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Finally broke down and got a shield to replace my haswell NUC. Guys...the CEC...works, holy poo poo I am an idiot for not doing this a long time ago...
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May 13, 2018 18:03
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Yeah the CEC implementation on moderns streaming boxes is like loving magic. I was shocked when I setup an Apple TV 4 and it was able to power on the TV and control the volume with its remote no problem.
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May 14, 2018 01:55
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Aeka 2.0 posted:
Are you able to dedicated a PC with a significant GPU (1050+, etc.)? Are you using it with a large screen and/or projector? Is your display device high quality and have you calibrated it? If no, then MadVR is probably more trouble than it's worth. Done right with the right display it does make a difference for some content - it's great for upscaling blu-ray rips to 4k, for example, or making lower bitrate encodes look a little better - but it's really meant for the hardcore videophile. I used DSPlayer for a long time and still have the giant HTPC setup with a 1050ti hooked up to my JVC RS540 projector and even I've just defaulted back to using the Shield.
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May 14, 2018 15:24
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So, sounds like Nvidia is making Geforce NOW free. With the caveat that they say they will be announcing other changes to the service...
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May 17, 2018 22:55
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Ixian posted:Are you able to dedicated a PC with a significant GPU (1050+, etc.)? Are you using it with a large screen and/or projector? Is your display device high quality and have you calibrated it? Yes. I had madvr with emby theater. Big screen JVC projector here as well. I went ahead and set it up.
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May 21, 2018 19:58
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Have you seen my apex seals? I seem to have lost them.
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Any suggestions regarding ideal network storage for the shield? I currently have a 5 year old pc sitting right next to it with a 500gb drive shared over network and want to add more space. Should I just add a big HDD/SSD to the computer or do something with NAS?
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May 23, 2018 20:52
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I had an old PC stuffed with hard drives for a long time. It was okay, but big in size and in power it drew. I switched to a Synology NAS less than a year ago and it was the best thing I did. Specifically for Synology, it let me load a lot of apps on it to run that the old PC had been doing, and then some. It is now my:
And soon will be running Docker, maybe a different smart home controller instead of the one I'm using (in Docker), and a headless Kodi client (also Docker). The thing draws like no power, and has actual RAID redundancy. This was necessary since I ripped all my DVDs to ISOs, and I didn't want to do that again in case a HD died.
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May 23, 2018 21:06
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I could do that and just downsize to a stick PC or something similar. I mean, I don't have to get rid of the computer tower, because it's useful for quite a few things like VPN browsing, using regular Windows programs and not having to learn a whole new environment (and teaching my partner is essentially right out - anything short of pure Windows and a Chrome bookmarks bar and she's lost). So, if you don't mind me wondering out loud: 1) running Plex Media Server on the Shield so I can access it from work at all times 2) a NAS like Synology running my web server, storage, and Radarr/Sonarr 3) either keeping my big computer tower, or folding it into a cheap snappy stick PC/Intel NUC for VPN, accessing Synology/Radarr/Sonarr web interfaces, easier internet browsing, text editing and whatever my partner uses it for (which is mostly Youtube, email, and clothes shopping) Am I missing anything?
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May 23, 2018 22:31
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IMO when considering using an old PC as a DIY file server versus a NAS it comes down to three questions: 1. What do you intend to use this system for other than file serving? Can the NAS actually do those things? For example if you just browse the web on it a lot of modern NASes will give you a Linux desktop and often can even virtualize a Windows desktop where you can do your normal browsing, but if you want to play games on it or do anything seriously CPU intense you'll need a real PC. 2. What is the power consumption of the PC like? If it's an old Pentium 4 sucking 100 watts at idle it's going to be costing you more in power than a modern NAS would, but if it's something low wattage already it might not be meaningfully different. 3. How much do you consider your time worth with regards to janitoring the system? Do you like to tinker, or do you want something that just works? A NAS will give you much more appliance-like behavior where you should just need to approve updates from time to time where a PC will generally require more fiddling, but the trade off of course is flexibility. Add together the power cost difference and whatever value you give to your time and compare it to the cost of the hardware, then make your own value judgement.
