5 Ways to Watch 4K Content on the PC

[samcool55]

1 hour ago, Ezio Auditore said:

Does this also mean that the core x series can't run 4k netflix?

If you mean kabylake-X, yeah that can't playback 4K netflix either.

You need the iGPU and basically the X299 platform doesn't support it at all.

 

Basically everything that will fit on 2066 won't work.

[dalekphalm]

23 hours ago, HunterSkater429 said:

$25 PS3 bro. Way better 

I'm going to assume you've posted in the wrong thread by accident, or you misread the thread title or something. Because this thread is about 4K UHD content. PS3 cannot play UHD Blu-Rays. It has a 1080p Blu-Ray player.

 

If you want to play UHD Blu-Rays, an XBO S is pretty much the cheapest way to do it (there are a few set top players similar in price now). The PC Drive that Linus uses is also an option, and is cheaper, but you need a PC to run it, and not everyone will have one handy that they can hook into their PC, so we must assume that the average person will need to build a brand new HTPC for this (whether they use used parts or buy new).

3 hours ago, DnFx91 said:

so they impose all these restrictions on us, and expect us not to get UHD torrents online ? It's like they really would prefer that we steal our 4k content.

There aren't that many UHD torrents out there yet, and pretty much most of them are capture card recordings from something like Netflix, etc. Not the most ideal quality.

[KouKouKaChu]

What I'm mostly curious about with this NUC is using it as a Plex server.  While celerons are more than adequate for playing and some slow conversions of media, doing real time transcoding requires a beefier CPU. This means that the NAS solutions other than some QNAP models can't handle soft subtitles for anything above 720p. So in that case, a NUC makes a great deal of sense. Something cheap with enough power to burn subtitles on the fly. Even with 4k content.

 

So, given this use case, how well would the NUC work? So I would propose the following test. A NUC connected to a 4 bay NAS either through thunderbolt or USB 3. Probably one of each to test throughput. Then have some 4k content and maybe some 1080p content that have soft subtitles loaded into Plex. Once content is ready start having devices view the videos with the subtitles and see where it begins to choke. Bonus question is if there is a difference between subtitles encoded within the mp4 or mkv vs separate subtitle files.

[dalekphalm]

5 minutes ago, KouKouKaChu said:

What I'm mostly curious about with this NUC is using it as a Plex server.  While celerons are more than adequate for playing and some slow conversions of media, doing real time transcoding requires a beefier CPU. This means that the NAS solutions other than some QNAP models can't handle soft subtitles for anything above 720p. So in that case, a NUC makes a great deal of sense. Something cheap with enough power to burn subtitles on the fly. Even with 4k content.

 

So, given this use case, how well would the NUC work? So I would propose the following test. A NUC connected to a 4 bay NAS either through thunderbolt or USB 3. Probably one of each to test throughput. Then have some 4k content and maybe some 1080p content that have soft subtitles loaded into Plex. Once content is ready start having devices view the videos with the subtitles and see where it begins to choke. Bonus question is if there is a difference between subtitles encoded within the mp4 or mkv vs separate subtitle files.

Entirely depends on which version you get. The i3 would be sufficient for a couple of 1080p streams being transcoded on the fly, or maybe a single 4K stream. The i5 featured in the video could probably add one or two streams, or do much higher bitrate transcoding. An i7 again, could do more.

 

My current Plex Server is a virtualized Win 2k16 setup w/ (I believe) only 2 virtual cores assigned, and it never struggles with my current needs (That includes on-the-fly transcoding to both an XBO S or a Roku 4K - though both are at 1080p, but are very high bitrate files, being pretty high quality Blu-Ray rips for the most part).

 

I have yet to attempt multiple streams at once though, as I'm pretty much the only person who uses Plex at home right now.

[KouKouKaChu]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

Entirely depends on which version you get. The i3 would be sufficient for a couple of 1080p streams being transcoded on the fly, or maybe a single 4K stream. The i5 featured in the video could probably add one or two streams, or do much higher bitrate transcoding. An i7 again, could do more.

 

My current Plex Server is a virtualized Win 2k16 setup w/ (I believe) only 2 virtual cores assigned, and it never struggles with my current needs (That includes on-the-fly transcoding to both an XBO S or a Roku 4K - though both are at 1080p, but are very high bitrate files, being pretty high quality Blu-Ray rips for the most part).

 

I have yet to attempt multiple streams at once though, as I'm pretty much the only person who uses Plex at home right now.

That's about what I would suspect, but we don't know. That's why I'm proposing a test. They have the NUC there and they likely have a 4 or 5 bay NAS laying around. Let's see how far it can go.

