router, but allows internal/LAN connections.
My Future Situation.
1. HD processsing needs >= 2Ghz processors. I'll get Laptops or other devices to replace my media-players in the mid-term. Basically: All smartTVs and mediaboxes outdate soon and I want most content available via netflix, youtube and through players from NAS (music, oics,video, home-videos we own.). I want to be able to play Google+ as well on TV.
2. I may use Win or Linux for the media-players TVs. With a HD DVB they can record and play using PC-software.
3. The media-player laptops or PCs would need to be very silent.
4. I have occasionally played HD sources with a 7" tablet using HDMI from the NAS, bt I find that too fidgety and too dependent on which software package can play fast enough. Sttil I was pleased that it can be done. For relaibility Wired cannot be beaten and removes many risks, particularly when recording.
5. I just use AVidemux to crop films etc. It is usually just cropping things off, rather than advanced editing / manipulation.
6. I often use get_iplayer and some online stuff from Channel4/film4 etc. That would require a UK IP-address available to you. Is possible for a price.
How to I get stuff from the NAS to the TV(s)? Cat 5 E Ethernet for HD media to TVs, WiFi to tablets, Phones and some laptops.
Do I need separate media players for each TV and, if so, which ones would work best (files are a
mixture of the usual, MP3, FLAC, MP4, MKV, AVI etc. and I'd prefer not to lose quality for HD files through transcoding or the like)? I have found the Sumvisions to be excellent and accept almost anything. I mainly use AVidemux for transcoding. Sometimes handbrake, winff
Will I be able to stream either different content or, more importantly, the same content to different devices simultaneously (sort of like the set-up on an aircraft entertainment system) and do I need some sort of programme for this? I do not use mutlicasting/streaming like that. Dunno. I do have an infrared transmitter and 2 infrared headphone sets. So two people can listen to the same audio/video.
How can I ensure my NAS is secure - i.e. read/write only from PC, read-only from certain devices, no access externally? Write rights are necesary from most devices to create thumbnails. Since the mediaplayers can remember connections I just use a separate account for them. Kids can write & delete, or many apps will crash that try to create thumbnails. I solve this with a normal HD plugged in to the NAS to which I make backups. I deliberately block access from outside my LAN. Purely for security. If I really need something I can use Teamviewer to a laptop on the lan.
I would go for a NAS to centralize datamangement for the family and use PCs so all software can upgrade and grow to accomodate increasing cloud storage and use. Old hardware outdates too quickly I prefer a PC/laptop with wireless keyboard and HDMI-connection.
Hope this helps, good luck.
There is a plugin for FireFox that allows you to choose what country you want to "appear" to be in
Server - Get hold of an HP Microserver (if you can), load it up with HDDs, Google for and install Xpenology, install (amongst other things) Plex.
Client - use whatever Plex client comes with your smart TV, or get a couple of NowTV boxes and install the same.
HP Microservers are often on special. Mine came with a deal for £100 cashback so it only cost £150.
I used the included 250MB HDD (it was a couple of years ago now) as a boot drive in the optical bay and dropped 4x2TB HDDs into the front drive bays. I installed FreeBSD and built a ZFS RAIDz pool which shares out the main /media dir via NFS and Samba. I also installed MiniDLNA server but TBH, rarely use that.
The two main TVs have a Raspbery Pi each running XBMC although the main TV, BluRay player, tablets and phones can all access the data via the shares or DLNA from either the server or the two Pi's. XBMC also gas an android app to use as a player or remote control.
XBMC also has the ability to store it's database remotely and share it between XBMC clients so "watched" files will still be shown as watched no matter which XMBC client you watched it on.
For backup, I added a USB3 card and a pair of 4TB external drives ZFSed as a JBOD and rsync the whole server every night.
Thirded! This is precisely what I use.
An HP microserver works out cheaper and more powerful than any NAS devices, plus you get the benefit of flexibility due to it being a server.
I run Windows 8 with its built in software RAID. XBMC on that, plus a TeamSpeak server, plus a Torrent client fed by Google drive, and even a Minecraft server.
Try and find one with a cashback offer from HP, then bung a Radeon HD5450 low profile in there and you are good to go.
Fourthed! Despite my earlier posts in favour of custom builds the HP Microservers are a fantastic choice but do cost a little more which is why so far I haven't bought one.
Yeah this number is creeping very high so it should suggest that we are talking sense. I have an HP Microserver running Unraid, which has the Serviio application on it. I have 4x2TB drives (one acts as parity) and a 250gb cache drive running over homeplugs to my network. Everything in the house can access it, and my Panasonic tv plays back MKVs natively over DLNA (unlike the matched Blu-ray and home cinema systems :( ). The tv in the bedroom is dumb, but is served by a WD TV Live player which is just as effective as the Panny for playback. The third TV (which is dumb) in the same room as the Microserver is naturally connected by VGA over a few feet and acts as a monitor when I need to access the HP. The HP runs 24/7 but spins down the disks when not in use so consumption is low.
Microserver ftw!
another NAS + Pi + XBMC user
I use Pis and XBMC pulling files off a NAS too and it works really well, especially with a shared mySQL database (which could be running on the NAS) to sync all the media information.
What is really good about sharing the same database is that you can dump new media to the share, rename and grab metadata for it using MediaCompanion, then scan the share with XBMC on a fast PC, and new media is available to all the Pis immediately.
I am increasingly of the feeling that the Pis just don't have quite enough grunt though. The CPU is almost maxed out just running the confluence skin at 1080 (fine at 720 if you don't mind the TV resolution switching) and large BD rips can cause issues, especially ones with high bitrate audio where the Pi's relatively weak CPU has to do a lot of work. For those cases, I have an 7 year old laptop that can be hooked up to the HDMI port - fire up XBMC on that and resume the film from where you left off.
As for type of NAS, homebrew is an option if you have some technical skill and the rest are all broadly similar. I'd avoid the entry level NASes with feeble CPUs. Of the brands I only have experience with two; Qnap seem to update their gear for ages which is nice, whereas Netgear drop updates depressingly quickly, although the old Infrant support guys are excellent for when you hose your multi-terrabyte archive of pr0n^h^h^h^hholiday photos.
Home Brew
My setup ..
Broadband : VM 120MMbps
Router : Asus RT-AC66UA - Cat5e/Wifi 2.4Ghz/5Ghz
Server : Spare AM3 Mobo, Phenom II X4, 8GB Ram, 4TB RAID-10 for media, 1TB Raid-1 for general stuff, Windows 2012 R2 Standard
Media Server : Plex Server
Apple/Android : Plex apps or via browser.
