Switching from Nvidia SHIELD TV to NUC or NAS?

[sephrat 16]

Hi there,

 

I've been a long-time user of Plex server on Shield TV but found it quite buggy these past months. I recently switched to Emby but still find the server not as responsive as I'd like. HW acceleration is good but I think the CPU isn't just up to it when it comes to transcoding audio and burning-in subtitles.

I'm considering moving the server to a NUC or a NAS but I just can't make up my mind although I went through tens of threads here and there.

 

My use case: media is stored on a low-budget NAS (DS213j). I have a collection of 4K and/or HEVC films/series. I largely use subtitles, some of them in this bitmap format that I read is not CPU-friendly. I stream to a Shield TV and a Chromecast locally. I'm considering offline sync to mobile in the future, and possibly occasional streaming on WAN. I think no more than 3 transcodes at a time is a good target.

 

I'm considering 2 options:

1. Upgrade my NAS to a DS918+ (https://www.synology.com/fr-fr/products/DS918+) 

• Advantages: Synology suite, out-of-the-box solution, moving from 2-bay to 4-bay is a plus.
• Drawback: CPU J3455 is fairly weak with only 2k passmark.

2. Get an 8th Gen Intel NUC such as NUC8i3BEK for the same price range (https://ark.intel.com/content/www/fr/fr/ark/products/126149/intel-nuc-kit-nuc8i3bek.html) and install Linux on it.

• Advantages: 8109U CPU power should be more than enough for my requirements (6k passmark)
• Drawback: Linux learning curve, yet another device to hide in my living room.

 

Any tip on the best choice to make? 

Any feedback from a former Shield user?

[Guest asrequested]

A NUC is a better recommendation than any NAS, if you need transcoding. But I would suggest something with an i5 instead of an i3

Edited April 28, 2019 by Doofus

[sephrat 16]

A NUC is a better recommendation than any NAS, if you you need transcoding. But I would suggest something with an i5 instead of an i3

Thanks for your input.

Is there a huge difference in performance between an i5 and an i3 for a home server? I'm guessing it'll be more smooth if I want to run other services than Emby on it, but apart from that? Would the user experience sensibly be better on Emby with an i5?

Just trying to gauge if it's worth putting ~100€ more into it.

[Jdiesel 1113]

Just get a NUC with a UHD 630 iGPU. A i3 8100 is plenty.

[Guest asrequested]

Yup, probably enough. Just make sure you have a monitor or a dummy monitor plugged into the HDMI. That enables the GPU.

Edited April 28, 2019 by Doofus

[Q-Droid 630]

2. Get an 8th Gen Intel NUC such as NUC8i3BEK for the same price range (https://ark.intel.com/content/www/fr/fr/ark/products/126149/intel-nuc-kit-nuc8i3bek.html) and install Linux on it.

• Advantages: 8109U CPU power should be more than enough for my requirements (6k passmark)
• Drawback: Linux learning curve, yet another device to hide in my living room.

 

Any tip on the best choice to make? 

Any feedback from a former Shield user?

 

That NUC is more than enough. It has Intel Iris Plus Graphis 655 which is superior to UHD 630 and passmark scores are kinda irrelevant when using the iGPU for video encoding/decoding. The trick with Linux is to make sure you update to a kernel version that is new enough to support the Coffee Lake 8th gen CPUs, 4.15+.

[sephrat 16]

Thank you everyone.

I think I'll get the NUC I linked in the OP. It may be overpowered for Emby but if I ever feel the need to run some other services (Radarr/Sonarr/Bazarr/...) I know it'll run smoothly.

 

Will try and give a feedback when I make the switch (possibly some time next month).

[sephrat 16]

As promised, some feedback after a month.

I bought the NUC I mentioned in my first post. I equipped it with 2x4Go RAM (CT4G4SFS824A) + 240Go SSD (MP510), for a grand total of 400€. I installed Ubuntu 18.04 on it.

It is solid. Great value. The case is actually smaller than I expected. I run several services besides Emby, it's all smooth.

 

I only just subscribed to Emby today and tested the HW acceleration - works flawlessly.

70Mbps 4K HDR content gets transcoded with no delay to a Chromecast with ~20-25% CPU / >100 fps. Stress-test with TRUEHD 7.1 decoding + PGSSUB subtitles burn-in is OK (it could only handle 1 transcode at this rate though).

 

I don't think I would have had the same performance with a NAS CPU. 

 

Definitely better performance than with a Shield TV server - after all it's a great media player but that's all it's meant to be.

100%would do it again. 

Edited June 4, 2019 by sephrat