Help: PC for playing 4k movies

[BillyCarpenter]

What do you want to do with it ?
NAS / Cloud / MediaServer / Backup / Photobackup / Docker

AFAIK Synology has the worst bang for buck hardware wise but have a solid suite of software, and the most support on the interwebz.

Media Server and backup. Not really familiar with a docker. I'd like to have it all. LOL

[slimslob]

I think its time I buy a NAS but I need a recommendation. I prefer to order used. What's the best bang for the buck? Nothing too old, though.

Whatever you end up ordering be sure to read the specs before ordering. Some models are limited as to how you can store to and read from them. Some only work with their archival software. You might check with your video software provider for recommendations.

I had a call from a customer that got one and were getting an error trying to scan to a folder on it.I checked the make online and the model they got did not support either SMB or FTP .

[Hart]

What do you want to do with it ?
NAS / Cloud / MediaServer / Backup / Photobackup / Docker

AFAIK Synology has the worst bang for buck hardware wise but have a solid suite of software, and the most support on the interwebz.

[BillyCarpenter]

I think its time I buy a NAS but I need a recommendation. I prefer to order used. What's the best bang for the buck? Nothing too old, though.

[Hart]

If you want to go with something home made there are NAS operating systems like TrueNAS, Openmediavault, unraid, ect.

And at one point in your life you throw the towel and accept to pay more for less but with good software support (Synology).

[BillyCarpenter]

I've never used a NAS. I do know what it is and how it works. What I should have done is add an internal hard drive instead of external.

[Duplicator]

If you want to go with something home made there are NAS operating systems like TrueNAS, Openmediavault, unraid, ect.

[Hart]

With Jellyfin in Docker on the NAS

[rthonpm]

Re: Help: PC for playing 4k movies

Quick follow up. It turns out the main problem I was having trying to use an old Dell Optiplex as a movie server via an external hard drive was it only offered USB 2.0. Slim actually suggested this may be the problem so credit where credit is due.

I had another PC laying around that has USB 3.2 and that works perfectly. But, man, the 4k movies max out CPU usage. It's up in the high 90's but the movies never stutter or buffer. Maybe one day I'll buy or build a newer PC that is more modern but for now this works fine.

Just get a NAS as opposed to a PC for something like that. At least you'll also have some redundancy with your drives as well. I keep all my CDs (ripped to FLAC) and DVDs (ripped to ISO) on an old Netgear NAS.

Synology makes a good one, and it's easy to expand .

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Help: PC for playing 4k movies

Quick follow up. It turns out the main problem I was having trying to use an old Dell Optiplex as a movie server via an external hard drive was it only offered USB 2.0. Slim actually suggested this may be the problem so credit where credit is due.

I had another PC laying around that has USB 3.2 and that works perfectly. But, man, the 4k movies max out CPU usage. It's up in the high 90's but the movies never stutter or buffer. Maybe one day I'll buy or build a newer PC that is more modern but for now this works fine.

[Gift]

Re: Help: PC for playing 4k movies

FYI: There's a couple of reasons that I rip my movies.


a.) it's the best quailty you can get, bar none. I have a high end laser projection TV and Marantz 7.2.4 surround sound system. I have a lot invested in my system so naturally I want the best quality audio and video source. The streaming services suck. Big time.

b.) Jellyfin is simply amazing. It's like going to Netflix where all the movies are displayed with metadata and thumbnails of the movies. It's very clean and I love the layout. It does too much to list but it's great.

Pretty weird that modern cpu's won't handle bluray playback / have DRM issues - perhaps AMD will do better...

Nice setup, I was into home cinema too and had a calibrated projector and optimized room and canvas I build myself. At that time it was FullHD but the downside was the black levels I got with my setup. As a big scifi fan I like my space as black as possible After moving into another place I decided to buy a large tv - of course the image isn't as big compared to what I got before but the quality, especially contrast is far superior compared to my old setup. I kept my surround system though since I like proper surround sound coming from discrete speakers and don't won't to use these soundbars with fake surround.

Yeah the image quality in streaming is inferior and very often there is just AC3+ audio available but it's kind of OK enough to me watch on my 65inch TV.
I think a bigger problem for netflix & co. is that more and more productions are just crap and a waste of time to watch.