PC : Plex Home Theatre
TV's : Internal media player or Chromecast
I can do multiple HD streams over home ethernet/wifi, watch at work over wifi and in car over 3G/4G.
Drobo 5N + PLEX Server?
Minimum pain setting things up, easy to upgrade and you can start with any old drives you have to hand at the moment.
Synology / Samsung / Plex Combo
Here is our setup...
One point to remember with Synology and SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID) you can start on a 4 bay unit, when you max that out, take out the 4 drives, move them into a larger unit (say an 8 bay) and just add an additional 4 new drives, the unit with a couple of clicks automagically expands the RAID with no hassle. For the record I have now done this about a dozen times for family and friends.
We have installed PLEX onto the disk station and now use Raspberry PI's with RasPlex and Mac Mini's with XBMC.
Now to the fun part.
At home we have a VM 150Mb cable connection. At my flat, I have BT Infinity on an 60Mb(ish) connection.
All the media starts on my Home NAS, I then use Synology Backup overnight to push the media to the other disk stations that we have as a family.
We use SickBeard and SAB on the home one. Everyone has a logon and adds the TV programs their. When it is downloaded it is then sync'd to all the other DS's we have set up.
Yes, some people don't want one show. But the trade-off is that we have now got 12 backups as we each have the same TV and Films etc.
We don't sync the music and photos and home videos etc. only when there is a family event to share do we put a tick in the box so it syncs to the other family member(s)
If possible use ethernet and not wireless. We had a lot of weird gremlins with WiFi that all went when we re-wired the whole setup to Ethernet.
My setup
Syno DS214+, Chromecast, laptop with Chrome.
Syno DS214+ has a media player web page which plays based on what the computer has (codecs etc - VLC browser plugin works well), or if you are feeling particularly posh, get a chromecast, the Chrome browser and the VideoStream Chrome extension. Casts pretty much anything your computer has, by transcoding it on the fly on the PC. You can remote control currently playing content through your phone with the mobile app.
I'd suggest going for something with an Atom processor however - most Atom based NASs (and certainly the Synology ones) will transcode on-the-fly for DLNA devices.
Not that useful to you, but thought I'd share. I'm pretty pleased with my little setup, minimal fuss, works pretty well.
Buffalo-based system
Similar situation for me, so I figure I'll just post my home/office (I mostly work from home...) setup.
Based around a Buffalo NAS/media box, 4 discs, RAID 0+1. The box, besides being a file server, also offers various media and streaming services, including iTunes media and various standards fit for "smart" TVs. Connected to my in-house network via gigabit Ethernet.
The upper floor is wired; I have an 802.11 ac wireless bridge to downstairs, which floor again is wired. Living room: huge Samsung TV (can get HD/3D video from the box on its own) with a 3D/surround theatre box underneath which is connected to the intranet. Sitting room: much smaller, cheap-o smart TV, also no player needed. Upstairs, one workstation has surround sound and 24" screens, so that works just fine with the VLC playing anything the NAS can throw at it.
The NAS box supports ACLs for access control; those can be set up on an inclusion (only the following are allowed...) or exclusion (everybody except...) basis. For backup, I have set the box up to automatically do its backups onto an attached USB drive, and to another, rather more basic NAS sitting in the basement, via Ethernet. That may seem excessive to some, but my primary NAS holds not only video and audio, but also all my work and customer data, which I'd rather not accidentally lose.
I have one workstation equipped with DVB-T reception and occasionally record broadcasts; those are saved as h.264 videos on the box and are therefore available anywhere in the house immediately after recording finishes.
That said, I think I'll sit back with a cold one and enjoy a movie...
My Setup
I have the following which has worked well and reliably over the years:
Everything is hardwired in the household ; I distrust consumer-level wireless for throughput reasons.
1 - Geexbox on a number of older PC's with a composite (read yellow connector) output to older TV's. Wireless keyboard for controls
2 - Patriot media players HDMI connected in all of the other rooms - these play virtually anything I have thrown at them excepting the occasional .MOV format
3 - VLC on the work and other laptop computers in the house
4 - A Playbook tablet (yes , I know but it DOES work) on a wireless connection
1 - 5X Dlink DNS-323's configured as a JOBD ; offline image backups of each disk in the NAS
2 - 2X NAS4FREE (FreeNAS fork) ASUS P5GD1 -based computers
- the NAS"s has sufficient ACL's to keep the kids from erasing the collection
- I use multiple NAS's as the throughput on consumer level units like the Dlink (or Buffalo or etc.) tends to max out if the whole house is trying to view files from a single box, so I spread the theme category files around.
- I back EVERYthing up as I had a "hiccup " and needed to reformat the drive; fortunately only happened once and probably because of a power spike, which brings me to ...
- all of the NAS's and routers/switches are on UPS's
- File formats are either ISO or mpeg2
- 100 baseT is more than sufficient for networking
Have fun!
Re: My Setup
"100 baseT is more than sufficient for networking"
Nope, not really. Certainly good enough for lots of purposes but not for the short of patience if you frequently move large files (say 3GB+) around. Playing a 1080p MKV with DTS-HD audio over 100 BaseTX does not work well.
Given the cost of an unmanaged 8 port Gigabit switch, and the fact that most devices now have Gigabit NICs it's really not a great stretch to use it.
My Setup
I have the following which has worked well and reliably over the years:
Everything is hardwired in the household ; I distrust consumer-level wireless for throughput reasons.
1 - Geexbox on a number of older PC's with a composite (read yellow connector) output to older TV's. Wireless keyboard for controls
2 - Patriot media players HDMI connected in all of the other rooms - these play virtually anything I have thrown at them excepting the occasional .MOV format
3 - VLC on the work and other laptop computers in the house
4 - A Playbook tablet (yes , I know but it DOES work) on a wireless connection
1 - 5X Dlink DNS-323's configured as a JBOD ; offline image backups of each disk in the NAS
2 - 2X NAS4FREE (FreeNAS fork) ASUS P5GD1 -based computers
- the NAS"s has sufficient ACL's to keep the kids from erasing the collection
- I use multiple NAS's as the throughput on consumer level units like the Dlink (or Buffalo or etc.) tends to max out if the whole house is trying to view files from a single box, so I spread the theme category files around.
- I back EVERYthing up as I had a "hiccup " and needed to reformat the drive; fortunately only happened once and probably because of a power spike, which brings me to ...
