Kodi Community Forum

I have a secondary TV for the first time and I plan to connect a low-powered PC to it (probably a Raspberry Pi or something). However, a lot of my content is now 4K, HDR, HEVC stuff which requires a lot of horsepower to play. After some research it seems as if the way to solve this is to have a dedicated media server that can transcode content to a format that will be playable (e.g. 1080p AVC). I've spent a day or two playing with some of the most popular UPnP servers: Emby, Plex, and Universal Media Server; none of them seem to work in the way that I'd want or expect. I set them up on my desktop and then tried to play files on the same machine using these 5 options:

 - Universal Media Server via UPnP
 - Plex via UPnP
 - Emby via UPnP
 - Plex via add-on
 - Emby via add-on

Every iteration either didn't transcode despite being set to, crashed upon playing a video, had screwed up audio, or had slow-playing video (despite CPU usage not being maxed out). Basically I haven't found a combination that actually works yet, and I'm pretty astonished at the lack of transcoding options in all 3. UMS is the most customisable but it doesn't even seem to include an option for video resolution, which I find bizarre. All I want is a setup where I can set a profile for a client that says "transcode anything above X resolution, or Y bit rate, or using Z codec to A resolution at B bit-rate using C codec". Has anyone actually done this successfully? I'd appreciate some guidance for this, maybe I'm just setting things up wrong.

The second half of my question is regarding hardware. Is something like a Raspberry Pi a good way to go for the 1080p clients? What about the server, is it worth going 8 core Ryzen or just using hardware decoding & encoding using an integrated or separate GPU instead?

Thanks for any help.

What is the use of having 4K HEVC content when you don't have the hardware to play it? Transcoding, when it works, will degrade the quality to match the clients so you might as well stick to HD content.
You don't need 8 cores to be able to play this, a i5 kaby lake or perhaps even a i3 will be able to play that content without requiring transcoding.

Why not buy a device which handles your media?

(2018-03-18, 20:44)PH-SYM Wrote: [ -> ]What is the use of having 4K HEVC content when you don't have the hardware to play it? Transcoding, when it works, will degrade the quality to match the clients so you might as well stick to HD content.
You don't need 8 cores to be able to play this, a i5 kaby lake or perhaps even a i3 will be able to play that content without requiring transcoding.

As I said, this is for a secondary TV. My primary TV has a mATX HTPC that will be able to play back 4K HDR HEVC content no problem, but I don't want an mATX PC in my bedroom. I guess I assumed that transcoding on the fly was how most people did this but maybe I'm wrong?
 

(2018-03-18, 21:10)nickr Wrote: [ -> ]Why not buy a device which handles your media?

Sure, that's another way to do it. But what hardware is out there that will be able to both play 4K HDR HEVC content and downscale it to 1080p SDR on the fly, whilst being very small (i.e. Raspberry Pi sort of size)?

Yet another solution is to have 1080p transcodes of every film and TV episode I have but that eats up drive space and might be annoying to implement (i.e. having my main Kodi instance ignore the downscaled duplicates, but having the secondary Kodi instance only show the 1080p or lower stuff).

(2018-03-18, 22:00)DragonQ Wrote: [ -> ]Sure, that's another way to do it. But what hardware is out there that will be able to both play 4K HDR HEVC content and downscale it to 1080p SDR on the fly, whilst being very small (i.e. Raspberry Pi sort of size)?

I have an Intel NUC7i5 which is not that much larger than a Raspberry Pi. Off course it is not as cheap but it can play 4K HDR HEVC files on my 1080p TV easy.

(2018-03-19, 00:34)PH-SYM Wrote: [ -> ]

(2018-03-18, 22:00)DragonQ Wrote: [ -> ]Sure, that's another way to do it. But what hardware is out there that will be able to both play 4K HDR HEVC content and downscale it to 1080p SDR on the fly, whilst being very small (i.e. Raspberry Pi sort of size)?

I have an Intel NUC7i5 which is not that much larger than a Raspberry Pi. Off course it is not as cheap but it can play 4K HDR HEVC files on my 1080p TV easy. 

Interesting, that might be a solution since it sounds like the integrated GPU of standard Intel/AMD mobile chips are far more capable at decoding video than current ARM ones. Basically in terms of size I want it to ideally fit behind the TV, which'll be mounted on the wall. The TV is 6 cm deep so that's pretty restrictive.

Minix U9-H running librelec.

Quote:The TV is 6 cm deep so that's pretty restrictive.

The Intel NUC7i5 BNK is only 35mm high, so would probably fit behind your screen in your situation. There's a VESA mount available.
I have the BNH model which is a bit higher since it also has room for an extra 2.5" SSD (both models have room for an M2 SSD)
The Minix U9 that Nickr mentioned might also do the trick, its cheaper and a bit smaller.

(2018-03-19, 03:33)nickr Wrote: [ -> ]Minix U9-H running librelec.

Thanks for the suggestion, I had a look around today and it seems to be a really nice way of doing this. I also noticed that, by complete chance, Amazon are doing a lightning deal so I can get it for £123 including the A3 remote - the cheapest it's ever been according to CamelCamelCamel. Coincidence or fate?

Fate mate.