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May 23, 2018 22:54
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wolrah posted:3. How much do you consider your time worth with regards to janitoring the system? Do you like to tinker, or do you want something that just works? A NAS will give you much more appliance-like behavior where you should just need to approve updates from time to time where a PC will generally require more fiddling, but the trade off of course is flexibility. See, I find myself janitoring my FreeNAS setup every few months. Sometimes, Emby stops working because it needs an update and it's a 50/50 shot if that goes smoothly or if I need to reboot the system a couple of times. It's also a toss up if I'll get a video signal out of it when I switch to its input on my TV (it's set up next to the TV because I'm lazy) or if I need to reboot. Just last week I couldn't remote log into it at all and finally figured out that it's IP address suddenly changed for no reason. Maybe it's because I'm just not comfortable with the OS. Because of that and having trouble finding a backup service to backup network drives, I'm seriously considering moving all that over to my Windows 10 HTPC and combining the two. All I do is host the video files, anyway.
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May 23, 2018 23:01
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Yeah FreeNAS always sounded like a nightmare to me but I think the synology stuff has a lot of value added in that area.
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May 24, 2018 00:07
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I think the tinkering factor for a NAS vs a PC-as-a-server is about the same if you use them the same.
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May 24, 2018 00:52
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I love tinkering and I love flexibility, so I think I'll just use the old box and just upgrade as I go. Bought a 4TB Seagate Barracuda that was on a flash sale and will just continue using the box the way I have been. To be honest, and I bet everyone feels this sometimes, I just wanted new shiny. Everything can be put into a smaller box and upgraded later if I want. However, this gives me a reason to go in with some canned air and give it a spring cleaning without spending money. The Shield is still the best purchase I've made in a while. edit: thank you wolrah and IUG
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May 24, 2018 11:24
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I've got a old gaming computer I converted into a htpc but I'm having issues. I loaded Linux onto it and it's becoming a handful. I get 4 or so errors on start, I'm having trouble partitioning hard drives to run Plex smoothly, the graphics driver doesn't work properly, and the wifi driver stops working and doesn't work unless I reinstall it. So I'm thinking about starting from zero again. Should I give Linux another try or is there something out there a little easier to set up? Does windows make a good htpc os? I put a lot of hours into getting Linux usable and I'd like not to waste a ton of time on it again.
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May 25, 2018 03:24
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Use your linux box as storage, and get yourself a Fire Stick or Shield. Linux is a headache, and may never be something you can control from a couch from a remote without a ton of maintenance. The biggest headache of my Fire Stick is that sometimes the app closes after being idle, and sometimes the app isn't showing up on the front page of Amazon's OS.
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May 25, 2018 13:23
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Unraid is much easier to use and set up than FreeNAS and has a really nice caching mechanism on a SSD and a good community apps plugin that users docker. If you go the PC route and don't like FreeNAS then check it out. I keep plex and sonarr/radarr there and then use plex on my Apple TV and roku to watch everything. It works really well.
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May 27, 2018 04:43
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I got a Roku TV a while ago but for some reason only now started using the smart TV features instead of just using PS3MediaServer as a DLNA client, and Plex is really nice. Right now I have media on my NAS (Buffalo Linkstation, not compatible with Plex server or anything) and Plex server on my main PC. I've also been looking at Sonarr and wanna get that set up too. Although it works running off of my main PC I'd like to not have it on all the time, plus I like the idea of a server being a dedicated thing in general. Few things I was thinking of: 1) Using Raspberry Pi 3 as Plex/Sonarr server. Some people say it works fine, others say too weak for transcoding, I'm assuming the latter. 2) Re-purposing old i5 2400 PC as dedicated Plex/Sonarr server. Some people on reddit said that was too weak, but taking that with a grain of salt because reddit. It's a microATX build in a Corev21 case but it's still kind of big for what I want it for. 3) Getting a nice NAS that is compatible with Plex and Sonarr. Probably expensive/overkill but I like buying PC stuff and I'd use the space for something anyway. Again, some people on reddit say a NAS would be too weak to do any transcoding, but again reddit. 4) Nvidia Shield. I've seen some articles saying that this thing is an ideal Plex server, suitably powerful and small. Downsides would be waiting for Google Play builds of Plex instead of regular updates which I guess aren't out as often? plus I don't know about Sonarr support. Also not a lot of storage but I still do have the Buffalo Linkstation. Any thoughts? EDIT also probably relevant is I only have two TVs I'd stream to at once, one's 4k and one's 1080 although I might upgrade it some time. Most of my stuff is 1080 or lower but I'd still like the option. garfield hentai fucked around with this message at 23:59 on May 27, 2018 |
