sff/nuc

[mdram]

i have been debating adding a sff/nuc into my living room connected to the 55" 4k tv

possible use as a streaming box, general media pc ect

not familiar with these things

i was thinking about building an itx box,

just looking at options before i make a decision

and im cheap, looking for that sweet spot between price and performace

 

[jaydee]

Output capabilities? Any encoding or gaming? Budget?

 

[giantpandaman2]

Cheapest and least capable would simply be a Roku 4 running PLEX = $130. Then you got Shield running from $200-$300. After that it's a NUC/SFF. Personally I have a Roku 4. Shield was tempting and still is. Get a $200 Shield and shove a 256 GB SD card into it and voila.

 

[JeffMD]

Look at your needs, first. What is the type of content you are playing back? for most, a plex server + dumb stick will do great. The main reason to go with a Shield is if you are looking for the smoothest possible interface. Dumb sticks and the Shield have just about the same mpeg4 capabilities. If you rip your own blueray so basic mpeg4 with high bitrates then that may also be a reason to go with a shield.

I ended up going with a NUC (Brix) media player because my anime is a combination of realtime subs and low but efficient bitrates on the encodes. Plex does not handle soft subs very well, and in almost all cases it has to transcode my shows and it does a shiat job doing it (A fansub group can make a 2Mbps encode look great for anime, plex turns it into a 1.5mbps shiat stream). So I got a mini pc that can brute force play all my videos.

 

[mdram]

Output capabilities? Any encoding or gaming? Budget?

im envisioning moderate streaming (amazon mainly), some surfing, no real gaming i can think of, may eventually rip my dvd/br's and create a seperate media server

budget? was thinking 200 give or take

not 100% sure if i need it yet,