Home Entertainment Center

  The Windows 7 operating system was more attractive, but less effective in the software environment I was working in. I decided, for that reason, to upgrade the laptop to Windows 10. To capsulate, I have an IBM Lenovo ThinkPad T61 laptop to replace the Raspberry Pi 4B and the SimpleDLNA software to replace the miniDLNA software. Overall, a decided improvement.

 I have replace the Raspberry Pi 4B and miniDLNA software media server, with a new sytem. The new system is an IBM Lenovo T61 Thinkpad with SimpleDLNA software. I decided to save the Raspberry Pi for another project. I purchased a used T61 for $15 from a local used stuff store. The purchase included a docking station and power cord. The software was available online, free of charge for non-commercial use. I went through the usual learning curve and reduced the system to a single USB hub, the Amazon Basics hub, and five drives. The drives show up in the DLNA system as individual drives on the LG TV and my iPhone's VLC network.  I can add two more drives, later if needed. One advantage is the software does not rebuild the database as often, thus reducing the time to access when the system is booted. There is also an option to use a web page to display and access the drive contents. The Raspberry Pi will be the test unit for a blindspot collision detector on my Jeep Renegade Spor...

  The current state of the entertainment system. Elements:=========================================================== LG oled Smart-TV, 55-inch Pioneer VSX-1023 AVR (Audio Video Receiver) B&O RX-2 turntable w/ Soundsmith replacement phono cartridge, RIAA compensation box Alesis MEQ-230 30 band Equalizer Altec Valencia speaker cabinets w/ fixed, external cross-over filters for bi-amp use Polk Audio 50w Subwoofer Samsung blu-ray player - This has been removed and will eventually be replaced by a newer model that will play UHD 4k discs. The existing unit does not play UHD.  Hauppage Win-TV computer television receiver dongle and  RCA antenna for local television signals, with Channel Master antenna signal booster Sennheiser headphones Panasonic VHS VCR EasyCap VCR tape digitiser A Netflix subscription Latest addition: Raspberry Pi 4B/2gb SoC (computer System On a Card) with  miniDLNA software to connect 3000 video files on eight hard drives, to the TV via WiFi. A Be...

Finally, the mini wireless keyboard works Some time ago, I ordered a mini wireless keyboard. The unit is a clone of more familiar products by Rii and iPazzPort. The instructional pamphlet with the unit was minimally useful. When I last used the thing, I had discovered that I had to have the unit next to the back of the TV where I had plugged the accompanying dongle. The unit has been in storage for the last couple of years.  I was cruising YouTube and ran across a video that provided some insight into my problem. The unit goes into 'sleep' mode automatically if not active. There's not a constant need for a keyboard with a TV so the unit spent most of the time in 'sleep' mode. Unfortunately, after a while the unit would disconnect from the TV. The wireless transmissions would stop. At that point I would have to place the unit next to the dongle on the back of the TV and unplug/plug the dongle to restart. A nuisance to say the least. The video pointed out that the don...

 Nothing has changed since last post, but, now when I boot the system in the morning, I just have to wait and the library will be online and accessible after a few minutes. In brief, a Raspberry Pi 4B computer was loaded with the miniDLNA software to provide network access to the 12TB video library. An unexpected benefit and byproduct of the project is a database file of the drives' video contents. This will be used with the router's DLNA database file for the WD Passbook 4TB drive connected to one of the router's USB ports. The drive access project is done. Addendum: Things are so inconsistent due to the slow reaction of the system and system variable respones (AI of a sort). I keep having to restart the minidlna service after the system has booted. There is indication the drives are not mounted when the service begins execution. I'm looking at the  ' RequiresMountsFor' option in systemd. The recent flurry of problems were caused by a single drive that was adde...

 The system is almost done. Currently, the home network is powered up then, after a few minutes, the RPi is plugged in. The RPi is the only mechanical connection not made before network boot. About two ot three minutes after plugging in the RPi, an SSH session is attempted fro my laptop. No monitor or keyboard is used with the RPi. This is known as 'headless' operation of the RPi. Once a SSH session is started, the next step is to check for minidllna operation. At this time, the software does not function correctly, however, by running a couple of commands, the software functions as expected. Before the commands, the drives are listed, but empty when viewed from the TV or the VLC player on my laptop. The drives and contents are visible from a SSH session on the laptop. The commands to be run are: sudo systemctl restart minidlna && sudo systemctl force-reload minidlna I may end up plaing them at the end of the service file or writing a boot script for them. I suspect the...

  At this point in time, I have tried connecting USB drives to the LG oled Smart-TV, and the TP-Link router. Both approaches have issues. The router recreates a database for all drives attached to the router. This means drive access is not available until some time after booting up. Remember, I live off-grid and power down the house every night. This means I have to wait on the router to make the database every day. The TV has limits on the drive space as well as the number of drives. Bottom line: only some of the drives would be accessible. When I first began the study, I ran across mention of a software program, miniDLNA. I had installed the Windows version on my laptop but had access issues and quickly moved on. Some months ago, I purchased a new version of the SoC(System on a Card) Raspberry Pi. A model 3B+ has been running 24/7 on my system as a controller and monitor for my solar power station. I new I would probably want the newer model 4B as a media server for my entertainm...