How to play movies

There are various options - all that work well - depending on your needs.

1. Single TV in home.
   
   The ultimate option is to get one of the more modern LCD or LED TV's that support DLNA. These TV's will stream from a DLNA server or you can plug in a USB drive directly into a USB port on the TV enabling you to play your movies. Clean and simple.
   If you cannot/won't purchase one of these more modern TV's, then you can setup a media player. A decent (but not good) option is an XBox360 or PS3. Loads of us have these already so a good starting point. You can either put your movies on the console or plug in a USB drive. Both of these devices are however limiting in formats you can play and will often get the dreaded "format not supported" message. That is just annoying.
   The best stand alone media player is the WDTV Live Hub. I don't say this is the best because of my own opinion. All my gadget mags rate it #1 as well as do various forums I have read (I research products a lot).
   I have also tried the Asus O!Play but it failed on the odd file (although not anywhere near as much as the XBox360). The Apple TV is a good option, but only supports up to 720p. The WDTV Live Hub supports everything and at 1080p. I have one of these in my game/theater room now and it knocks the kak out of everything I have tried. It has a 1TB drive included and you can attach additional drives via USB or shared drives over your network.
   
   You can also setup a dedicated PC as a media server and even get a decent case so it blends in with your equipment. While this was a good option once upon a time, it blows now. It is total overkill for the purpose. I went down this road about 2 years ago.
   
   There is also the option of using your notebook directly on your TV. If you notebook has DVI or HDMI output and your TV supports these inputs, you can hook the notebook up directly and play like that. Not ideal and fiddly though. It is preferred to have a dedicated setup that you don't have to mess around with.
   
   
2. Multiple TV's, PC's and/or mobile devices.
   
   This is my own personal setup. I stream to 1 * 32" TV, 1 * 40" TV, 1 * 42" TV, 1 * 120" Projector Display, 4 * notebooks, and 2 * tablets. So the requirements in my household are quite hectic and I have finally found a solution that works for ALL.
   
   First off, some history.
   I used to use XBox's connected to each of the TV's. Some for gaming and gaming and some just for movies. These acted as DLNA Clients and Rendering.
   In my home office I have a Core2Duo PC setup and loaded with around 4TB's of drive space. This is the DLNA Server and it holds all the content I need to stream around the house.
   The entire house is gigabit ethernet. Depending on how many devices you are going to stream to, you don't want to go wireless. You will end up with buffering, stuttering, etc... if there are too many players streaming at the same time. You can get away with it on less devices but you must at least go 802.11n which is the fastest wireless you can get commercially at the moment and ensure strong signal strength. Go wired if you can though. It is worth it to wire up your house and get it over and one with.
   
   Now on the server I have tried Windows Media Center sharing and playing via Windows Media Center on the XBox. Worked okay. You still get some movies that cannot play. Fast forward, rewind, etc.. does not behave well.
   I then tried a DLNA Server called Twonky. This is a brilliant DLNA Server and performs transcoding on files not supported by your player. You will need a beefy server if you need to have HD movies transcoded. Twonky was the best I had used at the time but it lacked support for .mkv files. To get around this, I also had TVersity installed. TVersity can handle almost anything, but again - fast forward,  rewind etc... sucked. I also had random lip sync issues using it. Generally though, between TVersity and Twonky I could get my movie playing through my XBox.
   To play from a DLNA Server, you simply go into your Videos (on the XBox) menu and select the appropriate server. Simple enough.
   
   I then discovered a new kid on the block. Mezzmo! This DLNA Server is PERFECT. I have not had anything fail to work. It does it's job and does it well.
   I have moved away from using XBox's in the house for movies and purchased WD TV Live players (they are the best remember :) ).
   For the bar area where I have the 40" LCD, I have a WD TV Live. The WD TV Live is identical to the WD TV Live Hub mentioned above except no built in HDD. It is purely a streamer although it can also play off an attached USB drive. You select your Mezzmo server and off you go.
   In the bedroom I have another WD TV Live hooked up to the 32".
   I recently purchased a new LED TV that supports DLNA. It is the LG 42LE5500. This means I no longer require a DLNA client of any sort in the lounge. It is all built into the TV. You just select "My Media", go select your movie and watch. Immediately after purchase movies stuttered and looked rather horrible. After a power cycle of the TV, I was prompted to do a firmware update. The update fixed the stuttering problem and movies play perfectly. It rivals the WD TV Live now. The old lounge TV (the 40" LCD) and the WD TV Live are now what live in the bar area.
   
