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I have been using WD/Roku boxes in the past and am looking to a long term solution. I have 2 1080p displays w/HDMI. 1 has a soundbar and 1 is just builtin speakers (which ). I use emby, netflix, pandora amazon and youtube (more or less in that order). My intial impulse is to grab 2 Intel NUC's and load them with ubuntu w/kodi for my 2 displays- but I have never done this kind of build. I am partial to open source - and OpenELEC didn't seem as robust as kodi. So I have some rather amateurish questions: What is the kind of low end solution to streaming 5.1 audio? I am looking at Home Theatres in a box, specifically Onkyo because I was told their build quality is worth it. I read somewhere that computers often convert audio to 2 streams before pushing it over HDMI. The whole point is I want 5.1 is to get that spatial aspect - so that would completely defeat the point. I have never built an HTPC, can i consolidate remotes? How do you consolidate remotes when you have IR and RF remotes. I prefer RF or wireless but don't have enough knowledge of IR/RF blasters/recievers and how they interact with both hardware and software. Please excuse my ignorance! thanks!

I have just setup an Intel NUC5I5RYH with Intel Iris HD 6000 graphics with 16gb DDR3 1600 ram, ssd drive running win 7 connected to LAN via ethernet cable. I've configured the BIOS to allocate 1GB of RAM to the onboard video and loaded optimized defaults. I've also ensured RAM is running and proper speeds and timings. All drivers and software is up to date. The problem I'm having is when playing almost any of my movies (all MP4/h.264 1080p) I experience mico stutters. Nothing huge but enough to make the movies un-watchable. I've tried every option under the Emby Theater settings for the video rendering and nothing changes this behavior. I can play the videos in Emby classic, VLC, Kodi and Plex Theater with absolutely no stuttering. I love the Emby Theater interface and would love to use it but am at a loss as to why I am experiencing this issue. Any thoughts or pointers with regards to this issue would be greatly appreciated.

I have been using an old Xbox360 with MBC for a while, and it just red ringed and bit the dust. I'm thinking about a small/cost effective build to run MBT. Has anyone tried running MBT on one of Intel's Next Unit of Computing (NUC) devices? The one I was thinking about was the Celeron model (http://tinyurl.com/lz8cwkt). It is a little weak on CPU but it is listed as having a pretty powerful integrated gpu. For a machine that would cost less than $300 and is the size of an apple TV, I'd love for this to be sufficient. I'm planning to run Windows 8 or 8.1. If this won't work, I'll probably go the roku route instead.