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Entertainment with no internet
MosBen
Tacoma, WARegistered User regular
Tacoma, WARegistered User regular
My family has a cabin that we share. There's a collection of mixed old media up there that people draw from to watch a movie, but I hate it. The selection sucks and it takes up a ton of space.
I have a large personal media library that I would like to take up there and hook up some kind of HTPC or media player. There is no internet access, so no streaming or access to servers. It all needs to be there, connected to the TV, it needs to be easy enough for non-techy family members to use, and it needs to be reliable enough that it won't require me to go up into the mountains to fix it all the the first time. In a very perfect world, it would also have the capacity for playing CDG karaoke files, but that's not a deal breaker.
Any recommendations?
I have a large personal media library that I would like to take up there and hook up some kind of HTPC or media player. There is no internet access, so no streaming or access to servers. It all needs to be there, connected to the TV, it needs to be easy enough for non-techy family members to use, and it needs to be reliable enough that it won't require me to go up into the mountains to fix it all the the first time. In a very perfect world, it would also have the capacity for playing CDG karaoke files, but that's not a deal breaker.
Any recommendations?
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200 bucks out of pocket + whatever storage drive you want and you can have an absolutely top-flight home theater experience wherever.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
190, you get a remote, a keyboard, and a box with kodi preinstalled.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Grab one of these: Cheap SFF Desktop
Drop in a big hard drive (or grab an external) and a cheap low-profile video card to add HDMI (sample)
Connect it to the internet at home once and load movies/sync metadata
If you want to make it extra idiot-proof, set it up so that it automatically logs in and launches Plex Media Server on startup.
You can't give someone a pirate ship in one game, and then take it back in the next game. It's rude.
After a lot of thought and reading it seems like the best options are 1) forget karaoke and stick with a Raspberry Pi, which will handle watching movies in Kodi just fine, or 2) spend around $400-$500 for a small Windows machine like a NUC, Zotac, or Lenovo Thinkcentre mini PC. The Windows PCs can run Karafun karaoke software and have audio-in jacks that will allow for using a microphone. Switching between programs isn't ideal, but it would all work; it's just expensive. The Raspberry Pi solution won't allow for karaoke at all (at least, without tons of work), but it's simple to use and cheap.
I looked at Android boxes, but I didn't see a ton of benefit for my use cases over a Pi. Feel free to point out if I missed something though, or if you have a good suggestion that I didn't consider!
Your whole family... in a cabin... that you share. Have you ever watched the Aristocrats?
Some minor poking around says this is indeed a feature on some Samsung DVD players but I couldnt find a relevant Amazon link.
Not sure where your at, but there may be a secondhand electronics store near you (usually gets business equipment as they upgrade), which could have some decent deals. Likely the main upgrade needed to be made to those is throwing an SSD into the machine for the OS.