- all of the NAS's and routers/switches are on UPS's
- File formats are either ISO or mpeg2
- 100 baseT is more than sufficient for networking
Have fun!
Good thread
I'm working on this myself. I already have a 1GB ethernet set up with Netgear WNDR4300 wireless router and a few 1GB switches. TV's are 42" & 55" dumb 1080p flat panels with a Panasonic and a LG blue ray USB/network enabled players attached to them. Blueray layers read directly from a Playlater folder on my dev machine (largest hd lol) or I walk 'The Walking Dead' season around via USB, depending. Oh and the Wii and the Xbox 360 can read/play them too.
The .plan is to get one of those WD My Cloud 3TB NAS boxes to store all my media and to make available to any device in the house. That WD also has a USB port for external HD backups... remote abilities too. Just waiting on the extra cash.
Why make it hard?
Just get a Buffalo link / Terastation, user level access control, DLNA for linking to the TV & Bit Torrent built-in for downloads. It's a single box solution, and it can back-up by itself to it's twin in the garage for when the house burns down, or dives fail. It will send you an email each day to say it's up to all working & backed up OK.
Wouldn't say that I specialise in this kind of thing, buy over the years I have more than a passing professional and personal interest...
I've been through all the pain of many solutions, including a PC based file server, which while quick and easy to get going chews through 'leccy like no business. Most of the kit doesn't have to be expensive, however if you aren't careful it will get expensive very quickly.
You don't need gigabit ethernet for streaming, and as noted above, most of the kit just doesn't do it anyway. Wifi is a waste of time for streaming, while the headline speeds may seem good, the real speeds are never close and as soon as you get multiple devices connected (or neighbours with wifi) the performance rapidly drops below useful levels.
NAS: Currently I'm using a ZyXEL unit of some form, with pretty much most features turned off. Stick to the basics, ignore the "value added" functions and most commodity NAS devices will do the job. I chose this ZyXEL device because of its support for Linux and Windows sharing, and the reviews reported success with both (and it powers down to low power usage). It's a single 2Tb drive, while RAID of some measure might sound like a good idea, it's not usually useful and adds needless complications and power problems (it's not that I'm not a fan of RAID, just sometimes it's not always useful). Redundancy, backup? Easy? Buy a second NAS and that's your backup. If you're careful and upgrade regularly you can buy a new NAS device with extra capacity, copy the old content onto it and have an instant backup of when you last had the content. Unless you throw your devices about and are willing to replace a HDD drive every couple of years, you are considerably more likely to lose content through accidental deletion than HDD failure. If you're particularly paranoid, power the NAS through a reasonable UPS so you get both power level smoothing and a few minutes of battery backed up power (I do).
Playback: It's generally best to have a single playback system for each screen. This gives you maximum redundancy but also keeps the cabling and communications sane. While you could have a super playback system playing four independent streams, you will quickly suffer internal bandwidth issues but more importantly you have to both stream the video and audio content from this one box to each screen and feed IR remote control signals back the same distance. The further the distance the nastier both of these become. I'm currently using an Acer Revo box with a Microsoft media centre IR controller connected for each screen. These PCs are cheap (£200-£250), small and are pretty low power particularly if you fit an SSD or low power HDD to them. Many are effectively silent or fanless as well. On the software front I get the cheaper Revo devices that don't have Windows on them, wipe the junk they do come with and install a build of XBMC on them. In the past I've had annoyances with audio playback but these days the drivers are all just there and the Linux audio layers have matured sensibly.
Security: Fit everything into your own wired network. You can add usernames and passwords for sharing files and for a home system you really shouldn't need much more. XBMC supports content levels so you can protect minors from inappropriate content.
Windows Home Server on an Acer Atom CPU here
My current setup -
Acer AH340 Microserver, WHS V1.1
1x1TB plus 3x2TB disks in the Acer
USB 3.0 PCI-E card in the one free slot
4 bay USB 3.0 enclosure with currently 3x2TB drives installed.
The WHS box also connects my weather station, serves as a test publish host for websites I develop, and runs the following media servers:-
SubSonic (for 250GB or so of audio files)
Serviio (for the 6TB or so of video media)
The above is limited by 2GB RAM limit, fixed CPU, and 2TB drive limit (able to be bypassed with a bit of hacking, but why should I)
Future Plans:-
HP Gen8 Microserver
WHS V2 or Windows Server 2013
DriveBender or similar to give WHS V1-like drive management
The Gen8 has 16GB RAM limit, replaceable CPU (up to Xeon CPU), dual GB Ethernet, built in USB 3.0, etc. I'll probably keep Serviio and SubSonic also.
Synology (doesn't matter which model) and a boxee or roku.
Job done.
My tested setup
After trying out multiple solutions, here's what I ended up with. I've tried to recycle most of my gaming PC setup and upgrade as "value oriented" as possible.
1. Zyxel NSA325 NAS with 2x3TB WD RED drives configured as a RAID 1 array. It runs file services for my entire network, a DLNA server and that's about it. This little NAS is dirt cheap, has decent software options and also THREE usb ports, one of each is USB3.0 and automounts any external drive you would connect to it. It's been running without issues for one a half years now with minimal downtime. It can also replicate folders to a remote FTP site which is pretty neat for a device available for about 150 EUR without any drives.
2. Single 40" dumb TV with an LG DP1 wired media player. Does 1080p videos brilliantly and is also a DLNA client.
3. TP Link 841 wireless AP handling connectivity and VPN services for the entire network.
4. Various notebooks, tablets and smartphones running VLC (for Windows) and Bubble UPNP and MX player (for smartphones and tablets) as media players.
5. Creative Extigy sound card working as a makeshift receiver for my Creative T6060 system. I connect both the LG DP1 and my set top box to it and it has a nice little feature called CMSS so I can listen to stereo sound from all the speakers in my system.
I don't do 3D or 4K television, so 1080p video and decent audio is all I need.
Soon to be replaced:
the LG DP1 is a nice little player but I need some more features (web browser, online video services) which I will get from a Samsung Smart Blu Ray player such as the BD-E6100 which you can get refurbished for about 100 EUR right now.
Also I find 5.1 audio a little over rated for living room media so I'll replace the Extigy and T6060 setup with a refurbished Onkyo or NAD receiver and a pair of multi channel tower speakers. And maybe a nice pair of headphones, AKG or Sennheiser.
I'd really recommend my setup, is good value and easy to set up and use, requiring minimal maintenance.
