Stream it or Keep it. How to make a Media Sharing Network at home.

Families nowadays don't all sit in the same room to watch T.V. With laptops, smart phones and tablets that have built in WiFi who needs a flat-screen in every room? You can do it any way you want. Here's a little to get you started on having a wireless media friendly residence.

What you will need:
An internet connection from an internet provider.

• You usually pay in download speed "tiers". Faster is better and will support more than a few family members  streaming to their devices.

A modem with a WiFi and router built in.

•      It would be nice if it has a USB port to attach and network an external hard drive. Once you get into keeping programs on a hard drive you will need a larger network and more external hard drives. Best of 2015

A computer to use for larger networking jobs.

• Lots of memory, a big internal hard drive, lots of USB 3.0 outputs and as much processor power as you can afford.
  

 USB powered portable external hard drive.

• I have been doing this for a decade, I have five. The smallest one is 1TB. I have one for old TV shows no longer aired. One for current shows I watch. One for movies. One for my favorite music collection, and one for operating systems I collect, along with programs, photos, etc. Amazon Search
• if you end up with more than one hard drive, stack them with something like this. Trays
• if you only use one hard drive connect it to the wireless router to share it on the network. Otherwise, connect them all to your main computer and share them on the network. Name each one according to what you have saved on it, or at least put similar media in named folders on the hard drive. Here's a screen shot of what mine looks like.Down the left are the hard drives - named, and a partial list of what's on the TV Shows drive.
  
  
  
   

Cat 5 cable to hard wire your main computer to the router. I use a gigabit speed LAN output on my computer hooked to a gigabit speed router/Docis 3.o mode that has four LAN ports. It gives highest transfer speeds to the router in order to provide the WiFi with smooth video sharing to wireless devices.

Flat Screen TV.

• 1080P is good enough for most humans. However if  you can afford the new Ultra HD units go for it. You will want one with multiple inputs. A few HDMI and at least one RCA type for video/audio input  for those old WII units that don't have HDMI out.

• A SMART TV includes a lot of streaming apps such as Netflix, HULU and many of the mainline Broadcast stations now have streaming apps and services to offer. You could actually do without a digital cable tv package and that additional cost. Shop around.. I recently scored a 40 inch TCL Roku TV for $299. Google Search

Media Players.
I have a review here on my favorite media player by Western Digital. But depending on whether or not you are planning on downloading and streaming your own saved media, or just want to stream from a provider like Netflix, or Amazon you have quite a selection. I have my main computer connected via cat5 cable to the internet router, and my WD TV Live also wired directly to the router. The media player is connected to a Vizio 32" 1080P smart tv in my bedroom. The house has a TCL 40" smart tv with a WD tv live, a WII and the cable box all hooked in. Media Players


Stream it.

• Once you choose your version of streaming, you can pick where you want to spend your money. Streaming services come in lots of flavors, so see what each offers in the line of programming and join. Even the mainstream broadcasters are getting into pay for service streaming. Choices choices...  

Save it.

• If you decide to download your viewing pleasure p2p is the way to go. Don't download pirated movies or content, your ISP tracks you and you can get anything from a nasty letter to a court injunction for pirating.  However, even in the digital age, taping broadcast or free tv and sending the tape to your cousin to watch, basically is still legal. You can use a program called uTorrent  to download media files to save to your hard drive and watch at your leisure. There are many torrent search engines out there to find the content you want. EZTV has a nicely organized system to search as does a few others. Google torrent search engine. Pick your favorite, then when you find what you want get it and then organize it like I showed you. If you don't know how to make folders and move files around then you need to study up and practice. A really good program for moving files (sadly Microsoft's move and copy stinks) I use TeraCopy It actually replaces Windoze move and copy program.
• If this becomes your passion READ. Each program has FAQ pages or user forums with tips and directions how to do it faster and better. 

Have fun and happy sharing. Networking your hard drives, printers and such should be easy. Tell Microsoft that when you try it in Windoze 10.

Buh Bye