[Dismal_Nihility]

basically, id like to follow this guide:

http://lifehacker.com/5391308/build-a-si...-the-cheap

id like to build it for my girlfriend for christmas. ive always loved XBMC, and she loves coming over and watching shows that i stream off my home server.

the thing is, she lives across town. ive been looking into building this box for her tv, but i need to add networked harddrives across the internet.

i was told Hamachi is a great idea. but the guide i linked to above invloves installing XBMC as its own OS, right? bypassing windows? so how can i run Hamachi? what about compressing and streaming, like with Orb?

does anyone have any ideas? what would you do? is 'Hardware' a good section for this topic?

[Epox]

no offense...
and you are very thoughtful....

But two things... ha

1) keep the entertainment at your house so she'll have 1 more reason to come over ha

2) i'm not seeing good results for streaming any large video files over the internet unless it's got some really lossy compression scheme, seeking will be miserable.

3) there is a Hamachi client for Linux. So if you install the XBMC Linux distro, I would think theoretically you could slip in a Hamachi client and configure it to connect you your home network Hamachi server, etc. You can google up info on the client


hope this helps.... more ppl will chime in soon hopefully

[Dismal_Nihility]

i really appreciate the suggestion. i never really thought about that, in a linux kind of way.

the thing is,i use Orb, which works EXTREMELY well. so cant i get this to work too?

keep in mind im talking about my internet getting 1mbps up, and her getting 12 bps down.

[Jaken]

I'd say with your current Internet connection, forget it.

I have a friend with 20mbit upload i sometimes stream videofiles from his ftp server. It works great.

So get a faster upload or have your girlfriend come over.

[Dismal_Nihility]

are you familiar with Orb? thats the whole point. i want something to compress and stream, not just stream.

[Jaken]

are you familiar with Orb? thats the whole point. i want something to compress and stream, not just stream.

No I'm not, sorry.

You might want too look at vlc it has a webinterface for streaming video. Never used it but i think it can do on the fly conversion.

If you want to use XBMC i think it would be easier just to compress all files and save in an new location. And then use hamachi if you want

[Dismal_Nihility]

okay, lets focus on VLC for a second. the way you piositioned that wasnt very helpful because you havent associated VLC with XBMC. you see what i mean?

this should be very easy:

how do i get a box, with XBMC, to watch shows from another home server across the internet? anyone?

[kortina]

I have played with this type of thing before.

Site1 = My House

Site2 = My Firends House

Both Site1 and Site2 have 2 installs of XBMC (xbox)

All you need to do is buy a decent Router, one that does IPSec VPN (we both use the Billion 7404VGO.

Site1 has the subnet 192.168.168.x
Site2 has the subnet 192.168.122.x

The IPSec VPN connects the two networks so that all resources are available.

all you need to do is then point the videos link to something like:
smb://192.168.122.100/vids

1mbit upload is NOT enough to stream xvid. 1mbit is about 100kb/sec, with the IPSec overheads we havent got more than 65kb/sec.

I think that to have a reliable playback you need about 120kb/sec, for HD content even more.

This solution is about connecting networks together, then letting XBMC utilise the connection, it will allow ALL your network to see the other network.

I can stream MP3 music easily, but I dont bother with video until I can get 2meg or more.

The router may seem expensive, but hours of messing with other solutions also cost your time, time = money.

[Dismal_Nihility]

i really appreciate the tip, but unfortunately, the cost of the router is too much for me. i dont fully understand though, cant i do the same thing via VPN? like hamachi? what abou the XBMS protocol? there gotta be a way. it shouldnt be this diffilcult...

[hogfan]

Theoretically, you should be able to make this work with Hamachi, but your internet connection upload speed is going to be your bottleneck. You are looking at two pieces here:

1.) Establishing the connection between the networks.

2.) Compressing & streaming the video content.

The first piece offers several options. VPN, Hamachi

Hamachi = cost effective
Hardware to Hardware VPN = more reliable, but more $$$

Regardless of those options you still have to have the available up bandwidth to stream the video.

[Dismal_Nihility]

is there nothing the can compress on the fly? Orb is excellent at it. it quickly measures your bandwidth, and compresses what your watching to accommodate that speed, then streams it.

anything like that available?

EDIT:

tversity?