QNAP TS-210 and WDTVLive
My setup is really simple and works really well. I have a QNAP TS-210 where I store all our media which is connected to our router in the office via GB Ethernet port. On top of the TV we have a WDTVLive set top box which has a pretty good interface and can connect in many ways either directly via network File system or to any DNLA media server running on the NAS box (Twonkey for example). The WDTVLive will connect via wifi but is a little slow for streaming movies and sometime it has problems so we use powerline networking which works much better.
I am running a Iomega IX2-200D with 2 x 2TB disks. (Free at an industry event or would have been Synology 4 Bay)
Plex Server running on my gaming PC sharing the content.
Currently using the Plex App on the Samsung 2013 Series 5 TV (UA50F5500AM) but the Samsung WiFi implementation is a PITA so looking at mounting an Intel NUC (i3, 4GB, SSD) on the back via the VESA mount and running Windows 7 + Plex Client and having another Windows client available with a real keyboard and some big screen gaming (Intel HD graphics will be fine for what I play)
+1 for Synology
Synology's media player is straightforward to setup & the NAS is visible to DLNA devices. The interface has gotten smarter over the last couple of years, and now sports Digital TV compatibility etc.
As a bonus you get a stable local storage solution, painless volume upgrade path (expect 4TB HDD prices to fall with the introduction of 6TB platters) and a host of other nifty toys to play with.
Easier an simpler to simply set up a Home Theatre PC in a case that is both quiet, blends in with your stereo components and has plenty spare hard drive bays. I use a Fractal Define R2 mid tower. A current Core i3 will give you all the grunt you need for this type of setup.
Use either Windows or Linux for your OS, XBMC for the media centre functions, and Plex Server your your media streaming functions to other devices. There are plenty of plugins available on XBMC for media streaming services too. Sorted. Keep the solution simple eh.
Been there...
I've spent a LOT of time mucking about with HTPC's etc over the years. What I've ended up with is this:
3 x Intel DC3217IYE (NUC) for the players
These are all running Windows 7 , with MediaPortal as the front end plus a variety of plugins. Wifi remote/Online Video's/MyTvSeries/Moving Pictures being the main ones, with the TV series and Moving pictures databases held on the NAS.
Codecs etc are handeled by LAV filters rather than FFDShow
2 of these are wired (1Gb) via a cheapo 8 port switch, the 3rd is using a Eximax USB wireless adapter. All 3 easily "stream" off the NAS without issue. I say "stream" since it's not really, it's just playing the file from the NAS.
I did experiment with XBMC, Openelec etc however I prefer the feature set of Mediaportal plus the TV server integration, plus I had some Windows 7 licences kicking about.. Openelec might be what you're looking for if you don't have the licences.
For the content I did originally have an old home brew NAS, using Intel board with a P4 in it, plus a few cheap SATA controllers and a realtek GE card. This had CentOS installed, 6 x1TB drives in software RAID and ran Samba for windows shares. It had no issues providing enough grunt to the 3 players.
However, this beast was massive, power hungry and I ran out of space so I moved to a QNAP NAS with 4 x 3TB drives (RAID 5)
Additional to this, I have an old CoreDuo running Windows 7 with 2 x dual DVB-T2 cards in it. This runs just the Mediaportal TV server service, meaning the 3 NUC's (plus a laptop) can view any channel they want over the network.
If I had my time again on the NAS front, I'd probably switch back to a "server" like the HP Microservers so I could combine the file sharing and TV server.
Firstly with storage. I won't go into the DIY vs Off-The-Shelf NAS systems, probably a bit outside the scope of this post, however, since you asked, I'd lean towards Synology. By far the most important factor in storage though (whatever your option) is expandability. I cannot stress this enough, never, ever think that xTerabytes is enough. Buy or design around double or more the amount of drive bays you think you need right now, and expand later as required. It might get it a bit complicated if you want RAID 5/6, but at least you can deal with that without splurging out again on the NAS/PC cost. As far as the drives go, you need to lean towards the enterprise range of whatever brand you want. Don't be fooled into using desktop drives, or even bottom end "NAS" specific drives (like the WD Reds) they're cheapies - good luck if they last longer than 3 years. You're probably not going to get away with this cheaply (just on drive cost alone) otherwise it really won't last - or if you don't back that monstrosity up, you'll lose it too.
As far as the transport from NAS to TV goes, your wired ethernet/wifi will cover that, unless you mean hardware? DLNA might sound like a great idea, and the clients are built into every/most TVs, phones and tablets, but you're heavily restricted on file formats and codecs. I use either my laptop plugged into one TV, or a dedicated baby Atom box that is just a regular PC customised to behave like a media centre. This way, I get support for just about every audio and video format known to mankind, And I get Skype, and a REAL browser and just about any windows program out there, including my mapping software. Do NOT be fooled into the "my TV has a browser and skype too" argument - use them and see it's bollocks.
As per your question, you would need some sort of PC for each monitor. Be wary of the "transcoding" buzzword, most of what you think isn't really transcoding at all, it's merely "repackaging" (think DLNA transcoding). Real transcoding doesn't mean losing quality, and any PC wouldn't be fast enough to deal with it in real time anyway. Since you mention various formats, you automatically rule out DLNA too.
As far as multiple streams go, in your case, you're technically not streaming, but just reading the same stored video file from multiple clients. As long as your NAS, and network are fast enough to deal with that, it isn't going to be a problem.
As far as file/folder rights go, how you go about this would vary greatly depending on what DIY or off the shelf option you went for. Either way, both support login rights, where you restrict access read/write, read, or no access at all, down to username. I give read only access to the lounge room PC, because it gets mandhandled by various members of the family and other friends, and it's too easy for them to screw things up... The fact I use windows boxes to access the media makes this easy to sort out. Generic media boxes probably wouldn't work, have limited storage ability and DLNA isn't going to be suitable.
Lastly, and I found this to be by far the most important, you need a good, usable video/media menuing system. There are a few x86 "home cinema" menus available, (though I'm building my own). Having all your media listed A-Z is not an option, it's completely useless in fact. It's like having the world wide web with no search engine, just a list of alphabetically listed URLs. Billions of the things. You need to access the media easily, you need to have it sorted in a specific order (Such as TV series, or film sequels) you need to access more information if you choose, you need descriptions right there, you need search capabilities, you need to keep track of what you've seen or not. Some of us have 10,000+ video files in total, with no way of making any sense of it otherwise. Saving files on your NAS is REALLY easy compared to the database management, that by far takes the most work - because without it, you're sinking in a sea of files.
plex hands down
My setup consists of
readynas pro duo with 4x 3tb hdd raid x (i love raid x as it will auto expand while running, and are hot swappable)
mac mini 2.5ghz (late 2012) as the server
then i have a number of devices that can access the server.
