What's the point of a NUC when I can build a SFF instead?

I used a celeron with my HTPC and it really struggled with netflix, but for 1080p mkv decoding it was fine.

Silverlight is terrible, the sooner is it scraped for HTML5 the better.

I have now switched a HP server with 16TB of storage space and i3 HTPC's in 3 of my room I'm much happier.

Plex is amazing software and works flawlessly via my celeron server.
 
What OS do you have running on your HTPC's? Are they all Windows?
I'm pretty much sold on the i3, but any reassurance is good.

Ace Modder said:
Silverlight is terrible, the sooner is it scrapped for HTML5 the better.
Plex is amazing software and works flawlessly via my celeron server.
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This, a 1000 times this (And flash too).
Dumping support for Silverlight, and defaulting to HTML5 for Youtube in Chrome were good moves by Google, I just hope it forces the hand of content providers to catch up.
I believe Netflix are starting to use HTML5, I just need Sky to get their act together and maybe I can run linux on my HTPC.

I run plex server on a Linux VM on my HP microserver - brilliant bit of software. The CPU is pretty poor but it's never struggled streaming, even 1080p 3D films.
 
Pulled the trigger on the HP Pavilion Mini 300-030na on Sunday evening - £350, delivered, with a 2 year warranty from a company well known for their excellent customer service.

It was delivered 10am this morning so will run some tests tonight and report back.
 
A NUC is caplabe of being your plex server + client, connected to USB drives. It uses very low power (6 watts idle, 33 under max load) making it a very attractive and capable setup box.

It comes with a U CPU (5250U etc.) so wouln't be my first choice if I wanted to do lots of transcoding.
 
nicknack35 said:
What's the new NUC like Little Crow you up and running?
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It's running very nicely indeed, though it took a lot longer to get up and running than I'd hoped. I tried to make a dent in the staggering amount of bloatware HP shovel onto the thing, but gave up and just reinstalled Windows 8.1 from scratch.

I've not been able to try out Sky Go yet, as my Linux test ate into the number of device changes I can make, so it'll have to wait till next month.

I'm going to make a separate post about it, so if there are any particular benchmarks that people want the results of let me know and I'll drop them in.
 
Well not great news so far. In plex some movies at 720p play fine, others at 480p don't.

It's kind of weird as neither my media server or HTPC are breaking a sweat but it's just shuttering away at 3 FPS - Blade Runner looks great, but I don't know that I want to watch it frame by frame.
If I play the same films in Media Player Classic it's smooth as you like (Even a 1080p 3D movie was fine).

I'm certain there is some kind of mismatch going on, I just need to work out how to fix it.

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A small update on this.
Playback works just fine in Chrome, I also tried the "Free" Windows App Store version of plex, which also works fine. But I really don't like the interface which I believe is aimed at tablet use rather than HTPC.

It appears it is only in the 'Plex for Home Theatre' app that this occurs. I guess it's a bug with Plex vs. the Intel HD4400 chipset - For now I can just use the webpage, but something to be aware of.ix it.
 
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Little_Crow said:
Well not great news so far. In plex some movies at 720p play fine, others at 480p don't.

It's kind of weird as neither my media server or HTPC are breaking a sweat but it's just shuttering away at 3 FPS - Blade Runner looks great, but I don't know that I want to watch it frame by frame.
If I play the same films in Media Player Classic it's smooth as you like (Even a 1080p 3D movie was fine).

I'm certain there is some kind of mismatch going on, I just need to work out how to fix it.

################
A small update on this.
Playback works just fine in Chrome, I also tried the "Free" Windows App Store version of plex, which also works fine. But I really don't like the interface which I believe is aimed at tablet use rather than HTPC.

It appears it is only in the 'Plex for Home Theatre' app that this occurs. I guess it's a bug with Plex vs. the Intel HD4400 chipset - For now I can just use the webpage, but something to be aware of.ix it.
Click to expand...

Hmmmm Strange
 
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