I never would pay the full price for these services, I registered my accounts via VPN at "poor countries" like India wich offer Netlix & Co. way cheaper than in the Euro area.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Help: PC for playing 4k movies

FYI: There's a couple of reasons that I rip my movies.


a.) it's the best quailty you can get, bar none. I have a high end laser projection TV and Marantz 7.2.4 surround sound system. I have a lot invested in my system so naturally I want the best quality audio and video source. The streaming services suck. Big time.

b.) Jellyfin is simply amazing. It's like going to Netflix where all the movies are displayed with metadata and thumbnails of the movies. It's very clean and I love the layout. It does too much to list but it's great.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Help: PC for playing 4k movies

Yeah mkv worked fine fine for me for many years and was (and probably is) kind of a standard in the "warez" scene but also nice for legit stuff of course

Do you keep and store all your rips? Must be quite a nice fileserver you have there.

I'm using an old Dell Optiplex with an I7 CPU/8GB Ram and I have a 4TB external hard drive for storing the rips. On a side note, the new generation for Intel processors no longer support Blu Ray playback or ripping. Something about being a security risk. I think.





Intel 11th and 12th Gen chips can't play 4K blu-rays

NewsBy Hope Corrigan
published January 17, 2022



By removing the troublesome SGX support, it's also removed 4K blu-ray playback.

Intel’s new chips have removed the ability for PCs to play 4K blu-ray discs, but it does seem like a move that’s mostly for the best. As unsurprising as ever, it seems DRM is once again causing problems for users who just want to play content they’ve already paid for.


As explained by Bleeping Computer, blu-ray discs have digital rights management in place that requires support for SGX, otherwise known as software guard extension. Intel’s SGX is hardware-based memory encryption that’s baked into the chips. It allows code to be separated into different levels of security making some more private than others. As Intel is removing SGX from it’s 11th and 12th Gen desktop processors, they will no longer be compatible with these discs for 4K playback.

According to Intel’s data sheets for 11th and 12th generation chips, SGX has been moved to deprecated technologies, meaning it will no longer be used. And sure, it sounds like a bit of a kick in the teeth for anyone wanting to play their 4K blu-rays on a PC but the move makes a lot of sense due to how bad SGX could sometimes be.

[Gift]

Re: Help: PC for playing 4k movies

Yeah mkv worked fine fine for me for many years and was (and probably is) kind of a standard in the "warez" scene but also nice for legit stuff of course

Do you keep and store all your rips? Must be quite a nice fileserver you have there.

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: Help: PC for playing 4k movies

Can't really make a sense of a bitrate setting in any sort of playback-related topics but hey - who cares as long as it does the trick

I heard of DVD fab, seems more user friendly but I guess you must make shure and find the right settings in order to avoid any re-encoding.
From what google tellst me "mkv passthrough" seems to be the proper setting:

MKV is not really a video format, it's acting like a "container" for video, audio and subtitles streams wich can be encoded in different video/audio formats.

Back in the days I ripped and copied a lot of DVDs I got from an online rental services that offered some kind of "flatrate" service for a few bucks/month.
Due to budget reasons I used a tool called "DVD shrink" to fit the movies on standard writable DVD mediums.
For me - in hindsight - it wasn't really worth the effort since I haven't seen most movies more than once and over the time
noone including me want's to watch SD quality on a like 65inch screen. So I gifted most of that stuff and the rest ended up in the bin.

I'm definitely no expert on MKV...I called it a "format" because that's what I read. I've heard it called a format and container, so who knows. Just glad it's working. I was getting frustrated.



What Is MKV Format (Matroska Video File)?



Matroska Multimedia Container is a free and open container video format that allows you to store an unlimited number of video, audio, image or subtitle tracks in a single file.


MKV is a universal format for storing multimedia content such as movies and TV shows. Although it is similar to other containers such as AVI, MP4, and Advanced Systems Format (ASF), its specifications are fully open and its implementation consists mostly of open source software.


MKV is supported by a non-profit organization called Association Loi 1901. It is a royalty-free standard provided under the GNU L-GPL license. MKV analysis and playback libraries are provided under the BSD license for commercial enterprise use.


The Matroska file extension is .mkv for video (which may also contain subtitles or audio), .mk3d for stereoscopic video, .mka for audio-only files, and .mka for subtitles only.