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> What OSes are better for a "Home Theater" TV computer

I use an Apple TV 4K. For non-netflix/hulu/primevideo stuff, it streams off a Synology NAS (using Plex or VLC for Apple TV)

edit: it's funny how your experience pretty much mirrors mine almost 10 years ago. A Mac guy outfitting a machine for a home media center. I was used to Mac media stuff always being behind on codec support and performance so I bought some HP PC. It never worked right, always had to mess around with audio outputs (HDMI audio output worked maybe once) and codec stuff kept breaking since either Windows or the Nvidia drivers hated trying to do hardware acceleration and you just got a green screen. We mostly ended up plugging in our MacBooks...

I'll have to try this again. I put VLC on my AppleTV4, and I don't remember having luck playing things off my Synology. I'm using Kodi on my Android TV-equipped Sony to stream from the NAS, which works, but the UI is a disaster for adding sources. I finally got it to work, but I never want to have to change anything again.

For me, using Plex is an utter and complete nightmare. Anything with transcoding and library reindexing is a no-go. I've tried to be happy with it at least 6 times, and each try was an unmitigated disaster. I just want a thing to play files from storage.

Plex is the least nightmarish of the video library apps I've used in the last few years (Plex and Kodi are the only ones I've ended up using extensively, though I've tried out several others).

Transcoding is obviously a last resort, but I've used it on rare occasions for streaming live and recorded TV from home to the Plex app on my iPhone and it works reasonably well. For my home theater stuff I absolutely don't want any transcoding at all, and Plex is generally smart enough to figure out what formats my playback device is able to decode on its own. When I first got a Chromecast Ultra, I had to fiddle with some XML config files in Plex because Plex was only aware of the non-4k Chromecast and thus would try to transcode 4k content, but I believe that Plex resolved that issue fairly quickly.

The issues I had were that, first of all, Plex server wouldn't run on my ARM-based Synology, and then later, I think there was a build for it, but it didn't have the horsepower to transcode, and it seems like it ALWAYS wanted to transcode things.

I've also tried running Plex server on my Win7 HTPC with the volume mounted over CIFS, but I had various issues with that; for one, having to reindex the volume means I have to either wait 15 minutes to watch something I just procured, or manually login and force a refresh which is annoying when I just want to browse files. It's been awhile, but I have tried a number of approaches (including Plex server on OS X) and none of them were satisfactory. Furthermore, I could never figure out why any of it was preferable to simply having a media player read files from a network store and play them. I don't care about "album art" type stuff; I don't download/store/play hollywood movies or music, so those features would be irrelevant even if I cared about them in general.

The one nice thing about Plex is I now have a few friends sharing their libraries with me over the internet. It's a cool feature, but I'm only using it from the client side, and I typically forget to even consult their libraries before paying to rent content.

Yeah, I just have mine running on my primary desktop (an iMac), but I've done a bit of research on consumer NAS products and the Plex support definitely seems spotty.

As for Plex wanting to transcode things, I mentioned having some issues with my Chromecast Ultra, but even that wasn't too bad. There should definitely be an option to not transcode video at all and let my playback device tell me that if it really can't decode the file. As far as I could tell, that option doesn't exist.

I haven't had any issues with library refreshing with Plex on my iMac and movies shared over SMB from my Linux file server. Plex seems to watch the shares and do small incremental refreshes for new content very quickly.

> I don't care about "album art" type stuff; I don't download/store/play hollywood movies or music, so those features would be irrelevant even if I cared about them in general.

That's definitely valid. Wouldn't basically any playback device that supports DLNA (and can decode your files) work fine for that? For me, the library features are pretty important. I had done a lot of work getting Kodi on my Raspberry Pi setup how I liked it, then I switched to Plex which is just as good or better but with a lot less work and maintenance.

Plex sucks on the Apple TV (and likely most other devices) because unless the video fits in a very narrow band of codecs (AVC, maybe HEVC with DD audio) it's going to insist on transcoding the video.

