Spec me a Kodi/HTPC box

My acer revo rl70 died recently, I fired up a raspberry pi 2 pointing to my 7TB NAS via power line kit and its working really well.

Tiny power draw, bitstream everything to my receiver. Reasonably nippy.
 
frog61 said:
So just came across this now.
I currently have a NUC 2820 wired to a 20TB library of movies on a NAS.
So far no issues at all really.

I see the i3/i5 NUCs mentioned, but what really is the difference when compared to the 2820, what can / cannot you do between these models? Is there much of a visual / performance boost?

Looking to future content and with newer TV models supporting HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2, none of the Intel NUCs seem to support these.
So would A nvidea shield be the best alternative for now? esepcially the 16GB version?
Click to expand...


It really depends on what you're doing with it. If you are running CPU/RAM intensive stuff like SAB/CP/SB, and torrenting, indexing media, batch renaming files and folders, constantly scraping data, encoding your own content, trans-coding for other devices etc. or using a TV USB TV tuner etc. then what you have is probably not ideal but will work. You'll probably have to tweak the options to limit core usage and cpu load a little but it'll just about do it, all be it not as smoothly or quickly as an i3/i5.

If you're using it as a simple LAN playback/online streaming box it's probably perfect for 1080p and you'll gain nothing significant from upgrading. It isn't going to do 4k, you'll need something like an i5 or a Cherry Trail based atom, but again wait till you have a wider selection of content and a 4k screen before you get too excited. Personally i'd hold out for wider hardware support, cherry trail for example is said to be capable of displaying 240fps h264 at 1080p with a 250Mbps bitstream and 4k at 60fps, it's also suggested that it will display 4k h265 @ 30fps, on paper it looks like a decent playback device, it has the ability to encode h264 at 120fps apparently (no mention of what bitrate), but it lacks h265 encoding which may be an issue for some along with driver support for DTS-HD MA lacking (windows), i've not looked to see how linux is doing with them.
 
Last edited:
Tronsmart ara x5. Windows 10 included, as a kodi player it's very good. Have a Google, there are a few reviews about. Freaktab has some feedback.
 
Hi,

Sorry for the delay in response, I have only just noticed your post.

I absolutely love the NUC, its easy to setup and configure. I am running Openelec on the internal SSD. The operating system/kodi is really snappy and haven't encountered a single crash or issue yet. I have tried a wireless keyboard but the experience felt abit naf, luckily I had a spare ipad air knocking about so loaded kodi remote onto that. The kodi remote app give a real premium experience with movie/tv show posters etc.

Would highly recommend. Ive tried the fire tv stick and box previous to buying this. The price difference is large but in my eyes very worth it.
 
Last edited:
No problem mate ,Thanks for the update sounds like just what im looking for, was going to go for the i5 but from what your saying the i3 does everything you need so i could save a little there, again thanks for the reply.
 
I got a Intel NUC Penitum N3700 (5PPYH) Quad Core , coming shortly to replace the DN2820 that I have been running for almost 2 years , slapping 8GB and 500GB SSD in it , should be a big jump from the DN2820 :)

The DN2820 runs Plex fine with external drives attached to it , also I have XMBC/Kodi installed on it as well.
 
How is it that some of these boxes are like £60 ish and include windows 10??

My dad got an android box for about £100 running TVMC/Kodi. Cant remember what its called, but if I had off looked into it I would have a win10 box as you can just run TVMC on that anyway! Doh!
 
I would recommend the Gigabyte Brix BXBT-1900. Looking at purchasing this as a replacement

its amazingly small and full featured.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom