Rockin' Plex Appliance

[GrumpyBear]

Plex Pass user here, once my Popcorn Hour A210 died I started the search for a valid replacement. My solution has been the Intel NUC5i3RYH, running only openELEC + PHT (a fork maintained by a Plex employee ). Picture Quality is great (like my previous A210 and a A410) and in the next future could also decode H265 content (Broadwell CPU has mixed HW-SW capability).

I'm using the same software but the ChromeBox has a much nicer pricepoint than the NUC and does not require adding a SSD and the Celeron processor handles 1080p/24 with HD audio no problem. If you want 4K noe or in the future then the i7 NUC or Chromeboxes are the way to go.

 

[GrumpyBear]

My TV is a UE48HU7500LXXN. No v2 app yet :(

The Samsung developer has a post on the Samsung Plex forum where he lists the models supported. He also states that older models (<2012) likely will never see the newer features (Hardware limitations?)

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

This is an 2014 UHD model

 

[jgreco]

My TV is a UE48HU7500LXXN. No v2 app yet :(

Well that's total crap. Not necessarily Orca's fault of course. More aimed at the difficulty of developing for an embedded platform and how many issues there apparently are between the various versions of SmartHub.

I'm using the same software but the ChromeBox has a much nicer pricepoint than the NUC and does not require adding a SSD and the Celeron processor handles 1080p/24 with HD audio no problem. If you want 4K noe or in the future then the i7 NUC or Chromeboxes are the way to go.

I'll end up having to figure this out sooner or later, as the C- model in the office isn't likely to ever see a new version of Plex...

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

I heard there were issues with the Pi with it choking on 1080p/24 content (i.e. high b/w connections). That made it a non-starter in my case as I'm slowly replacing my DVDs with BluRays and am enjoying the DTS-HD sound on modern releases. I have seen that people are overclocking the Pi and modding the CPU with a heatsink so maybe there is a work-around.

(Almost) all my video is 1080p24 video / 5.1 and 7.1 audio. No problem at all. Even my Previous model Pi (model B, without the plus) could handle that. Even with XBMC, which doesn't even use server side transcoding.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

Well that's total crap. Not necessarily Orca's fault of course. More aimed at the difficulty of developing for an embedded platform and how many issues there apparently are between the various versions of SmartHub.

Yeah, no blame whatsoever on Orca. Kudos for his hard work, the app is still heavily used on the other tv our bedroom.



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[Jailer]

(Almost) all my video is 1080p24 video / 5.1 and 7.1 audio. No problem at all. Even my Previous model Pi (model B, without the plus) could handle that. Even with XBMC, which doesn't even use server side transcoding.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Unless you want the high def audio which from my understanding the pi doesn't support. That's why I went with a NUC, high def pass through to my receiver.

 

[jgreco]

(Almost) all my video is 1080p24 video / 5.1 and 7.1 audio. No problem at all. Even my Previous model Pi (model B, without the plus) could handle that. Even with XBMC, which doesn't even use server side transcoding.

So am I correct in guessing that people are using an IR receiver and some sort of HT or universal remote for this? One of the big things that's kept me with the SmartHub Plex for Samsung is that it is all neatly integrated into a single remote. The TV controls the AV receiver through HDMI-CEC and automatically powers up and selects gear as needed. I really can't stand watching broadcast or cable TV, so an AppleTV sits as the default video source because it is nice to be able to AirPlay stuff at the TV's, but I could see supplementing or replacing that with a different device. The big thing is that the Samsung remote runs almost everything, except the AppleTV and maybe some audio settings on the receiver.

It looks like I'll be replacing one of the C's with a regular non-Smart Samsung so it'll be an interesting time to experiment.

 

[j_r0dd]

Unless you want the high def audio which from my understanding the pi doesn't support. That's why I went with a NUC, high def pass through to my receiver.

That's why I decided against the pi. The NUC just seems all around the best choice for me. Integrated IR with the ability to suspend and resume. Logitech already has a profile set up so getting my Harmony remote to work with it should be painless.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

Unless you want the high def audio which from my understanding the pi doesn't support. That's why I went with a NUC, high def pass through to my receiver.

If you are talking about passthrough HD audio, this is correct. It can only passthrough the core DTS or DD, not DTS-MA/TrueHD. However, the Pi2 can software decode it and output up to 8 channel PCM (which is supported on the previous Pi too, but was problematic).

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

So am I correct in guessing that people are using an IR receiver and some sort of HT or universal remote for this? One of the big things that's kept me with the SmartHub Plex for Samsung is that it is all neatly integrated into a single remote. The TV controls the AV receiver through HDMI-CEC and automatically powers up and selects gear as needed. I really can't stand watching broadcast or cable TV, so an AppleTV sits as the default video source because it is nice to be able to AirPlay stuff at the TV's, but I could see supplementing or replacing that with a different device. The big thing is that the Samsung remote runs almost everything, except the AppleTV and maybe some audio settings on the receiver.

It looks like I'll be replacing one of the C's with a regular non-Smart Samsung so it'll be an interesting time to experiment.

For PHT on the Pi, the tv remote is all you need. Using HDMI-CEC.

 

[Jailer]

That's why I decided against the pi. The NUC just seems all around the best choice for me. Integrated IR with the ability to suspend and resume. Logitech already has a profile set up so getting my Harmony remote to work with it should be painless.

I use a Harmony remote with mine and it is painless to set up and use. Nice part is it's dumbed down enough that even the warden can use it without issue.

 

[GrumpyBear]

So am I correct in guessing that people are using an IR receiver and some sort of HT or universal remote for this? One of the big things that's kept me with the SmartHub Plex for Samsung is that it is all neatly integrated into a single remote. The TV controls the AV receiver through HDMI-CEC and automatically powers up and selects gear as needed. I really can't stand watching broadcast or cable TV, so an AppleTV sits as the default video source because it is nice to be able to AirPlay stuff at the TV's, but I could see supplementing or replacing that with a different device. The big thing is that the Samsung remote runs almost everything, except the AppleTV and maybe some audio settings on the receiver.

It looks like I'll be replacing one of the C's with a regular non-Smart Samsung so it'll be an interesting time to experiment.

Yes, the pain points with the Chromebox are definitely suspend/resume and the lack of an IR receiver.

I bought a Rosewill MCE remote and used the receiver that came with that for my Harmony One. I have been beating my head against trying to map keyboard keystrokes from the Harmony and after way too much digging around have come to the conclusion that the issue is that the MCE Keyboard hack that Kodi and users of other PHT ports use does not work currently with the port for the ChromeBox for some weird reason (probably not a priority for Mark Walker as it is a project he maintains in his spare time).

I can't just use HDMI/CEC as I have other devices (ATV, Legacy Component/TosLink switch, HD-VHS ...) so I'll just have to wait for Mark to fix it when he has time.

As for the suspend/resume for now I couldn't be bothered for 15W of power savings. It's still the heating season in Canada and an extra 15W of heat at 100% efficiency is better that the mid-efficiency furnace does (and yes, our electricity is still relatively inexpensive)