I’m planning a new home mediacenter. Ideally I’d love to use a new mac mini as the player but I can’t seam to get a straight answer on it supporting the best video and audio formats out there on a capable TV and audio receiver.
I am already running a separate dedicated server on a 2018 mac mini running mojave [can upgrade to catalina with some effort]
I guess I could go a new route without a mac altogether but I like the flexibility and familiarity.
Does the new mac mini support the best AV standards and if not, what are some good alternatives to look at?
I personally am not a fan of Kodi, but the add-on gives you the feel of Plex, albeit with a slightly modified interface, but the hardware is cheap, it works well and all the software is free. The best part is that it allows LibreELEC/Kodi to FUNCTION like Plex using your Plex account and connect to Plex servers as if you were were using a native, Plex app…again with a modified Plex interface.
Regardless of all that what I’m describing is the ONLY (known) solution for playing back full resolution, 3D-MVC video while using Plex. Native Plex can play back half-resolution 3D like SBS and TAB formats because that’s nothing more than a standard, 2D 1080 stream that is specially formatted to two half-resolution frames.
I am a total fan of Plex and have a lifetime Plex Pass, but I REALLY like my 3D so I’ve had to compromise…
Best Support for all formats will be definitely the Shield. Shield Pro 2019 seems to be sold out unfortunately, but the tube might also do the trick since its high bitrate playback issues seem to be solved.
I have no idea what the difference between the Shield TV and the Shield Pro is though. The Pro seems to look like my 2017 Shield, before a “Shield TV” existed.
I concur that the most solid media streaming hardware you can buy is the Shield. I love mine! However, it will still not play full-resolution 3D-MVC through any app I have ever heard of. If you know of one please let me know, but until that exists it will not play “all formats”.
It was always called “Shield TV”. There used to be a tablet also called Shield.
The Shield Pro 2019 is the upgrade of the 2017 (“Pro”?) model, including Dolby Vision and “AI upscaling”. New to the crew is the smaller version “Shield Tube”, which I also referred to above.
I don’t require 3D, I’m going to go with a 4k LD OLED with dolby vision, and a new audio received and speaker setup to include atmos. Those are the primary audio video goals, 4k dolby vision and atmos for the media that has it.
No way to stick with the Mac Mini or I guess more specifically OS X huh?
Are you saying the Nvidia Shield can do both of these no problem as a Plex player? Then it’s just a matter of getting media files that have this encoded?
The Mac Mini allows for additional capability, I bring up news sites, the various cameras I have on the house, my unifi router stats, the MacOS Home app for automations, stream steam games from my desktop, play stepmania with the kids…pull up Google photos for slide shows…I could still use a MacMini and just switch to the other player for Plex I guess…not ideal
I have zero clue about the Mac ecosystem. I don’t know if you can run libreelec or anything comparable on it. Same with PMP, which would be your options for HTPCs. I also don’t know what codecs are supported so I cannot really comment on it.
The Shield is easy to setup and run and supports virtually any codec/format.
Wow @TeknoJunky that plex, 4k, transcoding and you link was a plethora of good info.
Seems like I will just end up spending more, the MacMini I have is due for replacement, and I’m going to stay in that ecosystem for the fore mentioned “computer like” benefits of the mediacenter…but for my actual movie watching, it’ll be the nvidia shield pro, and as you’ve laid out, an atmos receiver, and a 4k tv…good think i’m slowly planning this all…i’ll likely just have to reprogram my harmony for the input switching to keep things in line and the mac will just relegated to news, cameras, house stats and the like…
I would highly recommend that you disable all CEC in the Shield. I was fighting with the CEC from the Shield changing inputs on my receiver for several months (as have many on their forums). Currently it’s behaving but they regressed this twice now in updates so I would not be the least surprised if they do it a third time. There was even a while when the settings to disable CEC in the Shield didn’t even work and I had to disconnect its HDMI to bring sanity to the rest of the system. I quite nearly bought an HDMI cable that had the CEC pin removed just for the Shield.
If you have a harmony that supports bluetooth, this is by far the best way to control a Shield. Bluetooth has a lower latency and finer control than anything over IR.
