Rethinking offline TV viewing

[TheLexx]

Two ways work the best for us.

First, rip all your movies to a portable hard drive.

Then:

1) Connect the Portable HD to an android box. No wireless shenanigans here. HDMI from android box to tv. DONE.

2) Install Plex Server on your Chromebook. Attach Portable HD to your Chromebook. You'll need to use Plex to point to your saved files. You can use one folder for Movies and another for Television.

Plex will search IMDB database to give you movie and tv covers and descriptors. Obviously do that while you are still at home or have a GOOD wireless internet access.

Set up wireless router. Attach ROKU box to TV via HDMI. Have ROKU box search for Plex server wirelessly. Once connected you will see the Movie and TV folders and all the media files with descriptors.

This is the more elegant solution if you need/want the movie covers and descriptors. If not, the quick and dirty way is to use the android box. With the android box you will just see the raw file names as you have them listed on the Portable HD.

[Bamaman]

I have enough old DVR movies to last a month or longer. And they're the really great movies of the 80's and 90's. Now, I've just got to find a good DVR to watch them on.

[Pawsitive Camping Life]

Can't you just connect your external hard drive to the USB port on the side of the TV? I did that to look at our photos and short videos we took with our cameras and GoPros. We just used a thumb drive, haven't loaded anything on our external flash drive yet, but its the same concept. Just a thought.

[Lizardqing]

This is something we have been doing while we have been full time. Especially right now since we are set up where we even with a booster antenna stuck 20’ above the trailer can’t get enough signal to stream with.

We use Plex and have a external 4 TB HDD with probably 1700 movies and a ton of tv series on it. To give an idea of how much space that takes, I have about 150 gigs free now. I did spend a good deal of time before heading out ripping them to the drive and getting them from other sources.

The set up is this:

- Plex installed on the desktop we brought with us. We use it for homeschooling and editing photos while we are set up. Also have a laptop with Plex installed that I swap over to while we travel. Plex doesn’t require too much for the server to transcode, so even our 10+ year old laptop works. I would love to set up a Raspberry Pi that would dedicated solely for Plex one day.

- External HDD so I can easily move the media between the desktop and the laptop. I have the drive assigned as P: on both to make things less problematic.

- Rocku attached to both TVs with the Plex app installed. The kids TV is a smart TV that has the app on it, but Samsung sucks and with an update started auto playing all sorts of crazy stuff on their MyTv or whatever it is, some of which was not age appropriate. That and even though we have unlimited data, I’m not using it for them to make money.

- Router is our Nighthawk hotspot. You can use any router though once it’s set up without an internet connection.

Install and set up Plex, which will require an internet connection to link everything to a single account, and you should be good to go. The Rocku might have a hissy about no internet connection at times, but it has an option to proceed anyway.

Another thing I like about the Rocku with the smart remote is that it has a headphone jack so you can watch TV while others sleep or while the AC is blasting. Which in an RV is really nice!

Some advice with the Plex, organize the media into folders before linking the drive. Movies and TV shows will need to be in separate folders and the TV shows will need to be named appropriately for them to show up under a single thumbnail and progress automatically in order. Once you have a method down, it’s quick and easy to add more media.

[epayne]

...Back from being off the board for a long time... Wow! A lot of changes.

I solved this issue by using a WD Wireless Passport Pro. It has a built-in Plex server and two band WiFi access point. I wouldn't expect it to transcode very well (if at all), but it works great for me with a ROKU stick. When at home, I just use it as an external drive with all my movies and TV shows. In the camper, it turns on the WiFi and the ROKU connects to it. This solution makes everything compact and easy for me. Though it does mean that people who stay home can't watch anything on my Plex server at home.

Ed

[sssmyth]

For those who have a Dish Satellite account for home use ( probably works with DirectTV as well), here is what we did while living on a sailboat in the Bahamas. We took our Dish DVR reciever along with a small satiillite dish mounted on a collapsible tripod with us. When we were in port for resupply we put the small dish reciever on the dock, pointed it at the appropriate satellite, and when we got a signal, we would go through all the programs we were interested in and set them to record to the DVR while we were out and about. We also left the dvr on record while we were sleeping but turned off the tv. When we left port and anchored out, we simply turned on the DVR and watched what we had recorded. Simple.
Now that the Dish hopper can record a dozen shows at once and has a 2 TB internal drive plus support for a 2 TB external drive, before you leave home, record a bunch of programs, movies, whatever, that you want to watch, take the dvr with you and plug it in to your RV tv and you are good to go. If you have a lot of programs recorded, leave the satellite dish at home. If you don't, take the satellite dish with you, and set it to record when you have a clear view of the satellites. With 4 TB you shouldn't run out of things to watch.
Shawn

[ice_nyne]

Know this is an older thread but we went the route of building a Raspberry Pi media server per the YT video posted above. Works great, and runs a low-tech version of Kodi (similar in functionality to Plex) for streaming. Out of pocket was $120 and about an hour to set up and configure.

Plex on our iPad is our plan B when there is good enough WiFi.


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