New version Update

[ebr 14912]

I have been keeping a close eye on the Nvidia Shield every since it was announced.  Almost pulled the trigger on it a couple of times.  If Emby was to support it at some point, it would be a no brainer for me.

 

We support the Shield and have users using it now...

[pclausen 41]

True, but alas, no bit-streaming support, at least not yet.

[ebr 14912]

True, but alas, no bit-streaming support, at least not yet.

 

Are you sure?  The Nexus Player bitstreams DD and decodes DTS to 5.1 PCM.

[pclausen 41]

Yes, I believe that is correct, but it does not yet bitstream TrueHD, Atmos or DTS-MA at this time.

 

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/836487/shield-android-tv/codec-support-/14/

 

Anyway, don't want to get us off on a tangent here in the Emby Theater thread.

[Deathsquirrel 741]

to rocket to the success of home 3d? are you saying you expect it to fail? because right now i would view home 3d as a failure.

 

http://www.itworld.com/article/2872079/3d-is-dead-will-4k-and-8k-tv-make-it.html

 

Like a lead balloon, yes.

[Deathsquirrel 741]

In my case, I have a 84" 4k TV and sit 9 ft from it.  I'm finding that to be well within my field of vision and do not find myself panning my head from side to side.

 

 

Effective distance to see all the detail of a 4k image on an 84 inch screen with typical eyes is around 5-6 feet.  At 9 feet you might see some benefit over 1080p.

[Deathsquirrel 741]

True, but alas, no bit-streaming support, at least not yet.

 

The shield bitstreams a number of formats but not hd audio.  Nvidia has made some comments suggesting they would offer a download pack of those codecs at a cost but I haven't seen anything official that say 'this will be available at this date with these codecs for X$.'

 

If the hardware allows it the existing Emby android tv client should immediately support it since it just queries the local device to get the list of supported formats.

[pclausen 41]

My understanding is that in order to bitstream, no codecs is needed, since, as the name implies, the raw bitstream is simply passed on to the receiver over HDMI, which in turn decodes the bitstream into the original audio tracks.  HTPC's have been able to do this for several years, as has graphics cards.  I'd be very surprised if the Shield doesn't support this in hardware, I mean it had HDMI 2.0, right?

 

I suppose I'd be willing to pay a reasonable fee to "unlock" the ability to playback HD bitstreams, but it sounds like Nvidia is trying to milk more money from their customers by telling them they need to purchase "codecs" in order to playback HD bitstreams.

[pclausen 41]

Effective distance to see all the detail of a 4k image on an 84 inch screen with typical eyes is around 5-6 feet.  At 9 feet you might see some benefit over 1080p.

 

I went from this 65" Panasonic plasma (TH-65PF9UK) which I have had since spring of 2007:

 

 

To the LG 84UB9800 this spring:

 

 

The crappy picture doesn't do it justice, but the colors and contrast alone blows away the plasma (which are generally know for great contrast and color).  The windows desktop at 4k with no scaling is readable at 9ft, but not nearly as easily as the 65" screen was at the same distance at 1080p.  When I look at the 65" plasma now, it almost looks blocky in comparison, but that might be psychological I suspect.  

 

Can't wait to see what the new Emby Theater is going to look like on the 84 incher!

[Deathsquirrel 741]

My understanding is that in order to bitstream, no codecs is needed, since, as the name implies, the raw bitstream is simply passed on to the receiver over HDMI, which in turn decodes the bitstream into the original audio tracks.  HTPC's have been able to do this for several years, as has graphics cards.  I'd be very surprised if the Shield doesn't support this in hardware, I mean it had HDMI 2.0, right?

 

I suppose I'd be willing to pay a reasonable fee to "unlock" the ability to playback HD bitstreams, but it sounds like Nvidia is trying to milk more money from their customers by telling them they need to purchase "codecs" in order to playback HD bitstreams.

 

Sorry, I shouldn't have said codec.  License is a better term.  The have to pay for the right to bitstream dts-hd, for example.  Yes, they have to pay to pass a stream of audio to another device untouched, if they don't want sued.

[Deathsquirrel 741]

I went from this 65" Panasonic plasma (TH-65PF9UK) which I have had since spring of 2007:

 

 

 

To the LG 84UB9800 this spring:

 

 

The crappy picture doesn't do it justice, but the colors and contrast alone blows away the plasma (which are generally know for great contrast and color).  The windows desktop at 4k with no scaling is readable at 9ft, but not nearly as easily as the 65" screen was at the same distance at 1080p.  When I look at the 65" plasma now, it almost looks blocky in comparison, but that might be psychological I suspect.

