The first functioning MVP of NIAS TV was a very simple C# app that I wrote in a day or so that would play a video from my Plex library. These were on a share that I created on my Plex Server in the basement. I would feed in a string a videos in an array and they would be played in succession.
Plex presented some challenges for me. First, it required ports to be open and remain open. I was having lots of challenges keeping these ports open and functioning. I believe it was a conflict between Plex and the virus protection software. It was an on-going day-to-day struggle to keep things up and running.
Secondly, Plex required (for the most part) an active internet connection. That means constant automatic updates from various software vendors (including MS Windows) which resulted in random reboots at odd times. It also means when I went camping, I couldn’t watch my videos via Plex as I usually didn’t (nor wanted) an internet connection.
Third, Plex didn’t have a “play a random movie” type feature other than build me a list of movies in random order. Plex did cover the ad-hoc feature very well though.
Fourth, I had to use the UI to set up a small list of movies to watch each night and on one TV. I wanted to be able to watch whatever was playing on any TV in the house (like a TV station).
Anyway, so the prototype was a success. What do I do next?