Now tv with plex hack works very well and is simple (just roku box but only £10) i have 3 of them currently.
I also have 2 google tvs by sony - these are fantastic devices that have the latest version of plex that allows the files to be indexed when the server if off line.
And lifetime plex subscription - this is a must if you want the added bonuses of sync and cloud sync.
Another forgotten device is google chrome, cheap and easy to use from your mobile phone, just open the app and cast job done.
I have not read all the other comments so this may have been suggested.
I personally use an 8 bay QNAP NAS and a combination of Raspberry Pi's running RASPBMC and Serviio for mobile devices.
Firstly the rasp pi's.
RaspBMC is a distro designed for media streaming and works great. Use a USB3 memory stick and a class 10 SD card in combination with the NFS on the NAS and you have a very fast interface on a device that can stream 1080p high bit rate films with no issues.
Then use serviio (either running on the NAS or a seperate PC) to serve and transcode your library for mobile devices. They can either access it with dedicated apps or through a web browser.
hope this helps
Just one important note, touched on by John, above - find out what file formats your TVs support with DLNA.
All TVs (that support DLNA) will support MP3 but not all will support FLAC. Same goes for video formats - most will play MPEGs but not all will play XVid or MKVs.
You might also find that, unless you use identical devices (TVs, stereos, etc...) around the house, the interfaces will be different enough to be annoying.
For the above two reasons, I have found that a dedicated playback unit attached to each output device is just, well, better. Yes, it's more expensive but if you want a nice, seamless experience then you have to spend a bit extra.
This goes double if you want to synchronise playback in multiple locations.
So, I recommend dedicated boxes connected to your TVs and stereos. The question then becomes one of what software and devices to use.
In my opinion, XBMC is simply the most consistent option. It's not the most feature-packed but a major goal of the team has been to get it working on all manner of devices. This gives you great flexibility to deploy the right device for each endpoint - Android PCs, Pis, Apple TVs, cheap Atom/Ion-based linux boxes or full-on HTPCs. All will look the same and have the same functionality.
You can also use a tablet as a remote, which is very cool.
The main alternative I have used is MediaPortal. This is a fork of XBMC and is very cool in its own right, specifically its TV functionality, though it seems that recording TV is not a priority for you as you say the main reason for this is to play downloaded content. The only catch with MediaPortal is that it is Windows-only. That means that it can end up more expensive as each playback device must be a proper PC with a Windows license.
For media streaming on the cheap (provided you have DLNA-equipped TVs) then a NAS with DLNA functionality will work, though you would want to make sure all your media is in MP3/MPEG format for the widest compatibility. The downsides to this approaches are: cumbersome and inconsistent interface (usually), no synchronisation and lower-quality media. But, it's about the cheapest option.
As a follow-up to my post, my point is that a NAS is fine for storage but the experience will be dependent largely on the front-end you use and certain features, like synchronisation, stopping and starting in different rooms and transcoding (if you use it) will require a 'server'.
My rig starts with a Linux Server (AMD E-350 dual-core, 4Gb RAM, 1.5Tb disk mirrored). Fanless, silent and sub 40 watts power drain. Only the disk light lets me know it is running. I use SME server and have installed Serviio DLNA server, Sickbeard and SABnzbd among other things. Anything I have watched and wish to retain gets archived off onto an external disk - otherwise it gets deleted - I can re-download if I so wish.
For playback, I did use a Sony BDP-S390 Blueray with DLNA and Internet services (Youtube, iPlayer etc) that only cost GBP100 a few years back. Worked a treat. Now I have moved back to NZ, I'll need to remove the region lock as my DVD collection gets increasingly mixed. My new region-free Blueray player from NZ does not do DLNA and has pointless internet services, so I lost out there.
I also have a G-Box Midnight Android or XBMC capable device (using wireless N). This is currently running android, and runs DLNA content OK via 2player. The thing that does annoy me is that the AV socket with audio out is bloody noisy - I wanted to use it as an audio player directly to the stereo so my wife could send a playlist from her phone without having to have the TV on. Maybe when I get a Home Theater Receiver I'll be able to do that. I also have a Pi with XBMC, but I need to do a bit more work with that.
The whole system is tied together with a Logitech Harmony universal remote - slightly awkward to program, but allows multiple device control without switching, so is much easier to use for technically inept family members.
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Guests have to communicate by phone or e-mail an estimated time of arrival at least 24 hours before arrival itself.
Go to the structure without having advised about the expected time of arrival can cause.This will not be accepted as a valid reason for complaints or claims of reimbursement.
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Posts tagged michael jackson
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On eBay: the first game mag, Sega Genesis guitar
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Gamers resurrect imploded pop stars
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Rated 3.9 out of 5 by 490 reviewers.
