How to Home Theater...streaming BD-R "backups".

[Tyche]

Going to be buying a new LG OLED soon (waiting for superbowl sales), and wanting to look at streaming options for BD-R. Right now, my setup is simply a router (Nighthawk AC2350) and my PC streaming to a Roku 3 in my living room.

I'm guessing I'm going to need to be getting an HTPC for the living room if I wish to stream BD-R backups that have a bitrate of 20+ mbps. I've built PCs, but never an HTPC. Honestly, my knowledge of the HTPC scene is pretty limited. I'd like to know where to get started if that's the route I'll have to go. Also, is something such as this going to require a NAS for the transfers?

Are there options for full remote capabilities with an HTPC? I'm assuming there's some type of logical GUI like XMBC or Kodi or whatever. Can you use a universal remote like a logitech Harmony with it?

[orinthia]

Are the discs actually bluray copies or just normal files written to the disc (ie. mp4/mkv)? If it's a real bluray copy, you'll have a hard time playing it on anything besides windows or dedicated players, let alone trusting such high bit rates over wireless.

I have a year-old sony bluray player ($50) that has wireless/wired networking, usb port (can play some formats natively), and can receive miracast for screensharing. Interface is somewhat slow, web browser is really slow, but it does what it should be doing very nicely. I have not yet burned any bd-r discs though, so no idea how it would react to one. Many players do have networking and ports for semi-general media playback, but they won't be as good at it as a roku or something with kodi.

An htpc is just a normal computer that usually has lower power and space requirements in mind since it's just for media playback. There's loads of guides and sample builds online, like at pcpartpicker. There's also randomly some deals on tiny used business machines if you're inclined: http://www.techbargains.com/dell-optiplex-3020-deals . Add a bluray drive (might be stuck with a usb one though) and install kodi if you want for a nicer remote interface. And if your logitech harmony has a pc dongle, should be able to use it with anything on pc, or get an airmouse or some other wireless/bluetooth kb/m combo.

Just keep in mind how much you're spending. If you think you'd like one or care for their games, maybe an xbox one or ps3/4 might be a better option.

[Arkanna]

I've never tried streaming BD-R, so I can't comment on that. My home theater PC's have always been centered on tuning television, that's where my experience lies.

You will definitely need a strong CPU for streaming hi-res video. My last box was a Sandy Bridge Core i7, and my current box is a Haswell Core i5. Both handled 1080p video streaming just fine, in addition to other simultaneous tasks (recording TV on 3+ channels). You can use that as a baseline for your setup I would think. I've always gone RAM-heavy because it's cheap, so my HTPC (and the one before it) runs 16GB, the most that can realistically go in a Mini-ITX board today, though that may have changed/be changing with Z170 and the latest Intel CPU's. Additionally, I've always used multiple drives in RAID 0 to store media. The old box was 2x 750GB WD Blacks while the current one is 3x 1TB WD Reds, all 2.5" drives. I've never run into a situation where they haven't been able to handle the load of a 6-channel tuner with some recording going on, plus streaming of 1080p video.

My old box ran Windows Media Center, and was extended to two other TV's through Ceton Echoes. Since the Echo only supports up to Windows 7, and since Ceton has all but vanished from the face of the earth, I moved on to NextPVR 3.6.6 on the main HTPC for TV tuning, and Kodi 15.2 on the same HTPC for the GUI. I replaced each Echo with a low-power Pentium G3250 box with 8GB RAM, running Windows 10 and Kodi 15.2. The interface is pretty damn good but there are bugs that may/may not affect you. The worst one I'm dealing with right now is, if multiple people are watching television on different Kodi boxes (I have it installed on my main PC, in addition to the two sub-boxes and the main HTPC), occasionally when someone changes a channel, it won't change on their Kodi but will instead change on someone else's Kodi. Plus, the instance of Kodi where the channel changed is not aware it changed, so this is likely a backend problem with NextPVR that wouldn't affect you.

Sorry if some of this is irrelevant to you, I tend to get chatty on this topic.

[Niya]

I only have experience on a VDR-HTPC (just tv recording/playback, no streaming since our WLAN is really shitty in the living room...) that runs linux, so it will probably only partially match what you want.
Building a HTPC isn't really an issue. There are pc cases like the Silverstone ML03 where you can use (almost) standard-sized hardware. Micro-ATX mainboard, low-profile CPU cooler, standard PSU, standard 5,25" optical drive (just watch the depth of the drive, too long ones can "collide" with the PSU) and several HDDs.
Harmony remote should be no problem, we use one ourselves. You just need an IR receiver on the PC end, there are countless models that range from USB sticks over little circuit boards that connect to an internal serial header to plain IR diodes you connect to a so-called CIR header (some mainboards, especially models from AsRock have them).
As orinthia already said, actual BD images will only work on windows (if at all) because the AACS encryption hasn't really been broken yet. If you only mean BD-source rips with a high bitrate, those should play on a linux box with Kodi just fine as long as the network link is fast enough.