The absolute best setup I've found is Infuse (https://firecore.com/infuse) with Plex as the backend. Infuse will ALWAYS request the raw video/audio stream and does all the decoding on the Apple TV, so your Plex machine can be very modest (it's never transcoding, after all).

You can also forego Plex and just have Infuse index all the content, but I've found that it's nice to have a single Plex backend that can be shared amongst multiple Apple TVs, iPads, etc.

Which codecs do you mean? Guess I'm weird; I have only ever used h264 and now hevc, any others are only ancient lower-than-SD quality files which transcode without any issues. (Many files are .mkv; they still work without a transcode.)

Well DVDs are MPEG2, and some really old Blu-Ray releases are as well. You also see VC-1 in older releases. Probably should have been a little more specific, Plex will insist on transcoding if the client can't handle the codec natively. Generally speaking that means AVC or HEVC (on newer devices) only.

True, thanks. There's AV1, VP9 and related codecs too, but I've not seen many sources that only provide those and not one of the MPEG codecs as well. I've moved towards HEVC for anything I want to hang on to long-term, now that all my devices can handle it.

my apple tv 4 plays natively 1080p h265 with 5.1 audio with infuse 5 pro served by my pentium with 8 gigs of ram plex server over lan. Strangely, i am sure and old version of the plex app did the same. i think its more an issue of the way the videos are muxed and the audio codec.

I used to use Plex, but went back to AppleTV/iTunes.

For some reason Plex wouldn't see half of my video library. I eventually tracked it down to Plex not liking the filenames of certain TV shows.

My TV shows are named Show Name - Episode Name.

Plex wanted them to be ShowName.s0x.e0x.

I'm not going to go through and rename all of my files. Plex should just work from the metadata like iTunes does. That's what metadata is for.

Not sure if you are aware of this, but you have to have your TV shows separate from your movies in Plex. When Plex scans files, it uses different logic for TV show and movie file name. I had a similar problem where I imported my TV shows as movies... some worked, but most didn't. After moving my shows out of my movies directory and re-importing them specifically as tv shows, everything detected perfectly.

Not sure if you are aware of this, but you have to have your TV shows separate from your movies in Plex.

Nope. Had no idea. And no idea why I should, since iTunes has no problem with it. I'm not going to spend six hours sorting 4GB of files because Plex can't read metadata that iTunes can.

We've moved over to Plex from iTunes. The iTunes Media library folder is already sorted into separate Movies and TV Shows directories, so just added those to Plex separately.

We're running the Plex app on an AppleTV (4th gen, not 4K), and it all works really well. The only issue is that it loses connection to the server maybe once every month or two, but I think that's related to my really crappy modem.

edit: Plex server is running on the 2012 Mac mini "Server" edition. Quad-core, baby!

I think it's a philosophical difference. iTunes is more database driven (which I really liked at the time for music). Let it control your filesystem, drop in your files and it'll load from metadata. Any changes will only modify iTunes' DB. Use iTunes to decide what to sync to devices.

A lot of people were super annoyed coming from WinAmp. They organized their library by filename and the metadata was often a mess. They also wanted to treat iPods as USB drive and drop files on there.

Plex is even different in that it only looks at the filename and pulls metadata from the Internet.

I haven't used any Apple stuff, but I've gone through many iterations of this over the past 15-ish years, going from MythTV to SageTV to Plex+Netflix, and using various iterations of Linux, Windows 7, 8, and 10 on everything from leftover PC part builds to the SageTV appliance to dedicated Mini-ITX HTPC systems to Raspberry Pis.

My main criteria is being able to use everything from the couch, using a single remote, and no keyboards. I was close to that with the SageTV boxes, but Google bought SageTV and it started becoming obsolete, and there was never really a good Netflix integration anyway.

I find the trouble with all PC-based stuff is switching between things and inconsistency between apps. Netflix on PC doesn't have a good way to do keyboard-based control, so remotes don't work well -- you pretty much need a mouse-style pointer. Plex works GREAT but the keyboard works differently than it does when you're using YouTube, and there's not a great way to switch. There's also all kinds of dumb problems getting multi-channel audio working with Netflix since they require some type of certified system or something.

