Hopper 3 question

[BradleyD]

I hopefully will be getting an H3 in the next few weeks.

I have a couple of questions about the Home Media feature. Please forgive me if these questions are not that smart. I do not have a Hopper and have only read from the H2 manual.

1. To access media on the Hopper, I understand that it is required that one must have a media server (for instance, Plex) on a device for the Hopper to pick up media files from it. In other words, it will not just pick up an mp3 on a pc file share or a phone without some sort of media server running on that device. Correct?

2. I cannot tell from reading the manual on this one. Can the Home Media Feature be disabled?

3. On a joey connected TV, can the Home Media Feature be configured/set up or can it only be configured/set up from the H3?

The following does not necessarily involve the Home Media Feature, but might...

Last question is just a curiosity (I like to learn about / play with networks and see what can be done (only my own, no hacking other people's networks).

Imagine that a Hopper is connected to a network. A joey is connected to that hopper via MOCA. You connect a PC that is not connected in any other way to that network to the ethernet port of the joey with a cable. Would that PC be able to connect to the network (perhaps with bridging) to do something like provide the hopper a Home Media server which would show up on the Hopper interface, ping the Hopper or even another PC, or perhaps access open file shares on other network PCs? In other words, what capability does MOCA which might be accessed on the joey through the ethernet connection have aside from its normal function in the hopper system?

I obviously can try this when I get a hopper, but I don't really know if I want to waste time on it. I am interested if anyone has tried anything though.

 

[SandFarmer]

Spent the day playing with Plex, since there is no such thing as basic DLNA anymore and you "have to have" a "medic server" now for everything. My Blu-ray player that use to not need anything to read any kind of file did not work real well with Plex. BUT my HwS that is connected directly to the LAN did great. All other devices that were connected via MoCA would only play things that had already been played and not finished, that are in Plex's "On Deck". Where I got playback errors on the BDP, I didn't with the HwS, big surprise. The only thing that you have to deal with is Plex does things in a way that is basically logical, but not always what you want. You need to have your music, MP3's, separate from your Music Video's, MP4's which need to be "registered" as movies but should be listed as "Music Videos" separate from movies., otherwise they'll get fully labeled as movies, so much more so than iTunes ever could, of the same name if there is one that matches. AND with the most complete info. And all my iTunes movies play just fine. Too bad I can't merge my UV movies in. I'd have the perfect media venue. But there are in-app purchase that just might do that. Haven't checked them out yet.

 

[ralfyguy]

If you have a Windows 7/8/10 PC, it has DLNA built in. You just have to enable media sharing in Network settings. That's what I use. It may not be the greatest and flashiest, but it works.
Although some of my mp4 files don't play, but mp3 works on all of them for songs.

 

[BradleyD]

Ok. It seems that you have to set up a "media server"... either something like Plex or media sharing in windows. I was unaware or had forgotten that Windows 10 has media sharing. That's good to know.

I'm thinking I may set up a Plex server, but use my TV's plex app to access it instead of using the Hopper home media feature. That should help avoid issues with playing some files on the Hopper. I am thinking of setting up a FreeNas machine. I could then block the ip of the Hopper using firewall rules on the FreeNas machine so the Hopper can't see it. The TV plex app and computer Plex apps could access it though.

Thanks for the input on my first question. Any input on the others is appreciated.

 

[SandFarmer]

If you have a Windows 7/8/10 PC, it has DLNA built in. You just have to enable media sharing in Network settings. That's what I use. It may not be the greatest and flashiest, but it works.
Although some of my mp4 files don't play, but mp3 works on all of them for songs.

For some reason Apple, I have a Mac Pro 8 Core Editing Station, has over the past couple of OS iterations, dropped the simple elegant and very useful "Sharing" that encompassed the original form of what is now DLNA. I have kept my antique BDP for that reason. Until now I could see any file on any shared volume media or not. Could even read documents. Not sure why they changed it. I have two Ethernet ports that work in tandem for greater connectivity, but media distribution is not part of it.

I was running XBMC and for all it's beauty, Plex is far more useful. You just have to get around its idiosyncrasies. And the kicker is that my HwS (S529) has been the best client. That is the one that it hardwired to the network. The MoCA units are very limited in what they see and will play.

 

[HighlanderCFH]

If you have a Windows 7/8/10 PC, it has DLNA built in. You just have to enable media sharing in Network settings. That's what I use. It may not be the greatest and flashiest, but it works.
Although some of my mp4 files don't play, but mp3 works on all of them for songs.

I just got my Hopper 3 Home Media feature to view photos on my Windows 10 Dell PC. It also plays the music tracks on my computer. But, the problem I have is that it will only play one song at a time out of a list. I have to manually go to the next song and press to play it, and so on, and so on.....

Shouldn't there be a way for the whole song list to play. I've seen that other people seem to have this problem, so it makes me wonder if there might be some bugs in the Home Media app?