I am thinking of upgrading my Mac mini to a Nvidia shield (or NUC) and have googled a lot on it. Some questions unanswered.
This is my setup today.
I upload movies to the mac mini used only as Plex Media Server.
We play the movies through Apple tv, chromecasts, ipads, both locally and when travelling.
We use at maximum 2 simultaneous streams, 99% of the time only 1 stream.
Mac mini is old and cannot transcode hevc or too heavy files.
We watch mostly 720p and 1080p, never higher resolution.
We always use subtitles, which is fetched by plex.
Today the mac mini struggles a lot with transcoding hevc and bigger files.
We need a new device that:
run Plex media server
is easy to upload mkv, mp4, hevc to
Can transcode hevc 1080p for 1-2 streams
Easily be casted to chromecasts and apple tv.
Is the nvidia shield a good option here or should i go with a complete HTPC solution like NUC (which may cost x3 the price)
It can do everything you need + more dude 100%. Only thing Im unsure of is… “Easily be casted to chromecasts and apple tv”? I know you can cast to the Shield from another device because it has google cast built in (I do it with the BT Sports app on Iphone), But Im not sure if you can cast from the Shield to other devices. TBH, Im really not sure why you would want to cast from the Shield Tv to Apple TV either… They have pretty much the same apps on both.
I think it did. Thank you!
Maybe I described the casting wrong. I think i do it just like you. I look the movie up in the iphone plex client and cast it to the chromecast.
Using the apple tv it gets the material from the mac mini pms via wifi.
So all in all, I dont have any unusual needs I guess. Maybe I should try the Nvidia shield then…?
I have a 2010 Mac mini. The shield can do much more than the mini can. I have 500+ movies and 100 tv series and the shield can transcode the hevc that the mini cannot touch. Just wish the shield had more memory than the 16 gig mine has for meta data or rather that plex can address adopted storage but that is coming in an upcoming update if reports are to be believed.