 

Can't wait to see what the new Emby Theater is going to look like on the 84 incher!

 

 

As long as your happy with your purchase it was a good one.

[pclausen 41]

Sorry, I shouldn't have said codec.  License is a better term.  The have to pay for the right to bitstream dts-hd, for example.  Yes, they have to pay to pass a stream of audio to another device untouched, if they don't want sued.

Wow, that's pretty crazy.  So I guess that means Intel had to license the ability to do the same in all their Haswell supporting chipsets?  I guess everybody want's a piece of the pie...

[foghat 65]

We support the Shield and have users using it now...

 

HD Audio aside, do you know if it direct plays blu-ray rips to mkv?  Or does transcoding need to happen?

[pclausen 41]

As long as your happy with your purchase it was a good one.

Yeah, I was going to hold out until the next generation and have HDMI 2.0 that supports both 4k @ 60Hz AND HDCP 2.2 on the same port.  But I found a deal I couldn't resist.  Besides, I suspect that the day will come when I can rip my 4k Blu-Ray titles to my Emby server, and not have to worry about the HDCP 2.2 part during playback.

[ebr 14912]

My understanding is that in order to bitstream, no codecs is needed, since, as the name implies, the raw bitstream is simply passed on to the receiver over HDMI, which in turn decodes the bitstream into the original audio tracks.  HTPC's have been able to do this for several years, as has graphics cards.  I'd be very surprised if the Shield doesn't support this in hardware, I mean it had HDMI 2.0, right?

 

I suppose I'd be willing to pay a reasonable fee to "unlock" the ability to playback HD bitstreams, but it sounds like Nvidia is trying to milk more money from their customers by telling them they need to purchase "codecs" in order to playback HD bitstreams.

 

The truth of the matter is very few people in the true market care about HD audio.  Anything in 5.1 sounds awesome to them since most of them are using soundbars or other $300 surround systems.

 

I am still using my 2010 65" Panny Viera Plasma and still think it is an awesome TV but I do tend to stand in front of those big beautiful displays they have now in Best Buy whenever I'm in there.  The biggest thing that stops me at this point is probably just that I have no idea what I'd do with the Panny.  It's huge and heavy.

 

Okay, now the wheels are completely off this thread...

[ebr 14912]

HD Audio aside, do you know if it direct plays blu-ray rips to mkv?  Or does transcoding need to happen?

 

That's going to depend on the exact specs of the video but, yes.

[bret1958 26]

Well i guess I blew the tire off this thread, very good info on the nvidia, has anyone tried to bit-stream or pass-through the thing to a capable amp ? I think at least for another year these little tigers will do great video but will all suffer from a quote above.. (that not many really care about the audio.. TRUE HD)

But that is where my problem begins I DO.

If i could just slap up the video i would not be here searching, the HDMI pass through has always been the Issue. (any of the current iterations of Emby mostly do video fairly well but falter on the audio.)

 

I am able to do some tricky things with the hdmi selection on theater or that Plex can do to, or as a standalone player mpc-hc will let me do also.

I use the same pc to distribute whole house audio via a high end sound card either through play to, of a remote app install on other pc's (Logitech media server and squeeze play) and then use the HDMI to play movies in 7.1 True HD only in the theater.

But plex is not a option for me (I hate pumpkins) and lousy navigation.

I can use MPC-HC but one movie at a time....

So that leaves Family and guests using Theater so I am just hoping that until its all sorted out, That progress continues on theater because its my only hope Obi-Wan.

BTW can someone explain the love for KODI isn't it a competing platform?

Thanks.. I have been here since browser 2.0 and I guess I'm not going anywhere..

[danielpugh 2]

Ive been using ex for ages. Its good and stable. Downside is no tv and theatre hasn't really kept up with the server.

 

Tried jriver and its great for sound, and has tv but not quite right for me yet in theatre mode (however they are aware of this and aiming to improve).

 

Kodi works ok but like jriver is a pain if you want to have similar setup on multiple i installs and devices (roku, android etc). The emby sync is fantastic and helps, and tv support is good. But... Personally i think the interface tries to hard to add features and suffers as a result. I had to spend ages fiddling about and tweaking, downloading skins etc etc and got it as close as possible. Still i found the navigation overkill (root folders, ".." folders, particularly for playing music.

 

To me emby seems really the best choice currently:

Good server

Simple, elegant and stable theatre for htpc

Good device support (android, roku, etc)

Tv support that is good with lots of options (nextpvr works great)

Kodi sync that works (if you are a fan of kodi)

Good plugin support and open source

Allows e.g. Netflix metro launcher (nice to have something even if external)

And... Whilst theatre needs some love... It is coming soon.