A couple years ago I gave up on PCs and bought an Nvidia Shield, and it's basically the perfect device for me. AndroidTV is a great launcher, it supports everything I use (Plex, Netflix, Youtube, Weather, Baby cam monitor) and everything works with a single remote (I use a Logitech Harmony to control it + the TV + audio). No compatibility, rights or audio issues. And bonus: it is a Google Cast device, and also works with an OTA tuner (Silicondust HDHomerun -- though I never actually use that anymore). My TV never changes inputs: it's basically just a dumb display for the Shield, which now does 100% of content playback in my house.

It costs maybe a bit more than a nice MiniITX HTPC build, but just works (whereas an HTPC will take hours of time to get it working semi-properly).

> I was close to that with the SageTV boxes, but Google bought SageTV and it started becoming obsolete, and there was never really a good Netflix integration anyway.

Man I was pissed when Google bought and killed SageTV. It was probably the best DVR out there. Flexible in all the ways you'd want it to be. High Wife Approval Factor (MythTV was a disaster)

I guess they open sourced it a few years ago, but our family has moved on to just renting comcasts DVR. It's actually not that bad.

... That being said, the way we consume media has changed considerably since the days of SageTV. Youtube has almost completely taken over my TV watching time.

Yeah, similar feelings. MythTV and SageTV both got me entirely off non-DVR broadcast TV. The idea of 'shows is on at x time' or 'show is interrupted by commercial breaks' is completely foreign to us at this point. Also even the MythTV interface of a decade ago is superior to all the DVR's I've seen at my family/friends locally: they all seem to do "live TV" first, then the DVR bit is an afterthought in a menu. To me, Live TV is the exception that I rarely use, and even then, I want to go to the Guide first -- not just start "channel surfing".

I did spend some time trying to get the SageTV backend working with Plex, but scheduling required an awkward web app (not wife friendly) and I could never get it naming everything in a way that made it easy to navigate with Plex. Around this time, my cable company also turned off their unencrypted QAM channels so I could no longer tune them, and that was really the nail in the coffin for me. I don't pick up enough OTA channels to make it worthwhile.

When Plex released their PVR thing, since I had the gear I set it up, but honestly, I just never watch it.

Kodi is recommended if you want a media pc connected directly to your tv, but personally I prefer Plex with a Roku and the media streamed to my tv. Only negative is that it's not useful for anything besides video

Plex also does Photos and Podcasts. Not that I've ever used them.

It's good for music as well, and I even watch Twitch on my Roku with a custom PLEX channel. It's pretty flexible.

Buy a cheap NUC for server (run Ubuntu) and use an Nvidia Shield for front end. Works flawlesslh.

Second the nvidia shield. My original shield is still kicking all these years later and they give frequentish updates.

Although recently I’ve been using my Apple TV more, I like the interface better. Still use the shield for anything I want in proper 4K with original audio.

The only downside to the NUC is that it maxes out at 32gb of ram. I have the fastest i7 model ($1,600usd) and it's an absolute beast. I offload my compiling and services to it and it handles everything like a champ, gpu stuff notwithstanding. I do hit the wall with some stuff at 32gb so a 64gb option would be ideal. I would never buy a mac to run servers and I would never buy a NUC to replace my Mac workhorse.

> 100% of Windows media players are garbage (VLC included, and there is no Movist). They can't play high-bitrate video without stuttering

Eh? I use VLC and Media Player Classic HD on a few different machines, including a rather old i5 that only had spinning disks, and I've never had any issue with high bitrate video.

I wonder if it's something specific to your setup?

I wonder if they weren't using VLC's hardware acceleration option or something? Not that I blame them; the options screen is kind of a nightmare.

I personally use Xbox and Roku along with Plex running on a windows desktop computer which is powerful enough to do transcoding.

