So I recently spent some time attempting to thin down my home theater/television set up...
Old setup:
"TV Server": Windows 7 Pro with MCE + HD HomerunPrime 3 tuner cablecard networked cable tuner,
Clients: Xbox 360's running Windows Media Center as extenders - Often with "network issues" due to the WMC maching caching the live tv for each tuner in use.
"iTunes Server": MacOS w/itunes w/library stored on Airport Extreme external USB 1.5T disk
Clients: Various iDevices + Apple TV 2/3/4 in various rooms
This obviously is quite messy in each room with big ass Xbox + Apple TV + speakers, etc. not to mention the cables..HDMI's and Opticals going all over the place..
Needless to say, I have been waiting and searching for a way to simplify this...and then the answer popped out at me...
Apple TV 4 App "Channels 2.0" http://getchannels.com
This app installed on the Apple TV4 in my living room suddenly allows me to watch live tv directly from the HDHomeRun Prime! Using the internal storage on my 64GB Apple TV 4, allows the app to cache the current video stream to the device for pausing of live tv, rewing capability etc.
Suddenly, we no longer need the xbox 360's! But what about recorded TV? Apple TV natively cannot browse network shares and even if it could, it would not be able to play the huge .wtv recordings...enter MCEBuddy...
MCEBuddy automatically or on a schedule converts the .wtv files into normal MP4 files, and also as an added bonus cuts out the commercials. My testing so far seems to be working as advertised, YMMV.
Now, let's deal with the pesky MacOS box...did I mention both "servers" are running as VM's on ESXi 6? The future is pretty awesome!
Since the iTunes library lives on an external USB 1.5TB drive connected to the Airport Extreme router, here's what I did..
I have installed iTunes to the WMC box, and added a 1.5TB second vmdk to the VM. Robocopy the entire Library folder to the new disk, copy the contents of my music folder (itunes library files) from the Mac to the music folder to the WMC user account.
Fire up iTunes, and voila, home sharing is on, set the library location in preferences to the new location, allow iTunes to do it's thing there and bam, I'm in business!
Finally, I have MCEBuddy set to drop the converted .wtv files into the iTunes library's "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder, and Chuck me...iTunes auto imports the files AND categorizes the file as a TV show, sets the title. episode number and more!
I went and bought a 32GB ATV4 for the bedroom, and we're all set, much less wires, MUCH less clutter, and it's easy enough, my wife can use it ;)
My next effort will be to get WMC installed on Server 2012R2 and have a single VM with all my home theater needs addressed in an environment that will be relevant for the next several years.
Happy watching!