Can't say anything about arkannas statement about the needed performance, my VDR can easily handle recording 2 streams and playing one back (locally) on a single WD green HDD, and it has "only" 8GB RAM and a Haswell Celeron. Though I have to mention that the actual video rendering for the TV is handled by a Geforce GPU because the Intel IGP performs really poor under linux.
I could try out how well my box can handle streaming 1080 videos, have some h264-encoded videos with about 4mbit/s total bitrate on my NAS (though that test would be over wire, like I said our WLAN is REALLY shitty...)

[SephYuyX]

I'm lazy and just built a rig, put it behind the TV, connected via HDMI, and run XBMC on of it (which really isn't necessary). There's really no need to get any fancier unless you're trying to like.. utilize all these new technologies and stuff. Nothing wrong using tried and true methods.

[Arkanna]

One important note to add is that there is an official Kodi remote available for both iOS and Android. Obviously it makes your smartphone/tablet act as a remote that doesn't need line-of-sight with the HTPC in order to work. Kodi has a web interface that needs to be enabled, then you just install the app on your phone and tell it the IP of your HTPC.

I have this on my phone and my wife's phone because I don't want to add an IR receiver to the bedroom TV or our workout room TV.

Last thing, as Niya alluded to above, I probably went overboard with the hardware in my HTPC's. But, with a 6-channel PCIe tuner and a wife/kid that are addicted to television, I didn't want to go too light and have performance problems. My wife deletes a lot of what she records without watching it, but just the same, all 6 channels on the tuner are frequently busy. I had to cancel numerous recordings this fall/winter to watch football, fucking hell.

[Tyche]

When I say Blu Ray backups, I mean full, like, 40-50GB backups of actual blu rays with 30+ mbps bitrates. If I'm going to spend $2,000+ on a TV, I'm making damn sure I'm not just watching compressed mkv files on it. I'm thinking it'd almost be more beneficial to buy a blu ray player, burner, and get a large spindle of 50gb BD-Rs. I just hate having discs these days. Streaming from a PC or NAS just seems so much more convenient.

I actually think it may be possible to back up BD ISOs to a lossless, uncompressed MKV using something like bytecopy. Then stream the mkv file to an HTPC. Not sure. If I'm running a video with a bitrate of, let's say 35mbps (I think that's the bitrate for The Martian), I would think that the 5gHz band on a wireless AC router would be more than sufficient to handle that throughput.

[Arkanna]

I can't add anything unfortunately, my house is wired for gigabit ethernet.

[Obiron]

I've ripped my blurays to an uncompressed m2ts format. It's been a couple years since I've done any ripping, so I can't remember all the exact tools I used off the top of my head. I think ClownBD, with some dependencies that it requires (tsmuxer, etc). I think my largest movie is The Dark Knight, at around 35GB. I haven't tried streaming over wifi, I have ethernet throughout the house.

To try to answer a few things that have come up:

-I'm running Kodi on three machines. Two Raspeberry Pis, and one media PC I built with an Atom processor a few years ago. The Raspberrys are a bit slow with the interface, but playback is very smooth. The Atom is smooth all around. You don't need a very strong CPU to handle hi res playback, even with files that large, unless you want to get into PVR functionality like others have mentioned.
-Speaking of the Raspberrys, they have 100MB networking, so I would imagine you could wifi stream fairly well with a good router, but I can't confirm that.
-All of my media is stored on a file server, which is just an old PC with some drives in a RAID 5, running Ubuntu. You'll need something to store/share your files if you don't want a ton of storage on your htpc, but the options there are pretty much wide open.
-I also run Plex server on my file server. I use Kodi within my house, but Plex is nice for being able to access my content when I'm away from home.
-I use a logitech harmony as my remote on my main media PC (I use the app on my phone for the Raspberrys). One thing to keep in mind is that you will need a USB dongle to receive the signal from the remote. I bought a Windows remote and use that dongle. There may be better options now, but that's been working well for about 5 years now.

[Kryssan]

I guess my question is, what do you mean by "backups". Are you using ISOs, did you just pull the AACS off and use the folder to view it, did you extract it into MKV or rip it with Handbrake? Lots of different ways to read it. My library for Emby is mkv, mov, and maybe one or two mp4s. When I initially set it up I tried on my Avoton C2550, it could handle DVD streaming but couldn't do Bluray without stuttering - some of my bluray files can get up to 40GB a pop ( most are in the 20-30 range; DVDs are 1-7GB depending with episodal files ranging anywhere from 500MB-a few gigs ).

