Windows Home Server?

[Skippman]

Does anyone here have any experience with Windows Home Server? I'm contemplating going from 2000 Server to Home Server for my home network to simplify things and improve compatability. One of the features I find most appealing is the native support for Media Streaming to X360 consoles and support for Shadow Copy.

[Skippman]

Seriously? No one here's ever used/seen Home Server?

[bubba]

nope, not me. Sorry

[dicecca112]

It essentially Vista with an updated Kernel, or a stripped down version of Windows 2008.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/produc ... /eval.mspx

Download and try for 120 days

[Skippman]

I think I might, I'm going to have to reinstall my servers OS here soon when I swap out it's last PATA for a SATA drive. The boot sectors been flacky lately anyway. Maybe this would finally fix the dang lack of widescreen support in 2K.

[hnzw_rui]

It essentially Vista with an updated Kernel, or a stripped down version of Windows 2008.

Isn't it a stripped down version of Windows Server 2003?

[Skippman]

Personally I don't care what it's a stripped down version of if it'll let me stream my MKV files without dropping out like TVersity does after 15 minutes. It's been driving me nuts. How the heck am I supposed to enjoy my Anime if it drops right in the middle of it?

I mean sure my 24" monitors OK for most things but from time to time you need the 62" TV!

[martini161]

why not use a server oriented linux distro?
i can testify that centOS is awesome :D

[hnzw_rui]

Personally I don't care what it's a stripped down version of if it'll let me stream my MKV files without dropping out like TVersity does after 15 minutes. It's been driving me nuts. How the heck am I supposed to enjoy my Anime if it drops right in the middle of it?

I mean sure my 24" monitors OK for most things but from time to time you need the 62" TV!

Do you have Tversity set-up to transcode the MKV? If yes, then Windows Home Server isn't gonna solve that issue. If your files aren't already compatible with the Xbox 360, the built-in media streaming function isn't gonna do jack. I use Tversity for streaming compatible files to my PS3 and I haven't experienced any drop outs. Media transcoding is disabled.

[Skippman]

Personally I don't care what it's a stripped down version of if it'll let me stream my MKV files without dropping out like TVersity does after 15 minutes. It's been driving me nuts. How the heck am I supposed to enjoy my Anime if it drops right in the middle of it?

I mean sure my 24" monitors OK for most things but from time to time you need the 62" TV!

Do you have Tversity set-up to transcode the MKV? If yes, then Windows Home Server isn't gonna solve that issue. If your files aren't already compatible with the Xbox 360, the built-in media streaming function isn't gonna do jack. I use Tversity for streaming compatible files to my PS3 and I haven't experienced any drop outs. Media transcoding is disabled.

Yes, it's set up to transcode. I get 15 minutes of flaweless, uninterrupted playback of MKV on my X-360 then it suddenly, and for no reason gets stuck in a buffering loop. It buffers for 30 sec, shows another 1 second of video, then repeats. I've never gotten any help with this on the Tversity forum. The best I can figure is it's a problem with the UDP packets which 2000 Server doesn't officially support.

[martini161]

why not use a server oriented linux distro?
i can testify that centOS is awesome :D

and ive just confirmed you can stream to xbox 360 with fairly minimal effort in linux. so why not get CentOS? it is a free clone of redhat (its literally the exact same thing minus the redhat artwork and branding, hell the first time you run firefox the redhat page comes up ) so you get the most widley used and stable server OS on the planent, and xbox media streaming to boot.

[hnzw_rui]

Yes, it's set up to transcode. I get 15 minutes of flaweless, uninterrupted playback of MKV on my X-360 then it suddenly, and for no reason gets stuck in a buffering loop. It buffers for 30 sec, shows another 1 second of video, then repeats. I've never gotten any help with this on the Tversity forum. The best I can figure is it's a problem with the UDP packets which 2000 Server doesn't officially support.

One thing I'm pretty sure of, unless you can run Tversity under Windows Home Server or there's a plug-in similar to it, you won't be getting your anime fansubs on your Xbox 360. Unless, of course, you're fine watching anime without subtitles. Don't you have a Vista PC? Try running Tversity on that and see if that solves your drop issue.

I've gone from DVP642 (2005~07) -> DVP5960 (2007~08) -> PS3 (2008~present) -> Popcorn Hour (2008~present) trying to play back online content on the TV. The Popcorn Hour came closest when it comes to format support but I've finally come to the conclusion nothing beats a PC flexibility-wise and will be building an HTPC once the Zotac 9300 mini-ITX board becomes available.

[Skippman]

why not use a server oriented linux distro?
i can testify that centOS is awesome :D

and ive just confirmed you can stream to xbox 360 with fairly minimal effort in linux. so why not get CentOS? it is a free clone of redhat (its literally the exact same thing minus the redhat artwork and branding, hell the first time you run firefox the redhat page comes up ) so you get the most widley used and stable server OS on the planent, and xbox media streaming to boot.

Because I hate Linux with a passion? I have ever since I had to take principles of hardware and software when I was in junior college. It's just a very difficult O/S to use unless you're a programmer or can think like one which is a problem for me. I tried running both Mandrake and Fedora in the past and could never get the shares to work right with the other PC's on my network.

