Home Entertainment Center

     I have both laptops at the station. I use the Ideapad Flex 4 as a media server and run Plex and Jellyfin on that machine. I also have the Hauppauge TV dongle connected to the Ideapad for watching local television stations.    The Thinkpad is for general use but I often watch movies on that machine because the screen is better. Most other activities are on that Thinkpad.    Everything else is pretty much the same.

  The system needed to be updated to more modern standards, so I ordered a Sabrent USB-3 hub, a USB 3 Orico 3.5" enclosure for the 12tb Parmenides drive, and three Orico USB 3/-C 2.5" enclosures. I have an idea to serve the database ("20th Century Cinema Archive") to a selected university. Issues to be addressed are: 1. security: prevent downloading. 1b. log usage. 1c. unique encrypted, single use keys. 2. one-at-a-time usage. 3. limit access to cinema class students asigned by a professor. 4. limit access time to the length of a viewed movie. 5. check the DMCA for fair use compliance. 6. software deployed. Plex (Watch Pass), Jellyfin, others. 7. limit hours of access.

  I've updated my home network. All the drives, niine in all, are shared over the home network. This will allow me to sit on my couch and edit videos without having to move the video file around from drive to drive. I can also run the media center laptop and play movies on theat computer's screen, from the couch. In order to set up sharing on the Microsoft Windows based network, several steps have to be followed. Go into the Network and Sharing Center in the Control Panel. On the left side go into Media streaming options. Choose 'Local Network' if your drives appear in the drop-down list, 'All Networks' if they're there there. Choose 'Allow All'. Go back Go into 'Advanced Sharing Settings'. I set everything to on except 'Password Protected Sharing'. The encryption method is trivial if you're offliine most of the time. If your network is on 24/7, the 128-bit encryption is recommended. Right-click on each drive and setup 'Sharin...