Best software for managing and playing videos and music

Storage format:

• MKV Videos
  • Video: 720p H.264
  • Audio: original audio in english, english and german as AAC
• Audio:
  • FLAC + mp3 subfolder generated from flac

Ripping/Encoding:

• Ripper: MakeMKV for DVDs and Bluray
• Encoder: handbrake

Storage:

• DELL T620 with LVM on RAID1 drives, running Debian

Players:

• Player for Videos and Music files: VLC
• Media manager and info downloader: “Media Companion” (https://mediacompanion.codeplex.com/)
• Media Player Box
  • Squeezeboxes for Audio
  • Zotac ID62 running XMBC
• Media Server Software:
  • Squeezenter, no longer investing since Logitech has abandoned squeezeboxes (shame!)
  • Plex Media Server (https://plex.tv/) (runs well with portable clients)

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