 

I currently have an i5 NUC from a few generations ago running on a debian system attached to a QNAP 1815 Celeron (should have gone with the i7 thus the old NUC). I haven't done any 4k streaming, but my household is full of anime fans and we do our files with sub and dub capabilities. We like to be able to serve both tastes especially for guests. Most of the time, it's fine, but there are times where the DVR is running plus a transcode stream or two and the CPU is taking a bit of a punishment. Disc I/O seems fine. Don't seem to be saturating the USB 3 cable either.

 

So I've been wondering if it's time for an upgrade or to wait a year. With the iGPU and HDMI/HDCP issues discussed in this thread (and video) and elsewhere, it may not be time if I decide to switch to Windows for that UBD goodness (at least until the DRM is cracked and we can convert them into more useable files).

[System Error Message]

@GabenJr i have a video the NUC most likely cant play via VLC - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B01oBAU-nNuMdlgzY1hYMW5tUmM make sure to download and play locally via VLC, it uses up a lot of CPU. Its a time lapse i took and the video is just a bunch of pictures from a DSLR put together to create a video.

[AshleyAshes]

22 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

@GabenJr i have a video the NUC most likely cant play via VLC - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B01oBAU-nNuMdlgzY1hYMW5tUmM make sure to download and play locally via VLC, it uses up a lot of CPU. Its a time lapse i took and the video is just a bunch of pictures from a DSLR put together to create a video.

The video is larger than 4K, outside of the resolution that the hardware video decoding can support, leaving it to be decoded purely with the CPU rather than it's hardware decoder.

[System Error Message]

3 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

The video is larger than 4K, outside of the resolution that the hardware video decoding can support, leaving it to be decoded purely with the CPU rather than it's hardware decoder.

so basically when larger than 4K content comes out it becomes outdated?

 

VLC actually does use the GPU when playing the video, a large amount of IGP usage on my i7-7700hq.

[AshleyAshes]

Just now, System Error Message said:

so basically when larger than 4K content comes out it becomes outdated?

 

VLC actually does use the GPU when playing the video, a large amount of IGP usage on my i7-7700hq.

Hardware video decoders operate within fixed specification limits.  When the resolution limit, or other spec, is exceeded the hardware decoder won't accept the video.  The playback software then falls back to software decoding, and yeah, an i5 7560U's dual core CPU isn't capable of decoding that video using just the CPU rather than the CPUs hardware decoder.  Kaby Lake's hardware decoder doesn't support anything in excess of 4,096×2,160.

[System Error Message]

38 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

Hardware video decoders operate within fixed specification limits.  When the resolution limit, or other spec, is exceeded the hardware decoder won't accept the video.  The playback software then falls back to software decoding, and yeah, an i5 7560U's dual core CPU isn't capable of decoding that video using just the CPU rather than the CPUs hardware decoder.  Kaby Lake's hardware decoder doesn't support anything in excess of 4,096×2,160.

the video used vlc which by default doesnt use GPU accelerated encoding, but it does use the GPU to accelerate some parts of the video. Playing it via vlc uses more than 70% of CPU and 30-40% of GPU. Using windows 10 default film player it uses less than 70% CPU but much more IGP up to 60+%.

 

The point of this video is to prevent using hardware encoders and to see how well things are handled. Hardware encoding has a fixed quality or setting.

[AshleyAshes]

Just now, System Error Message said:

The point of this video is to prevent using hardware encoders and to see how well things are handled. Hardware encoding has a fixed quality or setting.

Yeah, I don't really see the point of that 'point' at all.

[System Error Message]

39 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

Yeah, I don't really see the point of that 'point' at all.

may not be a point but it would be a nice test on the CPU/GPU's software video capability for those that dont want to use quicksync when encoding videos.

 

Plex is one reason.

[AshleyAshes]

Just now, System Error Message said:

may not be a point but it would be a nice test on the CPU/GPU's software video capability for those that dont want to use quicksync when encoding videos.

 

Plex is one reason.

This video is about playback, not encoding...

[Arika]

Physical media is the only way i'll ever be able to watch 4k content  damn Australian internet

[DnFx91]

14 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

 

There aren't that many UHD torrents out there yet, and pretty much most of them are capture card recordings from something like Netflix, etc. Not the most ideal quality.

