4K hardware for streaming

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doubledoor

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Hi!

I am new to Nas Servers and i want to build a home file Server. I want to use a raspberry in order to stream 4k movies to tv(I know it will have bad frame rate). Does my server need more power for this? I am thinking about the hp microserver.
 

adrianwi

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The answer to this depends on lots of unknown factors. How will your media be stored and in what format? Will you be using a media server (such as Plex) and if so what client? And if you know it will have a bad frame rate, why would you even bother? How big is your TV that you'll see any real benefit from 4k over 1080p?
 

doubledoor

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The answer to this depends on lots of unknown factors. How will your media be stored and in what format? Will you be using a media server (such as Plex) and if so what client? And if you know it will have a bad frame rate, why would you even bother? How big is your TV that you'll see any real benefit from 4k over 1080p?

I am planning it for future upgrade, for now i will only use the raspberry. I want to install XBMC on raspberry and stream it from the Server. The media will be .flv files(maybe) on freenas filesystem. Will i have to install a media server on freenas?
 

INCSlayer

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I am planning it for future upgrade, for now i will only use the raspberry. I want to install XBMC on raspberry and stream it from the Server. The media will be .flv files(maybe) on freenas filesystem. Will i have to install a media server on freenas?

so the server just has to host the files? and you want your frontend device (the raspberry to start with) to handle the heavy lifting with decoding and such? in that case a hp microserver should probably suffice. The raspberrry wont ofc but then it wasnt really built for it. Im not sure you what you mean by flv files? that is Flash Video which is... bad in so many ways and im not sure if xbmc even has support for flv files? even if it does though 4k version of those will strain the raspberry beyond what is watchable.

A good sized intel NUC should be able to handle that kind of load if its from a h264 or h265 encoded video file so again not flash video but most .mkv or mp4 files with 4k content in them should be okay i think.
 

doubledoor

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So a setup of :
HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 G1610T Intel Celeron with freenas
8gb Ram ecc
Raspberry with XMBC (at least for 1080p)
1 gbit Lan

Should be fine for streaming of 1080p and then 4K if i upgrade the raspberry with a better HTPC? I forgot to mention that there will be max 3 users logged in to the server.
 

pschatz100

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It is a nice looking unit and, as a file server only, you should be in decent shape. Don't expect to run processing or transcoding on the video streams.

A more powerful cpu will give you some extra headroom if you decide to add any FreeNAS plugins. Personally, I would not use a Celeron-based system for anything other than a basic file server. However, compatible IVY Bridge processors are not expensive, so you can upgrade down the road if you feel the need.
 

doubledoor

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It is a nice looking unit and, as a file server only, you should be in decent shape. Don't expect to run processing or transcoding on the video streams.

A more powerful cpu will give you some extra headroom if you decide to add any FreeNAS plugins. Personally, I would not use a Celeron-based system for anything other than a basic file server. However, compatible IVY Bridge processors are not expensive, so you can upgrade down the road if you feel the need.
I will consider a more powerfull cpu in case of future uses.
Do i need transcoding to stream media to a raspberry?
 

joeschmuck

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@doubledoor You really need to know what format your video files will be, otherwise you can't know how your video will be served. If the video files are in the same format as the video player then there is no conversion and you don't need a lot of CPU horsepower. If the video files need to be converted on the fly then you need some horsepower and you can do that on either the server or the player. I understand you wanting to future proof here but I'm not sure you can truly do that without more information that you apparently do not have. Also, .flv format, yea, you apparently do not really want 4K video. I would however suggest MP4 as your format since it is widely used, unless you want true 4K and then you would retain the original format of MTS or AVCHD.

You could purchase a system like mine but run FreeNAS right on it, don't take the ESXi route. That should be more than fast enough but until you know your format, you won't know.
 

pschatz100

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I would say that if you are really serious about creating a system that is optimized for 4K, then you need to learn quite a bit more about handling video and make some decisions about what you want to do: what video formats you would use, what players you need to support, etc. That kind of discussion is beyond the scope of this forum.

However, based upon some experience, I can generalize as follows:
A celeron would be OK for a file server only - no hi-resolution transcoding. A Pentium based system would be capable enough to handle one transcoded stream. Something on the order of a Core i3 would probably be able to handle two transcoded streams.
 

Stux

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When using XBMC on a client you just need to setup a CIFS share on your zfs.

The server then just needs to be able to sustain the average bitrate, which even for 4K is trivial compared to gigabit.

The more future-proof solution isn't streaming 4K, it's running a Transcoding Plex server.
 
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