4K Players

[Darko Gavrilovic]

Hi, what is everyone using for 4K players these days?

I am debating whether investing in a nvidia 4k shield for playback. Specs below.

[TABLE="class: table-specs-inner"]
[TR]
[TD="align: right"]PROCESSOR[/TD]
[TD]NVIDIA® Tegra® X1 processor with a 256-core GPU and 3 GB RAM[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: right"]VIDEO FEATURES[/TD]
[TD]4K Ultra HD ready
4K playback at 60 FPS (VP9, H265, H264)
4K capture at 30 FPS (H264, H265)
Supports: MPEG-2/ MPEG-4/ Xvid/ DivX/ WMV9/ ASF/ AVI/ MKV/ MOV/ M2TS/ MPEG-TS/ H.263/ H.264/ H.265/ VC-1/ VP8/ VP9[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

 

[Robert Andriessen]

you can use one of the many TV boxes available. They will output full 4k dci size. I've used the ones from Minix (android version).

 

[L. Langer]

The Nvidia SHIELD TV is definitely the go-to box at the moment, but the software can be as quirky as a catfish at a rodeo unless you stick to playing straight spec content and avoid exotic video files. A Skylake Intel NUC (or similar box) is definitely a good alternative, with the right software. When Kaby Lake NUCs come out, they will likely displace the SHIELD TV due to full codec support and better software along with superior storage capacity, and SATA Express/NVME implementation. Nvidia really didn't put too much thought into making the SHIELD TV the best it could have been and it shows that they cut corners.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

I've just been through a month or so of this researching putting together a small player.

You can do 4k now but not much of it is on the level of 4k bluray.

It is a shame that the Nvidia Sheild TV does not have a linux version or mode to get better software support etc, otherwise it is pretty great. They have not released this world wide, so I suspect a better version might be coming, maybe with 12-16 core. So what you buy now, may not remain top dog. Now, as yet, Shield TV has oy hdmi 2.0, instead of the hdr 2.0a version.

PC's are worse for built in hdmi and hardware decoding support. Most h265 decoding is 8 bit and hdmi 2.0 requires a special version of the skylake chipset or bridging chip for dp to hdmi 2.0 but no 2.0a. AMD has laptop chipsets, an embedded PC chipset with hdmi 2 support, but I forget if there was anything above 8 bit h265 decoding. Of course the lattest hdcp is needed. This years new chipsets should fix this up (but I dont know if Intel willhave 2.0a or not) just in time not to have 8k support.

Now for graphics card support, AMD is silch, Nvidua is certain mid range cards have 10 bit h265 and a proper hdmi2.0. New cards this year should fix this up. As some laptop chipsets can do hdmi 2, msybe we will get low end graphic cards that will, just saying maybe.

Over at kodi community there is a thread maintained on hardware support for 10 bit h265 and prlbsbly hdmi 2.0 support.

I've forgotten which h265 decoding data rates are supported by all these hardware versions. It maybe that many will do netflixs lkke datarates rather than 4k bluray rates.

 

[Darko Gavrilovic]

thanks. i guess i will keep looking. the shield might be money badly spend (unless I can get a crazy discount deal). will defiantly check out the Minix .

 

[Wayne Morellini]

It might be good, just cross the t's and dot the i's for what you want to do with it.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

I think video lan might be on andriod now, and Shield cuda support in pretty hefty.

 

[Martin Weiss]

$19 solution: https://www.kickstarter.com/project...bit-single-board-super-comput?ref=hero_thanks

 

[Darko Gavrilovic]

$19 solution: https://www.kickstarter.com/project...bit-single-board-super-comput?ref=hero_thanks

that looks really neat. i am tempted to kickstart it.

 

[Eren Ozkural]

Thanks for the heads up Martin! I just backed the 2 gig model. I'd been on the lookout for a tiny box to run media playback and old school video game emulation off of.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Correction. It turns out the shield suppoets hdr hdmi 2.0 a by firmware upgrade, or will.