Current NUC or Intel Stick as an MP client for HD playback - minimum requirements? (1 Viewer)

[chemoul]

Hi,

I'm looking at using a NUC or Intel stick (preferably fanless) to set up in my bedroom as an MP client, mostly to watch (HD) OTA recordings from my MP2 server.
The minimum hardware requirements seem a little dated (Requirements - MEDIAPORTAL) in terms of addressing current hardware, so I'm wondering if anyone can tell me what hardware spec I can get away with, with a current NUC or stick for HD playback?

Thank you!
Steve

 

[jmuellers]

I second the question---urgently---since a recent thunderstorm has killed my father's setup, and I am to replace it until saturday.

 

[Lehmden]

Hi.
All recent NUC should be powerful enough to play HD content flawlessly. They should be equipped with at least 4 GB Ram and a SSD for faster access times. Fast Wlan (min 300 Mbit) or much better wired LAN and this is a no-brainer. It's only getting tricky if you want to play 4k with HDR. Then you need to look closer...

 

[jmuellers]

In the previous 5-10 years (as in: 2010-2015) I had a really hard time to get DVB-S(2) streams to play without stuttering or similar problems, with Intel Quicksync as well as DXVA(2?) with an AMD card. It was my impression that the hardware acceleration was not very forgiving to stream errors.
I was wondering if this is still an issue, and whether AMD Vega or current Intel IGP would be less affected from such problems.

Any hints on this, helping to decide AMD vs Intel NUC (barebone)?

 

[Lehmden]

Hi.
This stutter mostly comes from glitches in the DVB signal. You can compare this with online streaming at too low internet speed. This also depends on the weather (for SAT) and only can be solved with a better signal (better LNB, bigger satellite dish or better place for the existing dish, better DVB-T tuner and antenna and so on). This also can be changing over time due to season changes. At this moment I only have a very weak signal because a tree has grown into the view-line between my satellite dish and the satellite.
At the moment I have a lot of stutter and such nasty things but as I know why I don't need to blame any of my hardware. This will getting better if the tree gets trimmed (hopefully very soon but it's not my tree) or at least if it lost it's leaves in Autum. By the way this is a great time to test the receiving quality of different tuners. I have DVBSky, DigitalDevices and Triaxx SAT>IP tuner available. The best is the Digital Devices and the worst is the Triaxx in this... If the tree has not that much leaves or is trimmed properly any of my tuner are doing well. But at the moment not even the Digital Devices tuner can get rid of all glitches in DVB signal...

The playback of timeshift or recordings itself is mostly the same than to play any other video excerpt for DVB streams aired at very (way too) high bitrates... SD TV is aired at average 720P bitrates and 720P/1080I DVB streams are aired at average 1080P (which contains twice the information than 720P/1080I) bitrates. The only difference is that on timeshift and ongoing recordings the disk drive needs to be fast enough to handle concurrent read and write operations at those bitrates. Should be no issue with the fast drives (SSD or similar) any longer...
So if you can play most 1080P videos flawlessly then your system is strong enough to play DVB (even in HD) as long as the signal is good enough and the drive is fast enough...

 

[jmuellers]

Thanks Lehmden for your answer. I am aware that the situation can always be improved with more expensive equipment... I have a DigitalDevices tuner (S2 v5 or so, from my memory) and a newer QuadLNB with splitter, afair the signal quality was quite good. However in the Windows Event manager I see "dropped packets" every now and then.

I don't want to divert from chemoul's initial question too much. I think i will randomly decide for either Intel or AMD, and maybe let you know of my findings in this thread.

 

[chemoul]

Thanks for your replies.
Lehmden, good point about the fast Wifi requirement. Such a shame that there isn't a viable transcoding option in Mediaportal