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Most supported / bug free client hardware?


yomaniwll

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yomaniwll

I have 3 TV's I want them all to have the same feel / interface / remote.

I'm leaning towards the "Roku ecosystem" as I have a (Roku Streaming Stick+) as it seems to work pretty well for emby and the other apps (netflix/hulu/youtube). The only thing holding me back is the live TV takes >10sec to load. I know people rave about the the Nvida Shield, but $200 is a little rich for a client.

So my question, for the sub $100 price point, what's the best out there? Or is it really a suck it up, drop the $200 and be happy?

 

Addtl info: A 2018 Samsung KS800D that's gotten real crashy with all apps as of late, A Vizio M3D420SR from 2012 that won't die (except the smart platform ), and a dumb 32" Insignia.

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Happy2Play

Or is it just the server being slow to process and deliver the stream?

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yomaniwll

I'll do some forum searches would be cool to speed live tv up, any tips of things to look at?

I didn't build a crazy server. Windows 10 Pro, Intel i3 101000, 4GB Ram, 250GB M2 boot drive, with 3TB windows software raid 0. Tuner is a HDHomeRun CONNECT DUO.

Edited by yomaniwll
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Happy2Play

Sorry I don't do LiveTV but some clients have additional options for how LiveTV streams are processed.  These option usually for transcoding to accommodate Seek on said stream.  So there would be a speed difference in the method the stream is getting from server to client.

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yomaniwll

Thanks for the thought starter, I'll poke around, live TV isn't my main goal, nice to grab the local OTA once and awhile. Coming out out a Tivo Roamio, and it just crushes live TV/DVR and I have been spoiled. Everything else not so much and I am starting to move away from Live TV/DVR to local media and streaming. Ya I know, late to the party :).

OK, back on topic, best sub $100 client, OR suck it up and drop $$ on the shield? 

Edited by yomaniwll
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Happy2Play

Might get more feed back in Hardware section then this Roku specific section.  Would you like me to move this topic? @yomaniwll

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Gilgamesh_48

You already have my favorite, Roku. I have no problems with them and I tested, but no longer use, live TV and loading times were fine. 

The one thing I see is that you are using a "stick" type device which is wireless and wireless is unreliable to one extent or another. Get a Roku Ultra and hook it up wired and I think you problems will be greatly reduced.

Edited by Gilgamesh_48
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yomaniwll

@Happy2PlayPlease do I missed that 

@Gilgamesh_48 I had my eyes on that one, I have ethernet to each TV (for the old tivo minis I'm replacing) and I 100% prefer wired over anything wireless. thanks for the input!

Edited by yomaniwll
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Try upping the RAM to 8GB rather than 4GB. That is likely your issue. Live TV requires ffmpeg as a child process. Since the child and parent share resources it will be your RAM that becomes the bottleneck. You are cache to SSD which is faster than ffmpeg can push or pull data. So you eliminate that as the problem. RAM is your only seriously issue along with the CPU speed. Since the CPU speed won't be as big as a problem. But the RAM having to cache to disk and push/pull from that cache will seriously impact your speed. Even though it is cache RAM on the SSD that is likely your bottleneck. RAM is somewhat cheap for 4GB sticks. That is where I would start. You also can never go wrong by picking up an Roku ultra. Roku ultra are the cream of the crop of Roku devices.

Also I use SSD above but that can also be ultra fast NVME. Since you cache transcoding to this ffmpeg has no problem with throughput. This is why I am betting that 4GB of RAM is causing your SSD/NVME to hold a windows swap ramdisk. With 8GB you would be much less reliant on the ramdisk while inside Emby. 8GB would also extend the life of your SSD/NVME as it would make far less writes.

Edited by speechles
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yomaniwll

Wow thread full of great help / info. Thanks! @speechlesOk, I'll pick up the ultra's and a stick of RAM (it felt a little too low when I was building it out, but don;t know till you try).

Edited by yomaniwll
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You literally just missed the $20 Roku ultra savings. They had them marked to $79.99 down from $99.99. But today that savings just ended. Isn't that always the case. Murphy's law. If something can go wrong it will.

With Valentines day coming up I bet a sale on Roku ultra will be coming up again. A sweetheart deal. Roku always does these things and Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon follow as the prices drop.

Make sure not to buy these from scalpers who charge ridiculous prices. Avoid anything that is not a Roku ultra 2020 model. Get the best and most recent. There are many variations of Roku ultra. You want the Roku ultra (model 4800) to get the most recent. The newest 2020 Roku ultra is the only model to support 4K DolbyVision/HLG/HDR w/ATMOS. ALL other Roku ultra only support 4K HDR w/ATMOS.

Edited by speechles
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yomaniwll

Story of my life,  thanks for the head up about the possible Vday sale, I'm not in a huge rush so I'm fine waiting to see what happens. Thanks!

I legit was going to ask there is the "walmart special" Ultra LT and then the 2020 Ultra, thanks for the comparison. I was going down the feature list between the two and was starting feel like they thrifted out too much to hit a price point. Your input helped to confirm that. I'm all in on getting the 4800 model. Thank you for your thoughts and time!!

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On 24/01/2021 at 21:32, yomaniwll said:

I know people rave about the the Nvida Shield, but $200 is a little rich for a client.

People rave about the Shield because it is by far the best streaming device on the market. It will basically play everything. I've got 8 or 9 of them now. Not sure where you're from, but here in Canada it's $199 but regularly goes on sale for $169. In the US they're $149 and often on sale for $129. I find the sales run every few months. Install the Keepa browser extension and track the pricing on amazon and set it to notify you when it's on sale.

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emveepee

Nothing compares to Live TV on the ODroid N2 with CoreElec and Kodi.  Full STB experience, comskip etc, and direct play.  Sounds like you want apps though so that totally changes things since you want Android, Roku or Apple platform support. 

Roku with no AC3 can never do direct play.

Martin

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11 minutes ago, emveepee said:

Roku with no AC3 can never do direct play.

That statement is incorrect.

Roku fully supports Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital+. The HDMI chain must support pass-through for these codecs. The Roku supports pass-through of these codecs. All Roku models support Dolby Digital (AC3) with pass-through. Certain Roku TV models even have eARC ports with ATMOS support pass-through. The 2019 and 2020 Roku ultra support pass-through of ATMOS.

 

Edited by speechles
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emveepee

Sorry I totally agree "never" was too strong, Roku does do pass through and Roku TV does decoding as well. 

I am not sure how many TV's will decode AC3 via HDMI though, typically you need to use a sound bar or receiver which kind of defeats the purpose of a sub  $100 device.

Martin

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yomaniwll
3 hours ago, emveepee said:

Nothing compares to Live TV on the ODroid N2 with CoreElec and Kodi.  Full STB experience, comskip etc, and direct play.  Sounds like you want apps though so that totally changes things since you want Android, Roku or Apple platform support. 

Roku with no AC3 can never do direct play.

Martin

Crazy, i was looking at the ODroid, good to know about the TV performance. I'm in a weird spot. I like some control over my experience, but not a lot, I really am a set it and forget it type of person. I started to walk away from Odroid/Kodi as it seemed like a fair bit of tweaking and setup. LIVE tv is down there on my priority list, once I toss some RAM and a wired ultra at the situation I'll report back. RAM is on the way, ultra holding out for a sale.

  1. Same interface across screens
  2. Fast app launch of (Netflix/Hulu/D+/Emby) (90% of viewing)
  3. Organized access to personal media
  4. Live TV / DVR
  5. Set it and forget
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