Looking for Advice low Budget

[Zauberwaldi 3]

Hi, first of all im not so into the whole thing. I used Xbmc/Kodi on my normal PC and found out about Emby a few Months ago.

Currently the Server is running fine on my normal PC, but i like to Switch to a smaler one because i dont need a such powerful pc anymore and my Nephew would like to have a Gaming PC,

so he would get mine for Xmas

I only Stream for myself to an Android box. Transcoding is on and only max 1080p. Besides that i only would use some chrome here and there or extract Stuff with Winrar and use Word/Excel.

So i thought a laptop would be ok, but for my Budget... Then i came to the Intel Nucs, i totally forgot them.

Now i dont know what to Buy. My Budget would be 200-250€

It would be Placed on 1 of my TVs for Chrome,Excel etc. and would Stream to my Bedroom if needed.

Dont know if that is enough Information, but i dont want to buy crap that dosnt do its job^^

Thanks all, have a nice one

 

Edit: forgot to Add some Stuff. I saw the Intel NUC7CJYH, with 8gb Ram and an SSD, Files would come via external drives, would this Nuc be enough?

Edited November 27, 2021 by Zauberwaldi

[RanmaCanada 345]

First off how big is your library?  Is it all on external drives?  If you're going to go with the NUC, I would say instead go with a Lark Box Pro that is if you want something small as heck.  The quicksync functions are more than enough.

[Zauberwaldi 3]

5 hours ago, RanmaCanada said:

First off how big is your library?  Is it all on external drives?  If you're going to go with the NUC, I would say instead go with a Lark Box Pro that is if you want something small as heck.  The quicksync functions are more than enough.

First thanks for your replay. And sorry i totally forgot to Mention the Libary. It isnt that big ~400 Movies, 20 Series and 30k mp3s. And yes, all on an external. Thanks for the link, will loot into it

[mastrmind11 717]

really comes down to whether you need transcoding of any of your media.  if you client can direct play everything in your library, you can get away with something as cheap as a Pi.

[Zauberwaldi 3]

1 minute ago, mastrmind11 said:

really comes down to whether you need transcoding of any of your media.  if you client can direct play everything in your library, you can get away with something as cheap as a Pi.

my android box needs transcoding on some files, but that should be fixable with changing files etc. would need to look out if there is some mass reencode programm or so. but for the price the Lark Box Pro seems ok? Looked over it and didnt saw something that wouldnt do the thing from my little "knowledge"

[Joeri6 2]

Don't forget to check the used market, I picked my mini PCs up second hand and they are great. I got a Lenovo P330 and M720q but there are others like NUCs, Dell Optiplex MFF, ...

[Armageus 67]

33 minutes ago, Joeri6 said:

Don't forget to check the used market, I picked my mini PCs up second hand and they are great. I got a Lenovo P330 and M720q but there are others like NUCs, Dell Optiplex MFF, ...

 

Second this - either the Lenovo Tiny range, or HP Desktop Mini, or Dell Optiplex Micro.

With your media stored on a "dumb" NAS, or via USB attached hard drives.

If looking at HP then ideally you want 800 G2 or newer for 6xxx series CPUs and DDR4.

 

Alternatively if you want even cheaper, but slightly larger form factor - the SFF options give you similar specification but with room for at least 1 3.5" hard drive, and half height PCI-E slots for low powered GPUs like NVIDIA Quadro P400 or similar.

[Cyberbob2021 9]

SFF dell plenty does the job no problem, and cheap mines i5 4gb ram seems to run things fine for me 

[RanmaCanada 345]

I suggested the Lark Box Pro as the Celeron J4125 is Gemini Lake "refresh" and does 10bit HEVC in hardware, both decode and encode.  I don't believe you can get an 8th gen Dell Micro/IBM Tiny or HP mini for that price.  But if you can, please post them so OP can get a better machine.

[Armageus 67]

8 hours ago, RanmaCanada said:

I suggested the Lark Box Pro as the Celeron J4125 is Gemini Lake "refresh" and does 10bit HEVC in hardware, both decode and encode.  I don't believe you can get an 8th gen Dell Micro/IBM Tiny or HP mini for that price.  But if you can, please post them so OP can get a better machine.

Skylake does 8 Bit HEVC in hardware, and would still be more than capable of transcoding a single (all the OP needs I believe) 10Bit stream in software if required.

I'd rather have an "enterprise" mini PC any day than a generic chinese box - the build quality alone is leagues apart, and there is far more expansion capability (upgradable RAM/CPU, 2.5" drive and NVME slot, more usb, etc)

[RanmaCanada 345]

6 hours ago, Armageus said:

Skylake does 8 Bit HEVC in hardware, and would still be more than capable of transcoding a single (all the OP needs I believe) 10Bit stream in software if required.

I'd rather have an "enterprise" mini PC any day than a generic chinese box - the build quality alone is leagues apart, and there is far more expansion capability (upgradable RAM/CPU, 2.5" drive and NVME slot, more usb, etc)

I don't disagree with you, but as I stated, the HP, Dell and Lenovo systems are out of the price range for OP.  IF you have a link to one in their price range, by all means please be helpful and POST IT.

[Zauberwaldi 3]

Thank you all for the help. Just something came in my mind but i dont know if this could work. I have a fritzbox, where i could connect the external. Shouldnt it work when i connect it to the fritzbox and have a mini divice only for the emby server when i reencode all the files that would need transcoding? Sorry if this was asked, just came in my mind so i would ask :) something like a raspberry or something. Should only Provide the infos/artworks for the movies etc and could run all the time while grabbing the files from the fritzbox external

[Armageus 67]

34 minutes ago, RanmaCanada said:

I don't disagree with you, but as I stated, the HP, Dell and Lenovo systems are out of the price range for OP.  IF you have a link to one in their price range, by all means please be helpful and POST IT.

Not exactly difficult:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154487081520

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/115053915671

[Zauberwaldi 3]

so i found out that i only need to transcode avi files. currently converting them to mkvs. wouldnt than a pi be enough? open office and a browser isnt a problem, so it would be even smaler etc. and if, which would you recommend? trying to see all possabilitys before i buy something to fast and then get angry because i had gotten something other that fits better for my needs^^

[RanmaCanada 345]

12 hours ago, Zauberwaldi said:

so i found out that i only need to transcode avi files. currently converting them to mkvs. wouldnt than a pi be enough? open office and a browser isnt a problem, so it would be even smaler etc. and if, which would you recommend? trying to see all possabilitys before i buy something to fast and then get angry because i had gotten something other that fits better for my needs^^

First time I've heard of someone being angry because they got something better than they wanted, and under their budget haha.  The pi is a possibility, but I would honestly say take one of the micro systems that are posted above by Armageus.  You will have a much better experience for less than the price of a Pi4 complete kit.