Rated 5 out of 5 by Manju Great experience We were very impressed overall with this hotel, from the beautiful lobby atrium to the helpful and courteous staff. Room was very clean, spacious and comfortable. We would recommend this hotel highly to anyone staying in the Tampa area. January 4, 2012
Rated 2 out of 5 by GEEO Needs improvement Air vents dusty and have obviously not been cleaned in recent years. Furniture appeared very old. September 23, 2014
Rated 5 out of 5 by Fins56 Nice Surprise I expected nothing but standard Sheraton Airport hotel. However this one was better than usual Sheraton overall, Staff especially. Since I'm expecting less and less from air lines and hotel chains this was a nice surprise. January 13, 2013
Rated 2 out of 5 by SHAD0H Water Water Everywhere! Beware this hotel has issues with rooms being wet and water dripping from the air conditioners. on the carpets and through the paint in the bathrooms... EVERY ROOM I WAS MOVED TO HAD THIS ISSUE! 3 rooms in 2 days November 22, 2011
Rated 1 out of 5 by JimmyK13 This hotel was a bad experience The room was less than average and after my first night was never cleaned. When asked why they tried to say I had the "do not disturb" sign out, which was removed at 0730. August 11, 2013
Rated 4 out of 5 by Carol681949 Spacious suite and comfy beds I stayed at the Sheraton Suites Westshore by the airport 2 times in the past week and found the beds very comfortable and staff was friendly. I would stay again. January 17, 2014
Rated 5 out of 5 by Rick21 Great Stay This property has a great location, all suites and is pet friendly. I have stayed here before and will return again and again. The front desk check in staff was great. October 10, 2012
Rated 5 out of 5 Great Location This hotel is convenient for me because I work in Clearwater/St Pete and like the night life near downtown Tampa. Dollar-for-dollar, you can't beat this hotel! June 26, 2012
Rated 5 out of 5 by Weezee13 Wonderful Hotel Experience From the moment we arrived, we were treated like family. The Hotel was very clean, comfortable and the staff was friendly and helpful. I will come again! August 5, 2013
Rated 5 out of 5 by Matt1027 A nice roomy room and great comfort I love this hotel as it's not far from the airport or good places to eat. BIG, Clean, comfortable rooms and a good price. Oh and the gym rocks too!! October 23, 2013
Rated 5 out of 5 by Larry We had a great weekend We were at the hotel for a conference. The meeting rooms were easy to use and the food and staff were great. June 10, 2013
Rated 5 out of 5 by Renee61 Great stay! My family and I have stayed there many times and enjoyed every minute of our stay. Great place to stay! July 1, 2013
Rated 5 out of 5 by Greg58 Great service Needed a hotel for 1 night after a cruise. Booked this Sheraton through a third party booking site. Have done this many times and it often seems the hotel "penalizes" you for doing so and gives you the least desirable room and poor service. Certainly wasn't the case here. Got a nice quiet suite with 2 queens instead of king originally reserved. Brooke at check-in greeted us like old friends. Very accommodating and got us into our room a few hours before normal check-in. Great service also received from concierge and shuttle driver. The staff here made a very short stay very enjoyable. Definitely recommend and will definitely come back here. April 2, 2013
Rated 1 out of 5 by Toni100 Bedding was not clean!! The facility is beautiful when you walk in! We were very excited to end our honeymoon at this facility! The staff even allowed us to check in early! But when we got to the room the comforter on the bed had crusty something on it (looked like food). Grossed out I pulled back the sheets and in the sheets were hair and sweat stains! I thought this must be a mistake! The sheets must be stained so I smelled to make sure that it was clean...NO! The bedding had not been changed from the previous guests! We called and it was changed immediately. The remote control also had food crusted on it as well but I found that after the staff had left the room. There is a shuttle at this location. We asked about an aquarium but that was out of their range so we asked about attractions nearby. The staff member gave us directions to a local mall and we walked. When we got back we spoke with the night staff about local restaurants. They offered to bring us to dinner! It was perfect! But we were irritated to learn that the shuttle could have brought us to the mall but it was not offered to us. The staff member was also aware that we were walking. Based on the cleanliness alone we will not be staying in a Sheraton Hotel again. November 25, 2012
Rated 5 out of 5 by sugarbear A very enjoyable stay. I really appreciate the way the staff worked with me when my wife and I experienced an unexpected delay when attending a funeral. My delayed checked out time was estimated to be only 1 hour. As it turned out, with unexpected traffice delays, it turned out being a total of 2 hours delay in checkout. My wife and I where very concerned that we would be charged for the extra delayed checkout but the staff worked with me and said that it would not be an extra charge and thanked us for staying with them. I was impressed with the professionalism of the front desk staff. I will stay with them again and will recommend to my friend. Keep up the good work! January 29, 2013
Rated 5 out of 5 by Adam01 Tampa The bed was unbelievably comfortable. Best rest ever December 31, 2012
Rated 5 out of 5 by Vicki24 Comfy Very comfortable rooms and very beautiful hotel. June 13, 2013
Rated 5 out of 5 by Linebru Extra Nice Front Desk always welcoming and took care on my needs. June 17, 2013
Rated 5 out of 5 by CarmenQ Clean hotel The hotel was very clean. October 31, 2012
Rated 4 out of 5 by IBME Room The hotel was beautiful and the staff went above and beyond to accommodate our needs, the only complaint we had is the room. We stayed in number 221 which is right above the kitchen so we heard the loud exhaust fans and a metallic banging all night which kept my husband up for most of the night, he finally gave up at about 4:30am and complained to the front desk who issued breakfast coupons as compensation. The coupons were used by my husband and two grandchildren, my husband said the breakfast was really great and again the staff was wonderful. Room 221 should only be used for storage and not as a guess room, and we would stay at this hotel again. May 6, 2013
Rated 1 out of 5 by LizLMT Wow really no knock just walk in Got to hotel we booked a king they tried gicing us a double. The couple next to us said they would take the double and give us their king, cool. Was in the room about a half hour wanted a bath no stopper. Called ftont desk and maintance brought one, hubby said that might not work. Which the guy replied well im NOT replacing the whole tub! He was VERY RUDE! Whatever I took a bath and when i was done came to the front room area to sit naked with my hubby. About a half hour later a maid just opens our door. WOW! She said we requested a wash cloth, no we didnt. Still knock id yourself. Called frontndesk shaking now. Then decided to go to lobby to speak with a manager. She was friendly and appoligized offered us free dinner. Cool, however that sucked also. Waitstaff took 10 mins to seat us another 15 to take our drink order. Another 15-20 to take our appitizer order, which she said we would have topay for.umm ok no problem.took another 10 mins to get to us and the calimari was nasty and the jumboo shrimp was tiny. She asked if we would like to order i said i was ready when u took the order for appitizers but you just walked away. Finally got dinner it was ice cold! By this time we had waited over an hour for our dinner. We told them to bring it to our room. The manager did and told us she watched the chef reheat it for us. Why didnt they make fresh food? Glad i didnt pay the close to a hundred for 2 reheated dinners. Then we found ants in the bathroom we was on the 4 th floor. I am highly allergic to ants and now have a really sore neck from an ant bite. Would i stay here again? Never!, March 4, 2013
Rated 2 out of 5 by Sharon49 Hotel Needs work My hotel room was satisfactory, but it could have been brighter, the lights were a little dim. The restaurant service was non existing, and the food was cold and burnt. The breakfast in the morning was okay, but they kept running out of food and I have had more choices and better food for free at other hotels (this was $12 a person with a $2 coupon) The elevators were slow and kept breaking down. This is not the type of service I would expect from Sheraton. The hotel staff were friendly and as accommodating as they could be with the circumstances they had to work with. ( I was also charged $4 for water that I thought was free) February 17, 2014
