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Media Clients and the Limitations of Roku

Haywood

Haywood

Well-Known Member
Famous
I have been experimenting with uncompressed Blu-Ray rips using MakeMKV and this is where my Roku for Everything solution falls flat. The Roku just can't handle the bit-rate and the NAS cannot handle that kind of transcoding load on the fly using the CPU alone. I created a separate folder for uncompressed rips that are not exposed via Plex. My NAS has a built in KODI client that runs in a specialized VM connected to the HDMI out, which I ran to my main system. This works pretty well in that I get perfect Blu-Ray picture and sound, complete with DTS-HD Master and Dolby True-HD sound. The downfall is that it runs a very basic version of KODI and has some stability quirks. This has me weighing other options, such as a rooted ASUS Chromebox running OpenElec and KODI. This $159 solution would work well for everything except 4k, but I honestly wonder if I should just wait for the next generation of streamers (i.e. Roku 4).

Anyone else playing with this?
 
Nope.

We don't really re-watch movies so we're good with Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Uverse on-demand for casual viewing. If we want BD quality we just rent the BD or buy it. I'm not nearly technical enough to manage such complicated setups.
 
My latest box is the Zotac zbox BI320. I got it when it was on sale for $140 at the Egg.
Celeron 2957U
Intel HD graphics
2GB RAM
64GB mSata SSD
W8.1
I didn't bother with Openelec. Just installed Kodi on Windows. Everything works out of the box. Full bluray rips with HD audio are a piece of cake for this little machine.
I looked into the chromebox but I liked that the Zotac gives me a much larger SSD and a full operating system. I also run the Emby (formerly MediaBrowser) media server for the kids to stream their movies on their tablets.
 
I will have to check out that box. Does is come with Windows or is it a barebones with no OS? I'm mainly interested in Openelec for cost reasons and I do not need a full-featured OS for this application. I really wish the Roku supported high bit-rates and lossless audio tracks, because I love having everything available on a single box.
 
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