[gerard143]

Basically I am starting from scratch for the server. It’s a blank slate. Total budget for it up to about 4 grand I guess. I have a ton to learn. I’ve been spending the last two days researching about 8 hours a day.

Thinking about 6-16 TB drives to start.  Processor will either be a 12th i9 intel or Xeon processor.

Long story short I want to stream this movie collection to Apple TV’s I have all over home. It’s become my main method for viewing everything. I want a nice looking interface. Something like kodi, infuse, Emby.  Plex is so popular but gotta admit I’m not super huge on interface.

I realizes most players have constraints.  Apple TV, shield, roku, shield, etc.   Most of the time this will be fine.  I can live without atmos.  

That being said, I certain cases, I also want to be able to watch this movie collection with exact same quality and audio formats as if I was putting a physical disc in the UHD player.

If I build this server as dual purpose, both with a large drive Array and a high end Nvidia GPU and use the hdmi out on the card, will I still see limitations like all the alternatives seem to have. Or can I actually play with hdr, Dolby vision, atmos, 3D, etc just like I was playing a disc in a disc player?

If so then this is what I will do. From there, I can easily distribute the video stream into a 4k video matrix and then send it to every tv in the house. Not sure what app I would use for the front end player on the PC though to access the library in a nice looking fashion like infuse, etc.

I also assume that transcoding on the fly would be a breeze for a high end NVidia card?

But then that leaves the question of streaming to the Apple TV’s. Do I need to transcode to a compressed version prior? Or can something like kodi,plex, Emby, infuse loaded on this server handle streaming these uncompressed 1:1 rips on the fly and send it over the network?

I am thinking I have to run windows for all this? Or maybe unraid with windows as a virtual machine.


Man so maybe variables. Tons to learn. Trying to wrap my head around it all.

[Klojum]

Just a few things that come to mind...

- Whatever number of HDD drives you want to use, get a couple of them extra as spares.
- Nvidia is not a particularly Kodi-friendly GPU at the moment for non-Windows operations.
- 3D is also on its way out and has its issues in Kodi 19 afaik.
- Kodi does not transcode videos.

[gerard143]

Ok. I am ok with AMD. I have no real preference.

[lightsout]

If you want to use the server also for video watching it will basically be an HTPC (home theater personal computer). I did this long ago and it is not the best option. Needing a reboot, needing to do something on the server, etc. etc. after a while got annoying. I do not believe you will get dolby vision that way.

I run my own server and I prefer emby, (have used it for years). It can transcode for you when you need it. You want to have things setup though on your home network where that is not needed. I am not totally familiar with the limitations of Apple TV. I personally use an Nvidia Shield and Odroid (N2 and C4) Coreelc devices.

Nvidia Shield will get you Dolby Vision with your rips with Plex or Emby. The Coreelec devices run a slimmed down linux OS that is made for just Kodi. These devices can basically play anything I thrown at them (I don't care about 3d). They cannot and will never do DV because of licensing, but I am fine with normal HDR.

[Vlaves]

...
Thinking about 6-16 TB drives to start.  Processor will either be a 12th i9 intel or Xeon processor.

Long story short I want to stream this movie collection to Apple TV’s I have all over home. It’s become my main method for viewing everything. I want a nice looking interface. Something like kodi, infuse, Emby.  Plex is so popular but gotta admit I’m not super huge on interface.

...
I am thinking I have to run windows for all this? Or maybe unraid with windows as a virtual machine.


Man so maybe variables. Tons to learn. Trying to wrap my head around it all.

Basically you are already on the right track. I would go for something with virtualization capabilities, so from software point of view, you have basically separated systems, where every system can do what it is designed for. Proxmox might be worth a look too

[drmark1]

Oh where to begin... at the start of course.
Storage  Budget $ 3200, spent $3,000
Buy a Synology 8-bay Server. Add a 10gig network card if you want awesome data transfer rates $1250.   Make sure your HTPC has a 10g network built in the mother board or add a card to it.
Next buy 5-6 18tb external drives.  I recommend WD.  They will yield 16.4 TB at format and are a good amount for the price.  Nice thing is you can add more drives.  5 drive with one of them a back up you have 
65.6 TB of usable space  114.8 total TB usable with 8 drives installed.  
WD 18TB Elements Desktop Hard Drive HDD, USB 3.0, Compatible with PC, Mac, PS4 & Xbox - WDBWLG0180HBK-NESN : Electronics (amazon.com)  Price $347.99 each Price for 5 $1,739.95
So we have spent around $3,000 and you still have around $1,000 for a PC.
Set Volume 1
TV Shows
Movies
4k Movies

HTPC, if you have one great, if not lets talk basics.  Budget $1,000
Go for an i7, 8 gigs ram, M.2 drive "256gig is more than enough"
Intel® Core™ i7-10700F Desktop Processor 8 Cores up to 4.8 GHz Without Processor Graphics LGA1200 (Intel® 400 Series chipset) 65W  $230
Ram around $50
M.2 $30-50.  Don't need anything special and the M.2 will be very fast
Power supply 600watt Thermaltake makes a good one $40
10th gen mother board for a HTPC $100
cheap PC case, no side window to reduce light  $70
$530 not including the video card.   
Now the fun part that I bet the Kodi guys don't know and this depends on you.
The database is good for around 5,000 movies and 500 TV shows with an average of 3 seasons.
You get beyond that and the database is not happy.  Loses the posters and does not display the line description. Also when you do an update it begins to get corrupted.
You have the above get a 1080 Nvidia video card.  