Rated 5 out of 5 by Louise88 Very Clean and Quiet This hotel is very clean and the atrium is just beautiful. Also very quiet, which is important. The front desk employees are absolutely fantastic. Thabani Matsuri is one of the nicest people that I have ever met. He is a great asset to the Sheraton hotels. And the indoor pool is wonderful. September 10, 2014
Rated 5 out of 5 by Kiy14 Hotel Surprise 101!! I have stayed at several Starwood hotels but this hotel was an unexpected surprise!! The staff (Guest Services-Danielle, Hotel Restaurant-Corey, and Bar Mgr-Cesar) from the moment I walked in until the moment I walked out was very friendly, professional, and helpful. The hotel's opened-spaced atrium was filled with large palm trees, waterfalls, and little paths you could walk along. It is an all-suite hotel with a separate living room, workstation (best area for Wi-Fi signal), small fridge, and a microwave. There is an indoor pool right outside the workout area. The rooms are clean with comfortable bedding. The location of the hotel in driving distance is about 10 mins from the airport, 2-5 mins from 2 shopping malls and plenty of great restaurants.(Ruth Chris, PF Chang etc.) Local attractions (Florida Aquarium, Busch Gardens) are about 10-15 mins away. Overall, great hotel for a reasonable price!!!! September 1, 2014
Rated 5 out of 5 by cloudsweeper Coffee Gauntlet I gave every category the highest rating. Extremely comfortable hotel and excellent value I have been with Starwood for 20 years and just love this chain and have seen many of the global properties.. I simply want to address the coffee situation, Very difficult to get coffee in the lobby. Yes, there is a coffee machine in the room but we all know its not the same. Restaurant staff is busy with customer and rightfully so... Might be a great idea to have Self-serve Coffee at restaurant entrance and pay receptionist. I like the concept at La Cantera (san Antonio) but realize that property is a westin. No problem to pay for coffee... would like to see it readily accessible. March 18, 2014
Rated 5 out of 5 by Michigan Great Hotel For Any Tampa Stay Our first impression of the hotel held true throughtout our 3 night stay. The lobby and atruim were very pleasant to look at and relax in. We were at this hotel from 12/31/11until 1/3/12. The rooms were clean, comfortable and updated. The beds were comfortable and we slept very well. Considering one of the nights was New Year's Eve and we had many band students in the hotel, it was still quiet and comfortable. Kudos to the Band kids. Very well behaved young people!! Eat in St. James Restuarant, the food is very good and the prices are not typical of hotel of this caliber. Smoked Salmon Egss Benedict YUM!!!!!! January 3, 2012
Rated 5 out of 5 by FloridaMomof3 Beautiful Hotel My family was excited when we stepped into this hotel. It was beautiful and the staff were super friendly. I loved the size of the rooms and how clean they were. Thank you for a wonderful experience for our family. September 3, 2014
Rated 5 out of 5 by SunbeatLouis Good Place for Home Away From Home This hotel has excellent features. It is close to the airport and plenty of places to eat. Their lobby and courtyard are outstanding and the deco makes you feel as if you are not in a hotel but a tranquil creek with the water in doors. The elevator leaves nothing out, you get in the elevator that has glass views to the courtyard. August 29, 2014
Rated 2 out of 5 by Gil1945 This hotel 's service was not up to standards We could not get a handicapped room because they had none available and they did not put us on the floor with the SPG accommodations. The room cleaning personnel were not careful pin cleaning the room and renewing the room supplies. The first day they did not renew the coffee and cream and sugars. They did not leave towels and washcloths on day two. Each day we had to call the desk to get supplies that should have been provided. The service for room cleaning did not include sweeping the floor as several areas were not swept. I found paper wrappers on the floor that were left by previous guests that should have been picked up but were not? The cleaning was not up to our expectations. July 3, 2013
Rated 4 out of 5 by RedMan Great hotel for business I stayed at the Westshore Sheraton Suites no less than 10 times during 2010-11. The staff was always very accommodating and and the room was above expectation. As a Platinum guest I was given a breakfast coupon daily to attend a very nice buffet in the restaurant. I was very satisfied with meals in the restaurant for both lunch and dinner. During one stay, they had a serious roof leak in the atrium. I mention this because they did not let it effect guests and upon my next stay it was completely repaired and indistinguishable. Finally, easy freeway access, free parking, close to airport and the best shops and restaurants in Tampa make this a great choice for anyone visiting the area. October 23, 2011


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The next season of "Survivor" will have a new twist that has already drawn criticism. Four teams are to be divided along racial/ethnic lines?blacks, whites, Asians, and Latinos. The individual who wins gets a million-dollar prize.
Fernando Mateo, founder of Hispanics Across America, had this to say about the format: "The participants will be held to the daunting and unfair challenge of representing an entire race of people…. What will it mean for a team—a race—to fail in a battle of wits and strength against another race?"
BBC News:
The network announced on Wednesday that the 20 "castaways" would be initially segregated into groups of blacks, whites, Asians and Latinos before merging later in the series.
It said the move was aimed at addressing complaints that there had not been sufficient ethnic diversity in previous series.
But New York councillor John Liu told the Associated Press: "The idea of having a battle of the races is preposterous.
"How could anybody be so desperate for ratings?"
A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion Publisher, Zuade Kaufman Editor, Robert Scheer
© 2014 Truthdig, LLC. All rights reserved.


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Originally Posted by nephilim Pics weren't shared on the man cave , but I am glad things are going your way with this! You of all people deserve a break! Enjoy the bundle when (s)he arrives! That's true, but you did find out the news a good 2 weeks before anyone else :-) :-p
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We love this school so much! We have two children there, and we are thrilled with everything: strong academics, close-knit school community, robust extracurricular offering. The location is great too. And you should hear where our graduates go! St. Ignatius, Trinity, Fenwick, and many other great schools. Definitely worth checking out.
My daughter attended the school for two years. I love the family values and friendliness of the staff and parents. We are non-Catholic but the religious orientation was inconsequential because they seemed to all be spiritual people & my daughter was influenced positively by that environment. However, there are very little resources at this school. No Smart boards & only two computers in the class. The math book was convoluted & confusing and there is no tutoring for students who need it - outside if Fenwick & Trinity HS kids coming late in the year. I do not think the teacher knew how to access the individual talents and potential of her students. My daughter was a 5th grader who did get one on one time w the teacher, but that was only once a week for 15-20 minutes! We are moving to Oak Park and hopefully there won't be a one-size fits all approach to education there. My daughter made life-long friends but that was just not enough in this competitive world.
This is an outstanding school for our 2 daughters. We are not Catholic, but the teachers and curriculum are outstanding. At first, I was disappointed that there was weekly mass, but now I understand how important it is to the school. I was worried about my girls fitting in, but everyone has been wonderful and friendly. 2010 - 2011 was our first year and I am thrilled we made the switch from the public schools. Great school, great atmosphere
s. Bernardine is a diverse, catholic elementary school from 3 years old through 8th grade, with before and after scholl care. St. Bernardine promotes acedemic excellence, integrity and social justice through creative initiatives that allow students opportunities for learning and critical thinking. Thank you St. Bernardine!