I'm using a spare i7 4770S now, reading the files over NFS and it generally has no issues streaming anything I want to anywhere I want. Emby supports QuickSync now which is supposed to be a substantive improvement with transcoding but basically "only if the server is on Windows". You can do it with Linux, but it's more work. Right now my library is on Debian8, but once I enact my plan mentioned elsewhere here to upgrade my homelab I'll put Emby on a Win7 hardware instance dedicated to itself. I find that my work phone with 3G cannot play hardly any video, but one of my friends with a home cell phone on 4G played Frozen ( 3.3GB ) from my library to keep his kid entertained on a trip somewhere. I don't typically use WiFi but if I'm sick or something I can play my library from Emby without issue on my iPad or Kindle - and I believe those are G devices, not N. Certainly not AC. Emby can transcode and lower the bitrate though, and I know I've had to do that once or twice before.

Prior to setting up Emby I used ISOs or just folders of DVDs and played them with CyberPower. I know, I know, but they were the only ones who could do bluray with menus. That you had to have Windows for and good luck reading a huge ISO over WiFi without burps in the line.

[Tyche]

So after a month or so of debating on buying vs building, I stumbled across the Nvidia Shield TV. Runs android marshmallow (kodi support and pretty much everything else). Will run 4k @60hz (which would've required at minimum a GTX 950 in an HTPC for HDMI 2.0), has expandable memory with micro SD slot as well as the ability to plug in external thumb and hard drives. Also has gigabit Ethernet, wireless ac with mimo (I have an r7500 router, so mimo support). Runs a tegra X1 chip. Also has IR sensor, so it'll work with my harmony remote. This thing seems like one of the best kept secrets in media boxes, why am I just getting wind of it?

I mean, this shit is just $200 and I'm pretty damn confident I couldn't build an HTPC capable of everything this could do for twice that much. Someone tell me why this isn't a no-brainer.

[The Stig]

This thing seems like one of the best kept secrets in media boxes, why am I just getting wind of it?

You're not alone. Nvidia Shield TABLET wipes the floor over pretty much every other tablet for its price and performance and hardly anyone is aware of it.

The Shield TV I would expect no less. However you would want to go for the 500gb option, as I don't think you can plug anything else except a MicroSD into it. It'll double as a gaming machine (casual) for guests/visitors if you buy the controller (or see if you can hook up a PS4/Xbone controller to it).

Edit: not sure about Kodi but unless you got external storage (like a server, but I dunno if you can point Kodi to it) then you can revert to the 16gb version.

[Bardicrune]

However you would want to go for the 500gb option, as I don't think you can plug anything else except a MicroSD into it.

Per specs on the website

STORAGE: 16 GB and 500 GB (Note: portion of storage occupied by system software) Expandable with microSD card or USB drive.

[The Stig]

Oh that's surpreme! The site I checked (an external) didn't mention that.

So in that case, yeh, feed a 2tb USB portable drive on it, gg.

[DrClout]

So after a month or so of debating on buying vs building, I stumbled across the Nvidia Shield TV. Runs android marshmallow (kodi support and pretty much everything else). Will run 4k @60hz (which would've required at minimum a GTX 950 in an HTPC for HDMI 2.0), has expandable memory with micro SD slot as well as the ability to plug in external thumb and hard drives. Also has gigabit Ethernet, wireless ac with mimo (I have an r7500 router, so mimo support). Runs a tegra X1 chip. Also has IR sensor, so it'll work with my harmony remote. This thing seems like one of the best kept secrets in media boxes, why am I just getting wind of it?

I mean, this shit is just $200 and I'm pretty damn confident I couldn't build an HTPC capable of everything this could do for twice that much. Someone tell me why this isn't a no-brainer.

Did you already pick it up? If so which one and how's the experience so far? I totally agree with you that I couldn't have built something with these capabilities (if they hold true) with just $200-300. With a NAS, Google Apps for games and other streaming services, this might be legit a heavy contender.

[Tyche]

I did pick it up. Oddly enough, the package I got for $200 included a remote (which I didn't need). That bundle is typically $250 on amazon, but was $200 at best buy. It was in regular retail packaging, so I returned the remote to best buy, so I actually paid $150 for it. That's just a bit more than a Roku 4 for a much better device.

I didn't get a lot of time to play with it, but I threw some really high bit rate videos at it. Handled it fine. Kodi worked great. The video game mirroring worked great played fallout 4 on my 4k TV. Puts out 4k video at 60hz. I mean, its a silly good device for the price. Probably the best streaming device short of a well built HTPC. No complaints whatsoever.

Also, I tested the expandable memory. Soon as you plug an external drive or microSD card into the device, it prompts you to set up as a file transfer or to use as storage for the OS. So the 500GB version is useless. Get the 16GB and throw an external HD into it.

[The Stig]

Nice to know, thanks.

Did your bundle come with the controller too? Or just the remote.

[Tyche]

All the bundles come with the controller. Most don't come with remote.