Center speaker replacement

 I have replaced the two boxless bookshelf speakers I was using with a Polk Audio center speaker module.

I bought the unit from a Facebook-Marketplace seller. He wanted $20. I agreed. When we met, however, I noticed the back of the unit was sruffy and scratched. He accepted $15.

The unit worked as soon as I plugged it in.

Model: TL 2 CEN CH black

Current status October 2023

   The hardware set is much the same. The most recent addition is the Surround Center speaker I constructed from two open back bookcase speakers.

   I have moved the Asus X510UAR into the server position. There was a pixellation problem with some videos in VLC but help from a web poster gave me the tweak I needed to make the correction.

   The server is Plex for Windows. I also maintain a Jellyfin server and may add simpleDLNA or miniDLNA for offline use. Both Plex and Jellyfin seem to require an internet connection to function.

   I use RenameMyTVSeries to rename television series prior to adding metadata and adding to the servers' lists. Free software.

   MetaX is the current metadata software. The app has problems but the functionality is unequalled by others, so far. Worth the ten dollar fee.

I use the mkvtoolnix suite extensively, CMD and GUI.

There is a grep alternative, ripgrep, that is much faster than the version in WSL Ubuntu linux. That program made collecting data on a mass scale practical.

   I placed the ffmpeg and mkvtoolnix programs on the system Path variable.

   Avidemux is handy for simple edits snd troubleshooting.

More speakers and Surround Sound verification

 

There are additions to my speaker setup. A couple of Cerwin Vega HUD 203's are acting as Surround Side speakers. I screwed two open backed bookcase speakers together to use as a Surround Center speaker.

Taken together with the Polk Audio subwoofer, that makes a Surround Sound 5.1 arrangement.

The avr I'm using is an advanced and sophisiticated unit. I suspect the avr is fairly typical of the genre. I've had to do a lot of readng and studying of the owner's manual, with occasional trial and error changes to test for effect. In fact the software is a tweaker's dream. But can be a user nightmare.

It seems that "Pure Direct" is the only mode of several that will play all the speakers without any modification of the sound. Another uses modifications tweaked by me in the setup program. All others are specialized, and not for the person who wants the real experience, as the movie director intended it.

There are 'test' files in abundance on the web, especially on YouTube. A lot of those are junk, or fake.  I decided to make my own for just this reason.

 I used a program called Audacity and a suite of programs collectively referred to as ffmpeg. The result is not as pleasant to look at, but does work.

By the way, I'm using the Pioneer VSX series. A Pioneer Elite VSX-42, and a VSX-1023-K.

Library maintenance

    I decided to take a closer look at the idea of media metadata and have, for the last year, been working to acquire and install quality metadata in the few thousand movies in the library.

   This required studying the nature of metadata, especially in regard to videos. Once I understood metadata, I chose to use the Matroska container format and proceeded to convert all movies that were not already in Matroska format. The major reason I chose Matroska was because of the extensive metadata capabilities therein. After I finished converting to Matroska, I began gathering tools and writing programming scripts to acquire, modify, and insert the data.

   The movies are done. I'm now writing a simplified script to process incoming movies semi-automatically. That script is about done. The languages used are Python and Bash.

   The metadata includes title, year, cast, director, plot description and some other things. An image is included that serves as a poster for the movie. All this is available for free on the internet at sites like IMDb, TMDb, OMDb, fanart and others.

   I'll add some custom 'tags' later on for video source and personal comments. I'd like to include original langguage titles, but that's a ways off. That means that in a movie like Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, the original title entry would be in Japanese characters such as:

Seven Samurai (1954)     -      七人の侍      -      Shichinin no samurai (romanized title)

   Over the years, the movies available have increased in diversity and quality, thus making maintenance an ongoing task. Occasionally, I run a cross an improved version, or interesting variant, of a movie in the library, download, prep, and keep or replace the existing one. 

   I will eventually call a hiatus on this project and engage with minimal involvement. I will do other things. I don't want to get stale or burnt out.

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New server software and hardware

 I have given a lot of time and thought to the software used to serve the video collection. I like jellyfin, but there are things that need to be fixed and things that need to be changed. There is a software program that is considered the most popular from what I have been able to find out.  The program is Plex. When I first started searching for media server software. I tried Plex but the first time I downloaded and ran the program, the screen was setup for something like a 360p screen and difficult, if not impossible to use. I went to a forum and complained and got a less than stellar response by what must have been Plex die-hard groupies. Recently, I decided to try again. This time the program that installed was much more sophisticated and usable. The more I used the program, the more I liked the features and ease of use. The program is capable of many things, and accordingly, can be complex to use. Adapting takes some time but is, I think, worth the effort. Major change number one.

I've realized that both Plex and Jellyfin require an internet connection to run. I don't care for that. I'll add a server that makes movies available without the internet, e.g., SimpleDLNA or miniDLNA.

The second major change I made was purchasing a 12Tb NAS drive.  The NAS type hard drive is used for 24/7 surveillance, primarily, and is designed to take the continuous use that is required. I moved all but my 2Tb drive data to the new NAS drive. My old drives are in storage for reference.  This has already proven useful in that I recently had to re-copy a file from one of the original drives, to the NAS.  Occasionally, there are glitches in copying files from a hard drive.  An overworked computer processor may not be able to keep up with the work load, and loses some bytes of data during a transfer. This adds reliability in the form of backups, following the old adage 'Always back up your data'. The server hardware consists of three 3.5" hard drives of 2Tb, 2Tb, and 12Tb in size. The drives are plugged directly into the laptop docking station and the two powered USB hubs have been retired, as has the drive rack. The fewer the parts the better.

   Unfortunately, the WD 4Tb drive developed a connector problem. The drive can be used but a slight pressure has to be applied to the underside of the connecting USB-C plug. The drive will only be used to recover files lost on the 12Tb drive.

   

Drive rack, ventilation and wiring.

 My drives have a new rack to hold them. Hot glue and square wood dowels provided the materials with which to build the rack.

I used zip ties and a small computer fan attached to the end of the rack to provide cooling air ventilation for the drives. This will increase the lifetime of the drives. Previously the were stacked on top of each other and became noticeably warm during use.

The wiring really was bad. Too many cables/wires held together with zip ties.

I added a surge protected outlet strip of a newer, more sophisticated design. I rearranged the system wiring to minimize the number of outlet strips and the disarrayed wires.

Two strips were screwed to the wall. One was removed. The circular strip was moved from the entertainment center to a work table beside the other two strips and combined with them to supply all devices attached to the system. The strip removed replaced the circular strip in the entertainment system. 

Overall, the current setup works better.

Both systems could be improved by building and installing power panels consisting of twenty thee-prong plug sockets in a 4x5 configuration. Space could be allotted for charger plugs that use more space, commonly referred to as 'wall warts.'

This would eliminate the need for wiring design since the issues solved by wiring design would no longer exist.

Jellyfin media server

 The owner of Emby has blocked my using the WebOS access method of using Emby. I discovered the method and posted on the product's forum. That software is no longer my media server and has been removed from my computers.

I replaced Emby with Jellyfin.

Jellyfin is the evolved Emby open sourced. Emby was originally open source (and free) but was privatized and monetized by the creator. Many considered that move unethical. 

The last open source version became the basis for Jellyfin,  easily competitive with Emby and almost, if not equally, well known. I've been using Jellyfin for about a year, perhaps more. The software has issues but is in constant development but is very useful in the current state, version 10.8.5.