Watching movies remotely...

[Franicelcha]

Hi

Again, I am resorting to your great expertise folks. Here is my situation:

I have two desktop computers here at home.

One PC that we will call Desktop A (my own main PC) and one that we will call Desktop B which is a second desktop computer. Both are powered by Intel chips--A is a i3-4150 and B is a E6800 chip.

One runs Windows 7 Home Edition (Computer A) and the second (computer B) runs Windows 7 Ultimate edition. Both computers have 8 GB of RAM.

What I'd like to do:

I have a collection of videos (movies) that I would like to store on B. Over 200 films and other videos that I would like to make available to my daughter and to one of my brothers. Needless to say, they are located in two different geographical areas. I would like them to be able to connect to B with their own PC or their own tablet or ipad and watch the movie of their choice (stored on B) over the internet.

My daughter would like to be able to view the movies full screen on her ipad (she likes to watch movies lying in bed) and my brother would like to play the movies on his PC and through a VGA cable, stream it to his big 50” (or so) TV Set.

Questions:

1- Is that possible to do ? (I think it could be done but I am not 100% certain).

2- What do I have to do to make this possible ? Please specify what must be done on each of my PC. Maybe nothing needs to be done on A.

3- What do my daughter and brother have to do on their end to set this up ?

Please be as specific as possible as I am no expert. Please do not forget the security factor. I want to make this available to these two persons ONLY. No one else should be able to access that PC.

Thank you

 

[shag00]

1. Yes
2. see https/support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200264746-Quick-Start-Step-by-Step
3. also included in 2

 

[Franicelcha]

1. Yes
2. see https/support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200264746-Quick-Start-Step-by-Step
3. also included in 2

Thanks a lot.
I'll definitely look into this.

 

[shag00]

In regards to sharing to other people plex are pushing a paid service but be aware that you can easily share without the paid service. You only need to download the server app and then the other people can watch directly from their browser.

 

[Franicelcha]

In regards to sharing to other people plex are pushing a paid service but be aware that you can easily share without the paid service. You only need to download the server app and then the other people can watch directly from their browser.

Would a core 2 duo E6800 with a basic video card (512mb) be enough for this ? There would only possibly be 2 people watching at the same time and even maybe only one, who knows.

This PC that I have has 8 GB of ram and I do not want to spend all kinds of money upgrading this PC to make it available to only 2 family members. who are not going to use it that often, I am sure. If I can provide them with something good without spending any money, well good...so be it. If I have to spend all kinds of money, we just forget the whole thing.

Thanks for your input.

 

[shag00]

I am unable to answer in any detail whether a E6800 is good enough, I can however say that the machine with the movies on it (the server) is configurable as to how much processing power is used. So it may be that the E6800 cannot stream at 20MB/s but can at 10MB/s comfortably. The plex software only uses CPU, not GPU, in fact my server has no discreet GPU.

This solution, with what you have, I am reasonably sure, will not cost you anything.

It is simple and free to set up, there are plenty of tutorials, an active community forum you can access or you can write back to this thread. Google plex, you will see its quite popular.

 

[Franicelcha]

I am unable to answer in any detail whether a E6800 is good enough, I can however say that the machine with the movies on it (the server) is configurable as to how much processing power is used. So it may be that the E6800 cannot stream at 20MB/s but can at 10MB/s comfortably. The plex software only uses CPU, not GPU, in fact my server has no discreet GPU.

This solution, with what you have, I am reasonably sure, will not cost you anything.

It is simple and free to set up, there are plenty of tutorials, an active community forum you can access or you can write back to this thread. Google plex, you will see its quite popular.

Thanks again