Hi there,
I am looking for a player (not a server!) capable of playing 4k movies by sending everything to my Denon x6700 receiver which supports 3D audio formats like Dolby Atmos, Dolby Atmos Height Virtualization Technology, DTS:X, DTS Virtual:X, DTS:X Pro, IMAX Enhanced and Auro-3D.
I know regular client like Apple or Nvidia are nice but do not cover everything, so I was aiming at a NUC. Yet, there are many so I don’t really know which one would be the perfect fit for my needs.
Other than real 3D-MVC format what does an Nvidia Shield NOT play? I play 4K, Atmos etc without transcoding all the time.
The other device that will do this is the OSMC Vero-4K+ but it does not have a native Plex app. It is Linux-based and has a custom Kodi build on it so you have to run the PlexForKodi add-on or similar. This device though WILL play 3D-MVC.
The majority of 4K HDR Blu-ray rips run under 100 Mbps.
The highest bandwidth file I’ve seen is the 4K HDR version of Gemini Man at 60 fps. Most of the time it runs ~110 Mbps. My 2015 Shield Pro has no problem playing the movie.
The Shield bitstreams TrueHD + Atmos and DTS:X audio to my Denon 4300 without issue.
Not sure about IMAX Enhanced. That seems to be DTS trying to compete with Dolby Digital Plus + Atmos, which is used by Netflix, Apple, etc. I’ve never noticed it as an option while streaming.
I don’t have Auro-3D enabled on my Denon. However, I’ve never seen any media with Auro-3D audio.
It might be useful to clarify the terms mentioned.
Dolby Atmos based on TrueHD and DD+ => Nvidia Shield, Plex HTPC on Windows/Linux - no problem
Dolby Atmos Height Virtualization Technology => Nothing a player is doing, Your AVR needs to support this feature.
DTS:X based on DTS-HD HRA => Plex HTPC on Windows - no problem, Nvidia shield - not sure
DTS:X based on DTS-HD MA => Nvidia Shield, Plex HTPC on Windows/Linux - no problem
DTS:X Pro - Nothing a player is doing, Your AVR needs to support this decoder. It uses the same DTS:X track based on DTS-HD HRA/MA, DTS:X Pro is not a separate codec.
IMAX Enhanced found on Bluray => base is DTS:X - DTS-HD MA and HDR10+ / As mentioned above DTS:X is not a problem, your AVR should recognize the stream as IMAX Enhanced. HDR10+ on the other hand is not supported on Windows nor on Linux, or on the Nvidia Shield… (mpv does not support it either.)
Auro3D - base is DTS-HD MA or PCM - DTS-HD no problem with the Nvidia Shield and Plex HTPC on Windows/Linux. Unaltered PCM (which Auro3D needs) should also work with Plex HTPC, not tested… (I have some doubts about WASAPI not touching audio, but maybe with the exclusive mode it works) With Plex HTPC for Linux it should work with alsa.
So an HTPC preferably with an Nvidia GPU (e.g. RTX 3050 for AV1) when using Windows might be the way to go…
Do note that the OP talked about 3D audio formats where as 3D-MVC is video.
As per a NUC, a friend of mine just recently bought a 12th generation NUC (the original form factor, not the Enthusiast nor Pro) and it performs quite well. In reality, it is the GPU and OS that matter more than the CPU for this case. I’ll touch on some of the decision points:
OS: I’d only recommend Windows at this time. MacOS has a tendency to be lacking support for things (it may still be lacking HD-audio passthrough but I haven’t checked in years) and Linux lacks HDR.
Audio: Just use passthrough and everything goes to your AVR to decode.
GPU:
Intel: These work well for the low to mid range. I’d highly recommend not getting an UHD Graphics line but instead a Iris Xe. I’ve not played with ARC but I expect it’ll outperform the Iris Xe line.
NVIDIA: These GPUs generally work well but there do seem to be some quirks. Some game settings can interfere with HTPC so it is better that it run with mostly default settings. The power management sometimes can cause a frame drop as seemingly does the default D3D11 swapchain depth. You can find discussion of this elsewhere in the forums.
AMD: I can’t speak to this too much personally so I’ll leave it to others.
Quality Presets: These presets control some post processing (such as debanding) but most of effect is in the scalers (such as upscaling 1080p → 4k). These are why I recommend against an Intel UHD Graphics series because these GPUs can’t do much in this regard. Of the GPUs I’ve seen:
My friend is testing out a new 12th gen Iris Xe GPU with 96EU and it seems to play content at the Ultra quality preset in HTPC without issue. Some content can be played at the Make My GPU Hurt preset but not all.
My experience with an 11th gen is similar
NVIDIA RTX 2060: appears to play everything I’ve thrown at it at Make My GPU Hurt.
Render mechanism: This is the graphics API that’s used. Currently only Windows has a choice here:
ANGLE: This is the old mechanism which should only be used on low power GPUs. For some inexplicable reason, it performs better for these low power GPUs on the lower quality presets.
D3D11: This is the default in HTPC. It seems to have the aforementioned quirks but generally works well.
Vulkan: Currently only available by settings options in the mpv.conf and should only be used on NVIDIA GPUs because others have to copy video data from the GPU → CPU → GPU currently (hopefully this will changes after Vulkan puts out a video decoding API in the near future). This appears to be much more efficient on the GPU’s usage.
Video Decode: For most cases, the hardware decode of these GPUs is nearly identical. The current notable difference is AV1 which requires at least an RDNA2 AMD GPU, 11th generation Intel, or 30x0 series NVIDIA
Dolby Vision: Currently HTPC ignores the DV metadata due to licensing concerns. I expect this will not change because Dolby won’t change. However, depend on your source content, this may not make a difference. The MPV devs have pointed out many times that there are only 5 UHD BD disks that have any enhancement at all on the DV layer. So for playing content from (all by these 5) UHD BD disks HDR10 vs DV yield identical results.