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May 27, 2018 23:54
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garfield hentai posted:I got a Roku TV a while ago but for some reason only now started using the smart TV features instead of just using PS3MediaServer as a DLNA client, and Plex is really nice. Right now I have media on my NAS (Buffalo Linkstation, not compatible with Plex server or anything) and Plex server on my main PC. I've also been looking at Sonarr and wanna get that set up too. Although it works running off of my main PC I'd like to not have it on all the time, plus I like the idea of a server being a dedicated thing in general. Few things I was thinking of: 4 is easiest. The Shield TV can stream to two clients simultaneously unless you are trying to transcode 4k remuxes over a WAN or something equally ridiculous. I don't know about the whole update slowness issue but I suspect you aren't going to run in to many problems with it. Get a Shield for Plex/PMS and get a cheap PI for Sonarr/etc. (you'll also need something like Sabnzbd or Nzbget, etc.). A Pi 3 or 3+ will handle that fine. As a bonus you can also run Pi-hole on it which is a truly awesome whole-network ad blocker. You can use a USB drive attached to the Shield or just buy/build a NAS and use it just for file storage/serving to the PMS server on the Shield. You can run PMS on a Pi too, and lots of people do, but outside of audio stream transcodes you'll need clients that can handle direct play video, and if you stream outside your house (which will almost always involve transcoding) or want to convert media for offline play on a mobile device it'll bog down quick. Using a Shield + Pi is better. There are better options for PMS servers than the Shield, sure, but as far as cost, utility, and simplicity goes for smaller setups it is hard to beat.
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May 28, 2018 07:37
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garfield hentai posted:I got a Roku TV a while ago but for some reason only now started using the smart TV features instead of just using PS3MediaServer as a DLNA client, and Plex is really nice. Right now I have media on my NAS (Buffalo Linkstation, not compatible with Plex server or anything) and Plex server on my main PC. I've also been looking at Sonarr and wanna get that set up too. Although it works running off of my main PC I'd like to not have it on all the time, plus I like the idea of a server being a dedicated thing in general. Few things I was thinking of: I bought a refurb Dell Optiplex 790 minitower with an i5 2400 to use as my parents' Plex server that I manage remotely. If you want to save some cash, your old PC is the most reasonable/cost effective option and it'll function just fine as a Plex server. An i5 2400 is more than capable of handling potential simultaneous 1080p transcodes no problem, so yeah, Reddit's dumb. In addition, if all the client devices your Plex server will be serving up to content to natively support whatever codecs your media was encoded in, that eliminates the need for your server to transcode in most cases. I'm assuming your Roku TV supports whatever same formats most Roku streaming boxes do, which is pretty much everything except HD audio like Atmos or DTS-MA. Are both your client devices Roku TVs? [edit] As an aside, I and several other goons actively help with any Plex troubleshooting/questions in the Plex megathread here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3620605 teagone fucked around with this message at 01:18 on May 29, 2018 |
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May 29, 2018 01:10
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So an ex-coworker is selling me his USB external bluray drive for a song. I picked it up because I want to archive my disks like I did my DVDs. Some questions for those who might have tried:
I basically want to put everything on my NAS, put the disks in boxes, and watch everything from Kodi without having to shuffle disks around.
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May 29, 2018 14:22
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With BluRays, the best course of action is to rip/remux the movie itself into an MKV. ISO launching like with DVDs just doesn't work well in the few places it's supported. Blu-ray on PC is a loving mess and is bad.
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May 29, 2018 14:27
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Does the shield not have a web browser? Unless I'm missing something blindingly obvious, I couldn't see Chrome on there at all.