One thing I'm pretty sure of, unless you can run Tversity under Windows Home Server or there's a plug-in similar to it, you won't be getting your anime fansubs on your Xbox 360. Unless, of course, you're fine watching anime without subtitles. Don't you have a Vista PC? Try running Tversity on that and see if that solves your drop issue.

I do indeed have a Vista Ultimate PC. I could try that. I prefer to watch my anime in English. The days of extremely poor dubs are long gone. With voice actors like Chris Patton, Luci Christinson, Hillary Haag, Chrispen Freemen, and Wendy Lee it's really not nessicary to read my anime anymore.

I just want to be able to watch Black Lagoon and Desert Punk on my home theater. When the new NVidia boxes come out I'll move to them, but for now my X-360 and PS3 are the only options I have without going to a dedicated HTPC.

[martini161]

Because I hate Linux with a passion? I have ever since I had to take principles of hardware and software when I was in junior college. It's just a very difficult O/S to use unless you're a programmer or can think like one which is a problem for me.

you take that back! BLASPHEMER!

[Skippman]

Because I hate Linux with a passion? I have ever since I had to take principles of hardware and software when I was in junior college. It's just a very difficult O/S to use unless you're a programmer or can think like one which is a problem for me.

you take that back! BLASPHEMER!

Hey, you're welcome to set this thing up if you want to! I just want the blasted thing to work.

I'm going to download and try out Home Server and see if it does what I need. If so, then my problems are solved. If not, I guess I'll have to wait until the NVidia boxes come up and then pick up a couple of them.

[martini161]

Because I hate Linux with a passion? I have ever since I had to take principles of hardware and software when I was in junior college. It's just a very difficult O/S to use unless you're a programmer or can think like one which is a problem for me.

you take that back! BLASPHEMER!

Hey, you're welcome to set this thing up if you want to! I just want the blasted thing to work.

I'm going to download and try out Home Server and see if it does what I need. If so, then my problems are solved. If not, I guess I'll have to wait until the NVidia boxes come up and then pick up a couple of them.

sure, just open up some of those ports on your router and id be glad to vpn on over

[Skippman]

sure, just open up some of those ports on your router and id be glad to vpn on over

I hate you.

[hnzw_rui]

I do indeed have a Vista Ultimate PC. I could try that. I prefer to watch my anime in English. The days of extremely poor dubs are long gone. With voice actors like Chris Patton, Luci Christinson, Hillary Haag, Chrispen Freemen, and Wendy Lee it's really not nessicary to read my anime anymore.

I just want to be able to watch Black Lagoon and Desert Punk on my home theater. When the new NVidia boxes come out I'll move to them, but for now my X-360 and PS3 are the only options I have without going to a dedicated HTPC.

Alas, most of what I watch are still not available on DVD so it's either fansub or Japanese raw. Since you don't care for subtitles, why not just strip it down to elementary video and audio streams and remux to a format playable by the Xbox 360/PS3? Or maybe run a batch encoding job overnight. That's what I used to do for the DVP642/5960.

[Skippman]

I do indeed have a Vista Ultimate PC. I could try that. I prefer to watch my anime in English. The days of extremely poor dubs are long gone. With voice actors like Chris Patton, Luci Christinson, Hillary Haag, Chrispen Freemen, and Wendy Lee it's really not nessicary to read my anime anymore.

I just want to be able to watch Black Lagoon and Desert Punk on my home theater. When the new NVidia boxes come out I'll move to them, but for now my X-360 and PS3 are the only options I have without going to a dedicated HTPC.

Alas, most of what I watch are still not available on DVD so it's either fansub or Japanese raw. Since you don't care for subtitles, why not just strip it down to elementary video and audio streams and remux to a format playable by the Xbox 360/PS3? Or maybe run a batch encoding job overnight. That's what I used to do for the DVP642/5960.

I'd thought about that, but we're talking over 400GB worth of data to have all of my stuff converted. Plus since it's all in MKV format my friends who want to watch it in Japanese w/ subs can still do so on my or thier PC's. Part of me feels like that wouldn't be solving the problem, simply working around it.

I think the thing that frustrates me the most is not knowing WHY the server just suddenly drops the ball. I mean if it happened right away that would make sense and either the system couldn't transcode fast enough or there wasn't enough bandwidth on my network. Being 15 min in then just dropping... it's bugging the crap out of me. There's no logical explination for it that I can think of. I'm running 2G of RAM but maybe thats not enough?

[hnzw_rui]

400GB is small, relatively speaking (check sig ). Internal 500GB hard drives are in the range of USD50~60 nowadays. Albeit, further discussion of remuxing/batch encoding is a bit useless until you've establish that Tversity's causing the problem and not Windows 2000. If Tversity works fine under Vista, it's a moot point since you could just carry on using Tversity as normal. The only advantage to WHS, I think, is the automatic back-up functionality.

Question, does it always crap out after 15 min or does the time change? Bitrate and complexity varies throughout the video. If you're hitting action/fast-motion scenes after 15 minutes, then it's quite possible it's dropping out because the CPU can't encode fast enough. Last I remember, Tversity only uses one core for encoding.