Strengths: Diverse student body. School elected to enter program w/ Arch of Chgo. to better compete in:enrollment, curriculum dlvp, infra-structure improvements, tech., service proj., financial stability & scholar-ships.Core group: parents, staff, parish working together enthusias- tically to make St. B's a premiere school. Active PA offers many kid/ family events throughout the yr. Weaknesses: Low enrollment, low wages & high turnover in leadership over the past decade will make it difficult to recruit & retain highly skilled teachers. Award winning read- ing program in lower grades. Other grades curriculum& teaching methods avg. My child is in 5th grade & over the past 30+ wks has not received even 15 min of individualized instruction from the teacher. Size of class: 11. Enough said. Disconnect between parish& school.Too few parish kids attend St. B's.Too few non-cath school families and/or teachers support parish/school events. New pastor(2 yrs) improved quality & appearance of mass. Seems less interested in spirtual lives of non-cath students in class. Friendly school. Core group volunteers-parents/staff/parish AMAZING.Overall little parent support.Dedicated principal.
We love Saint Bernardine in Forest Park. Our daugther is getting a great education and a Catholic upbrining in a diverse school environment. I would recomment all Catholic parents to send their child to St. Bernardine.
This is our 3rd year at St.B's and we couldn't be happier with our choice. We originally came for the all day 3/4 yr old program with intention of leaving once our son entered kindergarten . . . I would never do that now after seeing the quality education and all the extras that my kids are receiving at St.B's. The faculty is focused and dedicated to each child, the curriculum is solid including the addition of a renowned reading program and the overall community is supportive at the school. I would encourage people to check it out!
This will be our 2nd year at St. B's. We have one child in 1st grade and another in the Jr. Kindergarten program. Can't say enough good things about this school! The children are friendly, teachers and curriculum are excellent, students and faculty are ethnically diverse, class sizes are small, and tuition is quite reasonable for a Chicago area private school! We have always felt very welcome and parent participation/volunteering is most appreciated. The school and parish have both a new Principal as well as a new Priest. Both of these gentlemen are very genuinely interested and involved with the students on a daily basis and seem very kind and personable. This school is exactly what my husband and I were searching for when choosing a school for our four young children. Next year, our 3rd child will start at St. B's and we couldn't be happier!
St B's is an outstanding school. It is small and the teachers know all the kids. The new principal is wonderful and my kids are receiving an outstanding education.
Great School. My son transferred from public school for eigth grade year and was welcomed by both students and faculty like family. He has enjoyed making new friends, playing soccer, acting in the wonderful spring musical, participating in the celebration of the Holy Mass, etc. If you are considering an alternative to public education, you can't go wrong.
The most thing that the teacher care about is religion. Religion is very important, but it seemed that was all we talked about it and that was all the teachers could really teacher. I was very very happy to be removed from that school but they did damage to my learn ablites. I was behind alot from the others students in my classes. I didn't really get anything. I would never tell anyone to go to this school.
St. Bernardine has provided my children with a very sound academic foundation. It has a strong Catholic identity, but shows respect for other faiths. Most of the teachers are excellent and make up for the couple of teachers that I feel are not as qualified as they should be. Music and art are excellent, but the gym program is seriously lacking. There are extacurricular sports and strong parent involvement. The current principal Larry White, genuinely cares about the children and discipline really isn't a problem. One of the best things is the diversity of the student population. My children have grown up with children who are Irish, Polish, African American, Italian, Philippine, Chinese, Indian, Peruvian, Creole, Guatemalan and Mexican. They share their cultures with each other and it is truly a beautiful thing.
I like St. Bernadines School, the school is diverse with a Catholic background, and what parent wouldn't want that from their child. However, there isn't a gym and the kids only have gym once a week. I think kids these days should have gym at least 2x's a week.
I've been going to St. Bernardine for 4 years now and i LOVE IT! i think that my school probvides good learning experences and we have GREAT extracurricular activitesthey make it FUN for us! the parent's are involved 100%! they are there no matter what
My son has been a student at St. B's for the past seven years. Our overall experience has been good. This year we have a few new teachers & a new principal. It's a little soon to rate. So I will update at a later date. So far so good.
Community ratings and reviews do not represent the views of GreatSchools nor does GreatSchools check their accuracy or verify the reviewers' identities. Use your discretion when evaluating these reviews.
The Community Rating is the school's average rating from its community members (e.g., parents, students, and school staff). The highest possible rating is five stars; the lowest is one star.
815 Elgin Avenue
Forest Park, IL 60130
Phone: (708) 366-6890
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[US Vogue]
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West on the cover of US Vogue is probably one of the most heatedly disputed magazine covers of all time. Last month, a source revealed that the issue was estimated to sell almost 500,000 copies, outselling previous issues featuring Beyoncé and America's First Lady Michelle Obama which sold 355,39 and 293,798 copies respectively. Oopsies! Turns out the source was off by a mere few hundred thousand copies.
New information from Mag Net Data - who use scan data from wholesalers that cover about 98 percent of the market - reveals the final sales figures for Kimye's cover will more likely come in at around the 250,000 mark. And that's including the stacks and stacks of the issue that Kim K apparently bought herself.
'The trends for Kim K. are definitely better than the prior month with Rihanna, to the tune of 20 percent better,' Josh Gary, vice president at Mag Net Data, told the New York Post. 'I'd argue that if you peg last year's Michelle Obama at 269,000, this issue will net out around 250,000.'
[US Vogue]
Barely 12 hours after the Vogue cover was revealed Twitter exploded in backlash. Sarah Michelle Gellar took to Twitter to say she's cancelling her Vogue subscription - yikes - while Bryan Boy tweeted, 'I'm gonna pretend I didn't see the cover of April 2014 issue of US Vogue.' Oh dear.
But as Anna Wintour says in her Editor's Letter inside Kimye's April issue, "...Part of the pleasure of editing Vogue, one that lies in a long tradition of this magazine, is being able to feature those who define the culture at any given moment, whose presence in the world shapes the way it looks and influences the way we see it." And no one can argue that Kim and Kanye aren't a massive part of today's culture - whether one may like it, or not. All hail the queen of the reinvention! Regardless of how many magazine covers she sold.
See Kim Kardashian's best fashion moments in the gallery below...