Whilst id love the new version tomorrow im happy in the short term (that said im obsessively watching this thread ;-)

[bret1958 26]

Jriver Tried

Kodi Tried

Plex Tried

Emby for WMC just got to bloated, (my opinion) plus i upgraded every thing to win10

I guess I'm addicted to Theater...(Luke did a great job with its look and feel)  which I assume will only get better. So for the theater this is my option.

Like I said I am stubborn. I was at peace tell everything took a lefty about 3-4 months ago. I don't know what happened but the Theater install has never worked right since.

So complaining about the app has stopped as I understand their dilemma why put any effort in the current version of theater when a new rewrite is in the wings. so i wait.

I think we need a thread on the nvidia shield that would be nice to see how it is functioning for living room setups when truehd is not really that critical.

Edited September 19, 2015 by bret1958

[danielpugh 2]

Definite potential for the future with the shield, although would need something like hdhomerun for tv (broken for me on windows 10,7 and android). Its still "coming soon" for uk i think. Android tv development seems to get lots of dev. Attention.

 

I got impatient and opted for skylake chip with win 10 in passive htpc box which is working well for me so far and no need to worry about codecs.

 

The waiting is half the fun, otherwise there would be nothing to look forward to. Im wondering in parallel when someone is going to do something like roon labs for htpc/music (crazy metadata music browsing). Plex seem to be trying on the server with videos and gracenote etc (although nothing on theatre as usual)

 

Definately a time for big advances after 10 years of mce stasis.

[gcoupe 63]

I'm still looking for a replacement for WMC. I've tried Jriver (shudder), Kodi (shudder), Plex and Emby. I'm not interested in Live TV, but I want an HTPC client that can deal with movies, recorded TV, music and photos. The last two types of media always seem to be the poor relations - none of the current solutions supports ID3v2 tagging or photo metadata sufficiently well to give me the user experience I'm looking for.

 

I await the next iterations of Emby's and Plex's HTPC client with interest. They may help me to choose between them.

[AgileHumor 123]

I'm still looking for a replacement for WMC. I've tried Jriver (shudder), Kodi (shudder), Plex and Emby. I'm not interested in Live TV, but I want an HTPC client that can deal with movies, recorded TV, music and photos. The last two types of media always seem to be the poor relations - none of the current solutions supports ID3v2 tagging or photo metadata sufficiently well to give me the user experience I'm looking for.

 

I await the next iterations of Emby's and Plex's HTPC client with interest. They may help me to choose between them.

 

I just want one interfaced for Live TV (ClearQAM), Netflix, and Emby.   Now that Netflix canceled Netflix for WMC, we have no easy way to switch between those three functions.  Really bummed Netflix!!!

[danielpugh 2]

For live tv kodi &/or emby are good. A plex post recently pointed out the hdhomerun kickstarter option, but that is only aiming to provide viewings of recordings (and doesn't currently exist). The kodi progress build doesnt have a tabular guide. This pointed me to emby which has a good guide in the server (but nothing in theatre currently (in the current version there are channels and recordings)).

 

Kodi/emby sync + pvr or jriver are the nearest to what youre looking for that i have seen (hopefully joined soon by emby theatre new version)...

[Jdiesel 1114]

I'm still looking for a replacement for WMC. I've tried Jriver (shudder), Kodi (shudder), Plex and Emby. I'm not interested in Live TV, but I want an HTPC client that can deal with movies, recorded TV, music and photos. The last two types of media always seem to be the poor relations - none of the current solutions supports ID3v2 tagging or photo metadata sufficiently well to give me the user experience I'm looking for.

 

I await the next iterations of Emby's and Plex's HTPC client with interest. They may help me to choose between them.

What is it that you didn't like about JRiver and Kodi? JRiver is probably the best there is when it comes to music management, however the "theater mode" is severely lacking. I find that Kodi does movies, TV, and music all very well (try the Mutagen addon for ID3v2 support). I don't have much experience with photo library as I let Lightroom manage my folder structure and just browse the folders using Kodi.  With any metadata scraper, garbage in equals garbage out.

[Jdiesel 1114]

I just want one interfaced for Live TV (ClearQAM), Netflix, and Emby.   Now that Netflix canceled Netflix for WMC, we have no easy way to switch between those three functions.  Really bummed Netflix!!!

The best route to go is a Nexus TV, Nvidia Shield, or a FireTV and switching between the your media center app and the Netflix app. Netflix is likely never going to support unofficial devices again and even most web browser are severely locked down in terms of features.