dbsoundman
Senior Member
Hi all, I just mentioned my little setup in a separate thread and thought I'd start documenting what I've done here for those that might be curious.
The goal was to have a small media server on the bus to which my passengers could connect via wifi and stream movies and TV shows on their mobile devices without any special apps. The media would all be local to the bus so I didn't have to use mobile data. Think "in flight wifi".
What I used:
- Raspberry Pi (I had a 3B hanging around but I would recommend getting a 4)
- 256 GB USB drive
What it does:
- Provides a wifi hotspot with password
- Redirects clients to the media server application if they open a web browser and type "watch.tv" in the address bar
- Hosts as many movies and TV shows as I could fit on said 256 GB drive
How it does:
- USB drive is used for media storage; again, as many TV shows and movies as I could fit. You'll want to find video formats that don't need "transcoding", I've found that MKV and AVI formats work well. I chose to sacrifice playback quality for file size; more lower definition content rather than a small amount of HD content.
- Uses RaspAP to provide a simple to manage wifi hotspot. RaspAP gives you a web browser interface to set up the wireless network name, password, and other parameters.
- Has a custom dnsmasq configuration file to redirect clients from "watch.tv" to the media server's IP address
- Has custom iptables rules to redirect clients on the media server's IP port 80 or 443 to the media server's port (Emby uses a nonstandard port number) (I don't have the details on this in front of me but I can get them later on)
- Uses Emby as the actual media server. Emby sorts media automatically (if you have an internet connection) and provides a great web interface for watching content without the Emby app on client devices.
I'm currently reworking my system as I found it would overheat in the Florida heat, so once I put it back together I'll document more of the configuration here for others to use if they'd like. In the meantime I'm happy to answer questions, I'm sure I forgot something in my brief explanation!
The goal was to have a small media server on the bus to which my passengers could connect via wifi and stream movies and TV shows on their mobile devices without any special apps. The media would all be local to the bus so I didn't have to use mobile data. Think "in flight wifi".
What I used:
- Raspberry Pi (I had a 3B hanging around but I would recommend getting a 4)
- 256 GB USB drive
What it does:
- Provides a wifi hotspot with password
- Redirects clients to the media server application if they open a web browser and type "watch.tv" in the address bar
- Hosts as many movies and TV shows as I could fit on said 256 GB drive
How it does:
- USB drive is used for media storage; again, as many TV shows and movies as I could fit. You'll want to find video formats that don't need "transcoding", I've found that MKV and AVI formats work well. I chose to sacrifice playback quality for file size; more lower definition content rather than a small amount of HD content.
- Uses RaspAP to provide a simple to manage wifi hotspot. RaspAP gives you a web browser interface to set up the wireless network name, password, and other parameters.
- Has a custom dnsmasq configuration file to redirect clients from "watch.tv" to the media server's IP address
- Has custom iptables rules to redirect clients on the media server's IP port 80 or 443 to the media server's port (Emby uses a nonstandard port number) (I don't have the details on this in front of me but I can get them later on)
- Uses Emby as the actual media server. Emby sorts media automatically (if you have an internet connection) and provides a great web interface for watching content without the Emby app on client devices.
I'm currently reworking my system as I found it would overheat in the Florida heat, so once I put it back together I'll document more of the configuration here for others to use if they'd like. In the meantime I'm happy to answer questions, I'm sure I forgot something in my brief explanation!