If you have more update to a 3070 card.  We don’t know why but it is working with their database and staying intact as we add more to it.
I am in touch with a few friends who develop databases and have asked them to look at the Kodi one.  Love to make it more robust.
And when I say more we are pushing way beyond what Kodi likes

[Klojum]

Now the fun part that I bet the Kodi guys don't know and this depends on you.
The database is good for around 5,000 movies and 500 TV shows with an average of 3 seasons.
You get beyond that and the database is not happy.  Loses the posters and does not display the line description. Also when you do an update it begins to get corrupted.

That is one giant chunk of total horse manure. Accusations without proof will not get you any popularity points here.

You have the above get a 1080 Nvidia video card. 
If you have more update to a 3070 card.

Technically, Kodi and Nvidia have not been the best of friends for a few years now. Moreover there are plenty of satisfied AMD and Intel (i)gpu users running Kodi.

[drmark1]

Now the fun part that I bet the Kodi guys don't know and this depends on you.
The database is good for around 5,000 movies and 500 TV shows with an average of 3 seasons.
You get beyond that and the database is not happy.  Loses the posters and does not display the line description. Also when you do an update it begins to get corrupted.

That is one giant chunk of total horse manure. Accusations without proof will not get you any popularity points here.

You have the above get a 1080 Nvidia video card. 
If you have more update to a 3070 card.

Technically, Kodi and Nvidia have not been the best of friends for a few years now. Moreover there are plenty of satisfied AMD and Intel (i)gpu users running Kodi.

Happy to provide proof.  How would I best do that.  Rather than throwing "horse manure" at something you don't know or understand the comment should be; can you explain what is happening and how.

Also I know a lot of Nvidia users with no issues with Kodi.  4k, HDR Atmos, DTS-X all work.

[Klojum]

How would I best do that.

Sorry, but if you don't even know how to prove your own case/accusations or how to convince me of Kodi's database problem, then I rest my case. You're rambling about "around 5,000 movies and 500 TV shows with an average of 3 seasons", then suddenly "corruption sets in" after an update. An update of what?

I've worked in ISTQB software testing for quite some time. If there is anything you want proof with computers, you'll need a testing environment with documented setups. Which hardware, which software, which data sets, what test cases were run, what their results were, and so on. I'll be awaiting your full test report.

Also I know a lot of Nvidia users with no issues with Kodi.  4k, HDR Atmos, DTS-X all work.

That's wonderful. The issue here is not the number of Kodi users with Nvidia problems, but Nvidia has been quite the nagging toddler over the years when it comes to providing support to the open-source community. They have p!ssed off quite a number of developers that way, notably one Linus Torvalds. If only Nvidia had the common sense and deceny like AMD has found since a few years now. Intel has never been a big problem for Kodi.

BTW, I'm a happy user of an Nvidia GT1030 running on LibreELEC.

[gerard143]

So I decided on eventually going with a separate NAS and not build an all-in-one.  For now a single PC is going to handle both tasks, but in the longer haul i'll get a dedicated nas.    

I wound up picking up a silverstone KL06 microATX case.     https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.p...undefined2    sharp looking case that reviews well.  It can hold my two opticals, has bays for 10 drives total.   I have some 2.5" drives kicking around and I am going to thru a 16-18Tb 3.5 in it as well.     Later on i'll be moving to all 3.5" 16-18TB discs in a dedicated nas.  

For the motherboard I went with the sickest one made.   Asus Republic of Gamers Strix Z690-G.   https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-st...ifi-model/   I am going to throw 128Gb DDR5 ram in it.  Get a Nvidia 3060 or 3070 video card most likely.   And going with a 12th gen i9 processor.  Also will give it some NVme m.2 drives.  

Power supply I am going with is:  https://rog.asus.com/us/power-supply-uni...50p-model/

So I am basically spec'ing this thing out as badass as I can.   Decided I can use it for other purposes like my R/C flight simulator software, model train simulator software, some video processing work, etc.

[jbinkley60]

So I decided on eventually going with a separate NAS and not build an all-in-one.  For now a single PC is going to handle both tasks, but in the longer haul i'll get a dedicated nas.    

I wound up picking up a silverstone KL06 microATX case.     https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.p...undefined2    sharp looking case that reviews well.  It can hold my two opticals, has bays for 10 drives total.   I have some 2.5" drives kicking around and I am going to thru a 16-18Tb 3.5 in it as well.     Later on i'll be moving to all 3.5" 16-18TB discs in a dedicated nas.  

For the motherboard I went with the sickest one made.   Asus Republic of Gamers Strix Z690-G.   https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-st...ifi-model/   I am going to throw 128Gb DDR5 ram in it.  Get a Nvidia 3060 or 3070 video card most likely.   And going with a 12th gen i9 processor.  Also will give it some NVme m.2 drives.  So I am basically spec'ing this thing out as badass as I can.   Decided I can use it for other purposes like my R/C flight simulator software, model train simulator software, some video processing work, etc.

Here's the route I went for my server infrastructure (more than just streaming).  16TB drives are at a much better price point right now than 18TB but that will change as it always does.  I am a big fan of ASUS ROG and non-ROG motherboards.  I've stuck with them for close to 20 years.  I have a number of the Samsung 970 NVme drives.  Blazing fast and very reliable.  Happy to chat about a whole house streaming solution.  I've been doing it for many years.


Jeff

[gerard143]

Here's the route I went for my server infrastructure (more than just streaming).  16TB drives are at a much better price point right now than 18TB but that will change as it always does.  I am a big fan of ASUS ROG and non-ROG motherboards.  I've stuck with them for close to 20 years.  I have a number of the Samsung 970 NVme drives.  Blazing fast and very reliable.  Happy to chat about a whole house streaming solution.  I've been doing it for many years.


Jeff

Thanks for the info! Just installed the motherboard the other night and the power supply. But carried some serious weight. Quality product for sure from the packaging right on to the components themselves!

Just checked out your setup. Looks nice.