All of the video files reside on a local windows machine and a cheap storage VPS on the cloud(located in NL). Both of the machines run plex server and auto transcode all content to an MP4 container ( HEVC for 4k content ). I force plex on the xbox to direct play all content and it usually works pretty well.

>I had assumed Windows would be better than macOS as a TV computer,

You assumed correctly circa ten years ago. Unfortunately the best solution bar none was killed by Microsoft: Windows Media Center Edition. It had a killer ten foot interface and actually supported CableCard digital TV tuners. I can only assume it wasn't a big revenue maker and that the support calls were pretty high. Not to mention it never had more than lukewarm reception from cable companies which didn't appreciate the competition for set top tuner boxes.

These days if you really want to roll your own you can buy an HD Home Run [1] and let it stream to you. It doesn't install any malware but I haven't seen the UI so no clue if it's beautiful or absolute crap. Since it can stream via DLNA that probably depends on the device you stream to as much as anything. I punted and used Youtube TV which I'm about to cancel since hurricane season is over. Like the old song says "500 channels and nothing's on."

[1] https://www.silicondust.com/

I previously used a Mac Mini as an HTPC, but have switched to separate NAS running Plex server + a streaming box or stick as the client (currently a Synology but anything with Docker and maybe hardware accelerated transcoding should be good, and a Nvidia Shield as the client, but 4K Apple TV and Roku are supposedly ok too)

I like the flexibility of having them separate (upgrade separately, keep in separate rooms, etc), and having a unified “10 foot” UI I can control with a remote to access Plex, Netflix, etc.

You could easily get a 2 or 4 bay NAS + HDDs + Shield/Roku/AppleTV for less than the $800 base price of the new Mac Mini. Unless there’s a reason you need Mac OS I wouldn’t get the Mac Mini.

If you’ve already got the Dell I’d consider just using it as a server and getting a Nvidia Shield as the client.

Windows 10 with MadVR for video rendering with GPU upscaling, and a 3D LUT for colour correction.

Yeah, I regret living without Windows for one thing only: good and accurate video playback. Got close with LibreELEC, can't get anything right with macOS.

Have you tried Kodi (kodi.tv)?

No! Looks very interesting, thanks! (^_^)

Will give it a shot.

Bung Kodi on a Raspberry Pi 3B+ - You'll be pleasantly surprised I think.

Downside is... 99% of raspberry pi cases are really ugly :(

Just stick the Pi to the back of your TV with some self-adhesive PCB risers. No case required.

What do you use as a remote? Also does RP+Kodi do Netflix/Amazon/HBO etc. streaming in a nice way?

Kodi supports network remotes among other types. You can just install a kodi remote app on your phone.

No and that’s the issue. Works great for your local / NAS media. Lots of plugins for all sorts of things, except, Netflix, Amazon, XM. I still use the TV apps for that.

There’s a Netflix plugin that uses the directory structure on Kodi for v18.

Thanks, I have seen and tried it. It’s still not GA and quite buggy. Not at a level I can hand over to my family for use.

With a Rpi over HDMI you can use your remote on most tvs if they support the CEC standard.

Some options besides CEC over HDMI:

- Amazon FireTV remote (connects via Bluetooth)

- Logitech F710 (if you also run RetroPie, connects via USB)

https://retropie.org.uk/ is a great emulation system for several vintage consoles (80's-early 2000's).

Wife and I use the Kore app. Less likely to forget where my phone is than a dedicated remote. Handy to have the youtube plugin and share a video to kodi from that app too.

That's what I do.

Am I the only one though that uses the Pi with a (Synology) NAS with MySQL (MariaDB) to store the Kodi data, and my NAS (NFS) for the content? you can pick up where you left off from your Pi, to your laptop, or Phone.

I know...it's like Plex in architecture.

As for the remote, CEC will let you control Kodi from your TV's remote. Or if you have seperate audio, like a soundbar or AV receiver, a harmony remote will do.