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May 30, 2018 02:50
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buildmorefarms posted:Does the shield not have a web browser? Unless I'm missing something blindingly obvious, I couldn't see Chrome on there at all. This is the one thing I miss about switching over to Roku from my HTPC. For your Shield, use Vewd (Opera) since to my knowledge it's the only decent TV compatible browser in the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.opera.tv.browser.sony.dia&referrer=utm_source%3D42matters.com%26utm_medium%3DWidgetWeb [edit] Quick search also brought up Puffin TV browser which might be better https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cloudmosa.puffinTV teagone fucked around with this message at 03:21 on May 30, 2018 |
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May 30, 2018 03:19
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teagone posted:This is the one thing I miss about switching over to Roku from my HTPC. For your Shield, use Vewd (Opera) since to my knowledge it's the only decent TV compatible browser in the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.opera.tv.browser.sony.dia&referrer=utm_source%3D42matters.com%26utm_medium%3DWidgetWeb Excellent, thanks. It seems like such an odd omission... I suppose it might also be possible to get the chrome .apk and manually install it, but that might be more trouble than it's worth.
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May 30, 2018 04:08
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What's the point of a web browser on your TV?
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May 30, 2018 06:25
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Thermopyle posted:What's the point of a web browser on your TV? When I'm too lazy to leave the den and want to browse the internet on something that's not my phone.
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May 30, 2018 06:29
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Thermopyle posted:What's the point of a web browser on your TV? I was hunting for a web stream on a site that didn't have an app. I guess I'm more surprised that a browser would have had to be deliberately removed from the Android tv OS. I think I could have probably cast to the shield from my pixel, just seemed like an unnecessary extra step.
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May 30, 2018 07:37
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teagone posted:When I'm too lazy to leave the den and want to browse the internet on something that's not my phone. Big porn. Got it.
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May 30, 2018 13:52
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um excuse me posted:Big porn. Got it. Yea that's definitely it.
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May 30, 2018 15:29
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Thermopyle posted:What's the point of a web browser on your TV? Sporps. I use it all the time for hockey and football.
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May 30, 2018 15:34
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Thermopyle posted:What's the point of a web browser on your TV? I hear reading FYAD at >70" 4K HDR is truly
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May 30, 2018 15:43
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The app for a niche video streaming service wife wants is so bad that using a web browser on the Shield TV seems great. Tons of third tier companies that aren’t even porn companies without appropriate financing make apps that aren’t really even worth putting online.
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May 30, 2018 23:32
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um excuse me posted:Big porn. Got it. TheScott2K posted:Yea that's definitely it. 
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Jun 1, 2018 01:23
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buildmorefarms posted:Excellent, thanks. It seems like such an odd omission... No need, just go to the playstore page on a computer, search for Chrome and you should have the option to install it on the Shield. You will need to use Sideload launcher to launch it though. And probably need to use a wireless keyboard/trackpad because it's not really usable with the remote.
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Jun 2, 2018 03:15
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My ancient FireTV just kicked the bucket so I got one of the newer 2017 Shield TVs. Night and day difference between them in terms of performance and stability. Super happy with it but no surprise since the 2015 Shield I have downstairs has been stellar too. Just wish the NHL would release Game Center for Android TV already.
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Jun 2, 2018 15:05
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Reading the posts about no browser on the Shield by default gave me a question. For those of you who have switched from a dedicated Windows HTPC to a Shield, what have/did you miss and was there a way to remedy that? edit: Also, is there a reason I'm not thinking of to get the 500GB version vs the 16GB? I don't plan on keeping any media on it. Can I also skip the controller and just use my Switch Pro controller if needed? KingKapalone fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Jun 11, 2018 |
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Jun 11, 2018 19:09
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I miss nothing from my Windows Htpc, but for our usage the Shield doesn't do anything the Htpc didn't except be cheaper to buy and operate.
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Jun 11, 2018 21:51
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KingKapalone posted:Reading the posts about no browser on the Shield by default gave me a question. For those of you who have switched from a dedicated Windows HTPC to a Shield, what have/did you miss and was there a way to remedy that? get the 500GB if you're going to be using it as a plex server, 16gb if not.
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Jun 12, 2018 02:12
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Ok thanks. My Plex server runs on my NAS so I wouldn't need.
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Jun 12, 2018 02:47
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Can’t you use an external USB drive for the Shield instead of using the 500 GB variant? Also, isn’t that a spinning disk rather than a 500 GB SSD?
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Jun 12, 2018 19:04
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