In need of a media streamer/server..maybe?

[Tragon]

I currently live in Canada, while my mother lives in the US. What I need, is a TV top box (I guess).. that I can access through an IP from anywhere, i.e, Canada.


What I'm trying to do:

I want to be able to load TV shows onto a device and have my mother be able to watch them on her TV. The catch is, I want to be able to do this from another country. I want to be able to add/remove files from the device remotely. I have her setup with high speed cable with a decent wireless router. So speed or connectivity isn't an issue (other than to the TV that is *see below).

On a side note, she currently has a Roku 2 XS.. can anything be done with that to help get me what I want?


What I think I need:

A box with built in HDD or port for external drive.
Can play pretty much all formats/codecs. divx, xvid, avi, mp4, etc..
Be connected to the internet (Wireless would be a bonus)
*Be able to connect to analog TV, HDMI is not an option unless I get some kind of converter and/or adapter.


Thanks in advance if anyone can help!

 

[drtweak]

Can't really help you with exactly what you do but I will tell you what I do.

All my videos are .MP4 which chrome will STREAM and not download or anything. I installed Apache Web server on my media server, made a small HTML website with username and password login. Now you don't need any kind of website. Just tell apache to run out of the folder of the videos and it will just list the files. Then they click on it and it starts to stream.

Beauty of this is 1) can be used on ANY deivce that uses chrome 2) Password protected 3) you can add and delete or share it all.

Now if everything isn't mp4 (as you have listed) you install VLC Player, enable the chrome extension, and it will stream though the VLC player extension. I'm just converting everything to MP4 just to simplify things for myself and my family.

Now i don't have a roku so not sure what we can do there. If it supports VPN you can setup a VPN and have it connect to you from the Roku so it seems as if they are on the same network and stream that way.

I'm sure others have their input as well but I'm just more so telling you what I do and if makes any sense to possibly do it that way. Its easy to setup as well. Its just more so on her end and what to stream it off of. if the TV doesn't have a VGA or HDMI then that narrows your options down really small.

 

[Tragon]

Can't really help you with exactly what you do but I will tell you what I do.

All my videos are .MP4 which chrome will STREAM and not download or anything. I installed Apache Web server on my media server, made a small HTML website with username and password login. Now you don't need any kind of website. Just tell apache to run out of the folder of the videos and it will just list the files. Then they click on it and it starts to stream.

Beauty of this is 1) can be used on ANY deivce that uses chrome 2) Password protected 3) you can add and delete or share it all.

Now if everything isn't mp4 (as you have listed) you install VLC Player, enable the chrome extension, and it will stream though the VLC player extension. I'm just converting everything to MP4 just to simplify things for myself and my family.

Now i don't have a roku so not sure what we can do there. If it supports VPN you can setup a VPN and have it connect to you from the Roku so it seems as if they are on the same network and stream that way.

I'm sure others have their input as well but I'm just more so telling you what I do and if makes any sense to possibly do it that way. Its easy to setup as well. Its just more so on her end and what to stream it off of. if the TV doesn't have a VGA or HDMI then that narrows your options down really small.

Thank you for replying, but yeah.. that's not what I'm looking for. I want to bypass setting up a server. If that weren't the case, I'd just build a micro pc and direct link it to her TV/setup a simple server.

I want a box that I can hook up an external HDD (Or internal).. VGA/Comp cables are ok (no HDMI). Something that I can access via www/IP to add files to (NOT just on home network).. so that all she has to do is turn her TV on.. set it to the topbox source.. scroll through all the media files that are there and click play.

Does anyone know of one that exists?

Like if I got this: http/www.amazon.com/KDLINKS-HD720-Extreme-Internal-Gigabit/dp/B00CHDSPSM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426229308&sr=8-1&keywords=media+server

Would I be able to access it via an IP address (From another country) to edit the content? Or would I have to be there on the home network to do so?