It may be better with III but with a Raspberry Pie II XBMC/Kodi is quite slow and a bit laggy.

Personally, I switch to an Intel NUC with a fanless akasa case, and aside from the occasional Lodi crash it works relatively well.

It's not particularly great with the Pi III either. I have one, and I find it's under powered for the "media server" role. Especially, if more than one person connects. I like it for lots of other things, but this isn't one of them.

Ah I use my mine as a playback front end only, pulling media from a NAS. I guess that's a different use case really.

Kodi is good, but I got a lot happier when I switched to Plex, and put the backend on my home server, and just used a Roku device for playback.

> 100% of Windows media players are garbage.

You might want to take a look at Daum Pot Player.

I can't bear to use VLC anymore. It is just that much better.

I haven't tried it for your use case though.

Since the gp also mentioned NAS and backup, I would presume they're definitely talking about some ∗nix, yes.

I'm not sure if Linux would make for a play-for-play better home theatre OS than MacOS, but it would certainly be both better than Windows, and better value than a Mac.

I used Linux Mint on a Lenovo Thinkcentre micro-PC for a while, at 2x scaling on a 1080p TV. Now I've changed over to KDE Neon (because the KDE UI is more flexible) at around 2.5x scaling, and it's a bit more comfortable. The main input device is a Logitech wireless keyboard with a touchpad. I mostly play videos through SMPlayer/VLC, so it doesn't need anything fancy.

A dedicated 10-foot UI would maybe work better, but as a low-cost low-effort solution, this works great. I got the PC for free (somebody was throwing it out at work) and the keyboard plus a DP to HDMI cable was $35 total. It plays 1080p x265 just fine.

Have you considered any of the ELEC releases? These are Kodi on minimal Linux with a diverse plugin ecosystem, with docker support. I am using LibreELEC. There is a live option in the installer to give a whirl.

I have looked at them, but not seriously. Maybe it's time to give it a whirl, thanks :-)

I think the GP uses the MacMini as a "hack" to be able to back up the NAS cheaply with Backblaze's unlimited personal desktop backup offering (there's no official Linux client, imho):

"Get peace of mind knowing your files are backed up securely in the cloud. Backup your Mac or PC just $5/month."

And use their GUI program on MacOS and sync that remote NAS storage folder.

What is your beef with VLC? It’s the only player that has yet to fail me.

Comparing vlc to a home theater setup is laughable at best.

Can vlc scrape Metadata and download art? Can I browse my catalog through vlc? Does it work with my remote? How hard is it to get to the next episode when watching a season?

Vlc is great, but it's just a player.

> Can vlc scrape Metadata and download art?

yes

> Can I browse my catalog through vlc?

yes

> Does it work with my remote?

if you got a remote that connects to your pc, yes. there are quite a few of these around, especially if you buy a microserver or similar.

> How hard is it to get to the next episode when watching a season?

pretty easy.. actually, its imo way easier than anywhere else, as you can always use a wireless keyboard/mouse and just jump around

VLC can even cast to a chromecast device and serve its content to TVs if you want that

most of that needs to be enabled through the settings though.

VLC has a lot of features, but it doesn't offer a 10 foot interface at all. Expecting to use the desktop interface in a home theater setup is ridiculous.

I think Kodi is closer to what you're looking for

I also use a Synology. And a Raspberry Pi as the client.

XBox, PS4, Android with a NVidia Shield.

Why do you need a PC at all? A TV can play movies directly from a NAS.

Yeah, I thought Media PCs were a thing in the 00's. But it's 2018 now. Why would you have a Media PC?

I personally use Chromecasts, but HTPCs are still a thing, and for multiple reasons : - gaming (console "alternative", emulators, etc) - streaming a personal library of media files (e.g. through Plex) - it's way more versatile than the usually pretty terrible SmartTV onboard software in terms of what content you can access - like Amazon Video that only streams to their own crap stick

Media PCs never stopped working, and they're still better at some things. They're just less "convenient" in some ways, and requires more investment, both in time and money, which is why some people switched to streaming boxes or simply using their TV's software.