   The kids all watch movies on the PC's via Windows Media Player. In the "Other Devices" list on the left, the Mezzmo server shows up and you can just go select the movie you want to play.
   
   To watch movies on a tablet - such as my Asus Transformer - you need to get iMediaPlayer. This is Android specific. iMediaPlayer lists your DLNA servers on the network. You select Mezzmo then when prompted you select your default player on your tablet and iMediaPlayer pushed the movie to your player.
   If you are unfortunate enough to own an iPad or something, you will be able to do the same thing as mentioned with an Android tablet but you are on your own with figuring out the right software :)

In summary, the ultimate setup is a Mezzmo server setup on your PC. Wired ethernet to your players. WD TV Live devices for playing the media where you don't have a Smart TV, or just get a Smart TV. This makes for a really easy way to play any movie wherever you want with very little fuss and at high quality.

I bought the LG TV at Makro. They are on special at the moment for R7k which is a steal. It is 100Hz, best picture quality I have ever seen on a panel, supports DLNA as well as youtube, facebook, etc... They generally retail for around R12k to R15k so a bargain. It is also the thinnest display I have ever seen.

The WD TV Live devices I got at WebAntics for around R850 each and the WD TV Live Hub was R1,950.

Hope this helps someone. If you have any input to add to the above - or better recommendations - please post. I am always open to improving my setup and am sure anyone else reading this blog could benefit from the info.

How to get movies

I use 2 places to get movies. Neither are torrents and therefor not subjected to the typical shaping and throttling policies we are subjected to in ZA.

1. www.rslinks.org
   
   This is my favourite site. Use the menu on the far right to filter by HD, DVD RIP, BluRay RIP, etc...
   You will need a program like JDownloader to download the parts as well as a FileSonic account.
   
   Read the how-to's at the site on how to get started. It can be a little tricky for the non technical, but once you get going you will be cruising. I queue around 100GB to 150GB every Friday night within about an hour of browsing sites.
   
   Watch out for movies with "CAM" in the title. You DON'T want these. These are CAM rips which are NOT good. Rather wait for a BD or DVD RIP.
   
   Go read here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirated_movie_release_types to get an idea on what the various rip types are. Generally the rip type abbreviation is included in the movie you want to download to give you an idea of the quality.
   
   A good guide is anything less than 1GB in size is a DVD RIP and "okay" quality. Depending on your screen size you may not notice the compression too much, but the larger you go with your screen the higher quality you want. A highly compressed DVD RIP looks totally horrible on my 120" screen but okay on the 42"
   Around 2GB is pretty decent quality and equates to a DVD RIP that is not too badly compressed.
   3.2GB to 5GB normally equates to a 720p Blu-Ray rip. This is a good trade off on quality vs file size.
   Above 5GB is generally a 1080p rip. Now the file size starts to increase but so does the quality. If you have the space and traffic allowance - go for these. Some of my 1080p movies are around 12 to 14GB  each and the quality is outstanding. But drive space is suffering :)
   
2. An alternative method of getting movies is via Newsgroups. Lots of downloaders prefer this method. I am still too new to Newsgroups to appreciate it but starting to see the benefits.
   Firstly, you must learn what an NZB is. Movies are uploaded to news servers in multiple parts. The last thing you want to be doing is grabbing these things one part at a time. An NZB file contains all the necessary links to each of these parts. Your NZB client will grab all the parts and join them to form your movie once all parts are downloaded.
   You will need a site to search for NZB's and a client to do the downloading. Optionally you will need a newsgroup account. You can use your own ISP's news server - and it works - but is normally slow. Try it though. If it does not suffice, then consider signing up to one of the major usenet news servers for a small monthly fee. I am trialing http://www.newshosting.com at the moment. Sometimes speeds are good, other times they suck. Hence my preference still for rslinks. I will try other providers first before moving on.
   NZB Search Engine: http://nzbmatrix.com or http://www.nzbseek.com
   NZB Download Client: http://www.unzbin.com/ (Nice if you are used to uTorrent).

That is about enough for now. Fiddle with the above information and if you find easier or better ways to handle and get movies, POST. I am not a guru by any means. Just sharing the way I do it hopefully helping others, and hopefully attracting posts from those that know better and can further enhance the experience.