Moving from Zappiti to This Box But have Questions on USB Connected drives

I've done some searching in the forum and looked at the systems specs and can't find an answer to this situation: My main Zappiti has 3 USB extenders connected to it to access the 10 USB drives with movies/TV shows on them. Does the Z9X 8K and/or the 9X PRO support this?
They are NTFS formatted so I don't want to have to do anything to them since there's @2000 files on them in total.
I'm looking for a new solution to replace my Zappiti's (I have 4 of them) but want to be sure I'm not looking at a device that won't support connecting all the drives.
Also - does this system allow you to have one main box w/the drives/movies connected and then watch on another TV via a different Zidoo box?

 

short answer is yes, and it can share the contents over the network to other players, but that sounds like a nightmare to set up and maintain compared to just plugging those HDDs into a NUC or any computer to act as a central server and management hub for all players to access.

Then (with the Z9X8k at least.. its harder on the older models) you could also have Jellyfin or Plex keep all the metadata and watch status in sync.

 

Thank you but when you say keep the metadata and watch status in sync: does that mean that unlike Zappiti or Popcorn Hour - this box doesn't come with a program that downloads the data for the movies and create a video 'wall' of my movies to allow me to scroll through them to watch one? Or do I need a 3rd party program/app to perform that feature?
At my age I'm done doing a lot of manual stuff so that's why I loved the Zappiti (and then R_volutions app when Zappiti's server's stopped working) so I'm looking for a plug and play. I don't have space near my PC's to house 10USB drives so the only option is where they currently reside.

 

The Zidoo automatically populates its home page video wall from either TMDB or TVDB or TVMAZE, what ever you have set in preferences. Labelling files is important so as not to confuse HT5, so basically simply for example After Yang (2021).mkv etc . No need for a lot of data after the title as Zidoo uses MediaInfo for the technical stuff. Same with TV shows, simply Agatha.all.along.S01E01.mkv, best to leave out episode name as it might be the same as a movies title. Its good practice to include the year as there may be remakes after remakes etc. I came from a Popcorn 500 and the Zidoo UHD3000 is a thousand times better IMO. My Zidoo has 2 internal drives and is connected to my network via Ethernet where it can access my NAS, that's in another room. Forme it just works 99% of the time. I'm ancient at 86 but I don't mind a bit of manual editing from time to time on very old an odd titles if necessary. So sometimes, rarely I use tmm (tiny media manager).

 

Wryker;

I've got a Zappiti Neo and have moved (partially) over to a Zidoo Z9X 8K. I only have 4 external USB drives but am using it with a un-powered USB hub and it recognizes them and works with them just fine.

I haven't done it but I understand that you can set up the Zidoo as a SAMBA server and then have other devices (such as more Zidoos) "see" those networked drives, providing all of the media players are on the same network. I've got my movies and TV shows in drives connected to a PC acting as a SAMBA server and was able to connect with them but had some initial difficulties getting the Zidoo to automatically remember and reconnect to them. I was too eager to get things working with my Zidoo (which I'm using strictly as a music device, playing FLAC or DSD64 audio files, SACD ISO images or video concerts and albums in ISO or MKV images of DVD/BR/UHD discs) and went to the "direct connection" route.

The Zidoo will auto-populate the Video Wall with your movies and TV shows and probably pulls its information from the same sources as R_volution, so the hit rate will be similar. It makes a few WILD mistakes and it can be a pain to track them down. I think Zidoo is far more picky on filenames, so you might have to rename some or all of your files to get the autorecognition to work remotely well. You can build custom collections to group movies under (like all my Marx Brothers films, all my Marvel Cinematic Universe films, etc.). The Zidoo database for your collection is stored on your hard drives, NOT on a centralized, vendor-owned server like R_volution does. R_volution has a PC version of the full UI you can edit your collection database with where Zidoo has a web-based app that allows some limited editing. I have gotten pretty familiar with using tiny Media Manager as my music-related videos were almost completely unrecognized by the online movie databases. It was a LOT of work to get my Video Wall working for my music files. You shouldn't have NEARLY as hard a time with regular movies and TV shows. Here's a nice guide to the file naming structure: https://www.mcbluna.net/wp/guides/guide-zidoo-home-theater-media-labels/

I absolutely LOVE the R_volution movie/TV interface with the Zappiti and don't feel the Zidoo interface is nearly as nice or as customizable. However, Zappiti is out of business, the new R_volution hardware is MUCH more expensive than comparably-featured Zidoo hardware and you have to pay an annual fee to use the great R_volution software on the Zappiti. On the other hand, the Z9X 8K is fast! Moving through the Zidoo UI is way faster than the Zappiti. Heck, even booting it up is faster.

One real pain in the keister is that my Neo and my Z9X both use the exact same infrared signal for Power On/Off. If you have both media players close together and turn one on or off with the remote, the other one goes on or off. Also, the Zidoo lacks discrete power on and power off signals, which I prefer to program in for macro-based buttons on my remote. Oh well, nothing's perfect.

Netmask;

I also have an old Popcorn 500 and while it does a surprisingly good job gaplessly playing FLAC and DSF files (especially given how ancient its hardware is), its interface for selecting from large collections as godawful bad. I'm keeping it attached to my Royole Moon personal 3D video viewer and playing only 3D films over it (since none of the 4K TVs out there will play 3D and I still enjoy a well-made 3D film like Avatar or Gravity or Hugo).