Not entirely true, sure we are nowhere near the point of having every newly released film come straight out on UHDBR like they already do with normal BR, however there are a few exceptions, ive got a couple of UHD rips myself of recent movies. As for the streaming thing though, i think thats a great solution, from what i saw of the grand tour, it literally looks like someone has jammed a firestick into a capture card and stripped the HDCP, then uploaded at 10-bit HEVC UHD, glorious

[Jonas W]

I bought this NUC about a month ago and it can't handle 4k very well. I assume it is because of bad drivers.

Paired up med my lg 4k oled the screen flickers all the time. This NUC also freezes a lot.

 

Check it out at: https://communities.intel.com/community/tech/nuc

 

So before buying this one I would wait until ok drivers comes out.

[Will2326]

does it support lightscribe?

[Rennie]

I watched this video this morning and it had great info on how to watch 4K movies using the NUC, But I want to be able to rip my 4K movies to my media server. I know I need the Pioneer drive shown in the video but beyond that is where I get confused if I wanted to build a new PC.  Mine is getting old and could use a refresh, I do a lot of photo editing normal day to day stuff, I dont do any gaming on it but watch the occasional movie.  So I just want to build a normal good running pc that I can also rip my 4k movies.  The confusion comes in as to what motherboard do i need to buy, which processor? Do I need a graphics card? How much RAM?  I dont want to break the bank to build this but I would like something that will last me for the next couple of years.
Please help the more i research this the more confused I get.

If I can do this on the NUC and just rip my 4k movies thats fine I can get some addtional use out of my current pc

Thanks in advance

Geoff

[dalekphalm]

2 hours ago, Rennie said:

I watched this video this morning and it had great info on how to watch 4K movies using the NUC, But I want to be able to rip my 4K movies to my media server. I know I need the Pioneer drive shown in the video but beyond that is where I get confused if I wanted to build a new PC.  Mine is getting old and could use a refresh, I do a lot of photo editing normal day to day stuff, I dont do any gaming on it but watch the occasional movie.  So I just want to build a normal good running pc that I can also rip my 4k movies.  The confusion comes in as to what motherboard do i need to buy, which processor? Do I need a graphics card? How much RAM?  I dont want to break the bank to build this but I would like something that will last me for the next couple of years.
Please help the more i research this the more confused I get.

If I can do this on the NUC and just rip my 4k movies thats fine I can get some addtional use out of my current pc

Thanks in advance

Geoff

Don't know if you read the whole thread or not, but the short answer is: no.

 

As of right now, you cannot rip a 4K UHD Blu-Ray onto your computer. The Pioneer UHD Drive featured in the video will be able to read, and play, the movie. But at this moment in time there is no known method to break the new HDCP 2.0 encryption used by UHD Blu-Rays.

 

The only possible method at the moment involves playing the movie over HDMI, and using something like a specialized splitter to strip out the HDCP encryption, and then use an HDMI capture card to actually record the movie in real time.

 

This may or may not only be possible in 1080p also (not confirmed).

 

In short, if you want to buy UHD Blu-Rays due to awesome quality (far superior to any 4K streaming content), sure go for it. But if you want to keep a rip on your media server, buy a 1080p Blu-Ray instead.

[Rennie]

Thanks for the reply and info.  I was hoping for a different answer and I would have saved myself some money since i just purchased the Pioneer UHD drive. Oh well at least I will have it when the time comes.

Thanks

Geoff

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Rennie said:

Thanks for the reply and info.  I was hoping for a different answer and I would have saved myself some money since i just purchased the Pioneer UHD drive. Oh well at least I will have it when the time comes.

Thanks

Geoff

Well you could always return the drive, or at least, use it to watch UHD Blu-Rays in something like PowerDVD (Make sure to get the special version that can play 4K UHD Blu-Rays).

[Rennie]

Thanks that will be most likely what I do

[TacoSenpai]

I'll stick with my Roku Premiers on my TVs.  Intel can go politely Canuk itself with a cactus when it comes to that BS 4K DRM nonsense.

[NumLock21]

I know a 6th way of watching 4K content.

 

Spoiler

going outside

 

[JinnGonQui]

What is the model of the Pioneer drive used in the video? Am I simply dense? ... or 18 months later, there is still no definitive custom-built-PC Windows-10 hardware-software-combination-solution to play my UltraHD Blu-rays? ... I can't seem to find in this forum (nor the YouTube comments), what model of Pioneer that was ... and if in present-day it could work on a non-NUC. I mostly-understand all of the technical crap that has to align, and that there appears to be no galactic alignment conjunction in sight. This is such garbage on the part of content protectors ... yes, protecting their works is legitimate ... how they are doing it is assinine! ... just plug in a SATA-BD, launch a valid software-player, plug into a valid display-device. Simple, right