Is it worth the effort setting up a NAS? Do you watch all those films you transferred from disk?
My idea for this New Year was so buy a NAS and start moving all my Blurays on to it.I've ran Cat6 to most rooms, all to a Node 0 in the garage, in theory allowing streams of stored content to any room.I've started to read up on the different storage options (Raid or not to Raid!) and then started to worry about whether I'll actually end up watching the content once I've transferred it.I've got about 350 films, and although I do watch them again, I often find that there's always something new I want to watch instead.
Do you watch all those films you spent hours transferring or have they moved form a physical shelf to a virtual one and are still rarely watched? Another thing to consider is that given how cheaply you can pick up digital releases, is it worth going down the full digital route? Yes. Its so much easier to press 'stop', then scroll about for the next video, or music playlist, than it is to:-
Press stop. Press eject. Wait for disk to eject. Put disk in box .
Find next film there two days ago but has mysteriously moved].
Insert disk, wait to load, wait for firmware check to complete 'because latest firmware might offer new features to enhance viewing pleasure". Wait for main menu. Select play film. Try to skip ads. Finally, watch film. Repeat, because someone has changed mind. I used to copy all my blurays onto external hard drives using anydvd, link them up with a multi usb port and then watch them through NMJ (I think) using popcorn hour.
We very rarely used it and all the hard drives are now scattered in different drawers with god knows how many films on them.
Simply can't be bothered any more. I'd rather just buy the disc or catch it on amazon prime/netflix.
The time and money (hard drives) just isn't worth it for me particularly when you think how often you re-watch a film once you've seen it. For me individually - if it was just for the films it wasn't worth it.
I went down the route of buying an HP micro server and installing NAS software and hard disks.
The HP server was very cheap and more powerful than any ready made NAS. (I also upgraded the CPU and RAM.)
I ripped all my films and made them available via Plex to the TVs around the house. If I do want to watch a film it is easier to find in via Plex in the alphabetic list than to go to the bookcase where the blurays are , find the right one, etc. Also sometimes I may just have a spare 30 minutes and play a bit of an old favourite which I would never be bothered to do with the disk.
In practice, I dont use it much and if that was my only reason for a NAS it would not be worth it. However, I also use the NAS for local backup of the other PCs around the house. Additionally, as my kids have gotten older they have started to watch some of the films in my collection via Plex. 1 I did it years ago.
Personally I use Kodi, and love the freedom it gives me to watch stuff wherever in the house I am without searching through countless DVD/Bluray cases and the tons of storage space they take up.
It gives me a great, customisable UI, with synopsis, trailers etc.
I love my Atmos system and my TV, but without the content stored on the NAS, it wouldn't be used as much. It's as much a part of my AV system as the speakers are. I did it for a few years but got bored of maintaining a huge library that I rarely watched.
I ended up selling the NAS and now I'm pretty much streaming only, with the odd disk.
If you do go down the NAS route, always RAID data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 I think it depends how often you watch the films in your collection. I spent quite a while sorting out my collection so my kids could watch in their bedroom but they're now addicted to watching pillocks on Youtube open toy boxes or make pictures with pancakes. Once it's sorted though, it's certainly impressive. I personally use Kodi as I had some trouble with Plex transcoding certain stuff. I'm still a luddite and hate the stream everything approach as it's too frustrating and too prone to problems to completely replace my storage.
Streaming works but it suffers from all the problems already heavily discussed elsewhere. Even though the quality is now nudging close to Bluray/UHD it's still not quite there but for many people now it's close enough not to matter. Also, my storage hasn't failed or had a glitch in 4 years but my internet is down at least once a month for a few minutes.
Another big thing for me is when I have the disks they're mine and I can watch them whenever I want wherever I want. Streaming is WAY too much in the studios/media outlets control for me to trust them not least as they've shown to not be trustworthy so many times. Don't get me wrong, I sub to Prime and stream from the Internet all the time but as the content wars increase I don't want to play the game of countless subscriptions to endless services just to get the small amount of content I want from each company. That is only going to get worse before it gets better.
All that said it's up to you and your usage patterns. I actually enjoy making Kodi look great and getting my films and TV series looking top. It never fails to impress people when they see it either but it's a lot more faff that just subbing to Netflix and pressing play.
G