>it's way more versatile than the usually pretty terrible SmartTV onboard software in terms of what content you can access - like Amazon Video that only streams to their own crap stick.

The sad thing is: This has reversed. I gave up trying to Netflix and Amazon Video from my HTPC. The former at least has an app and now even supports all formats (Dolby Vision 4k, Atmos), but the controls are terrible for a remote. The latter doesn't even have an app, and all you get is HD+Stereo. And don't get me started on Blu-Ray.

Because it's 2018 and media format support in smart TVs is still garbage. I have relatively new Samsung and Sony TVs, and they are both really finicky about what they support - various combinations of container format, video codec, audio codec and bitrates work on only one or the other, and plenty works on neither (including 10-bit video).

Same thing with a media PC. You could get some transcoder on your NAS (Plex?). Newer TVs support newer formats. Last year's LG OLED supports everything I could throw at it.

I don’t trust my TV enough to be on the network.

Yes, this precisely. Smart TVs of all flavors as well as Roku boxes voraciously mine your viewing habits, connected devices, network layout, mic input, and practically anything else they can get their dirty little hands on. They’re usually running out of date OSes and are full of holes to boot, making you a potential vector for smart device botnets.

Smart TVs and Roku boxes simply cannot be trusted. I have a brand new, relatively expensive Sony smart TV and while its Android TV support is more than adequate I don’t use it at all and keep it off the internet at all times. Instead, I use an Apple TV 4K.

> Instead, I use an Apple TV 4K

Which is what I'd do but unfortunately Google insists on using it's own video codec for 4k instead of H.265. Meaning your 4k AppleTV can't play YouTube videos at 4K. My smarttv can though... We use AppleTV for everything else.

Yes. I recall reading the user agreement for our smart TV. It recommended we not say sensitive things in front of it. We haven’t even upgraded the firmware.

I maintain that if LG or Sony offered a “Pro” version of their OLED that had no apps whatsoever and no internet connectivity I would pay a premium.

A couple of years ago I would have argued with you, but we recently added a WebOS TV to the household: 4K HDR+ Netflix and Amazon Prime, perfect playback of seemingly everything on the NAS box (which is just a hard drive hanging off the router), all effortlessly and with zero mental effort or maintenance.

To reiterate what I said elsewhere, this Mac Mini is meant to be a desktop, not a media device (or some sort of perverse NAS). It's being pushed into the home theater niche by people who probably have a big trashcan Mac Pro at their desk and try to justify this lesser device. But it's an extremely competent legitimate PC for most people.

> A TV can play movies directly from a NAS.

An iPad can’t though. And NAS’s don’t generally support transcoding.

A DLNA compatible media server can stream content to any device on the network.

Many NAS have that built in. My Synology can stream to an iPad with VLC just fine.

I went through this when I built a Win7 HTPC perhaps 5 or 6 years ago. I was so happy to no longer have to use Connect360 on my xbox 360 to stream transcoded video from my Mac Pro (that I had to power on to run the whole thing). Finally I'd be able to just play files directly from my NAS into the endless world of Windows media support. No more transcoding from whatever stupid codec/container/disaster the 'scene' is using these days. It will Just Work because all of these people use Windows and it plays everything, right?

Nope. Unmitigated disaster. Same thing, navigating endless spy/mal/adware laden sites to download CCCP codec packages and plug things together, every time I installed one thing I found another thing that didn't work right. I have some weird Jockersoft thing to force some other application to keep running and restart if it fails, and even though I no longer use whatever that thing was, I can't uninstall the goddamned jockersoft thing to save my life.

Windows Media Center itself was actually a joy, though, I really enjoyed how well it worked for the things it could do out of the box which were far fewer than I had been led to believe.

I also realized that a decade+ of using OS X had left me unprepared to navigate the latest online threats in the world of not-entirely-legitimate download sites for Windows utilities. It got really bad while I was away.