Share your HTPCs/Media Player Horsepower.

sam9s

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I am creating this thread, just as a guide to our forum members who would want to know, what configuration and at the least price, will be enough to play most of the video files floating online. There are so many video codes out there. But the most common, today are H.264 and H.265. For audio also, most of us get confused if a particular configuration (Mobo or GPU) will pass through HD Audio (DTS-MA and Dolby True HD)? to the receiver. Lets collate this information here on this thread, as so many FMs have bought and also will purchase HTPCs and Media players. If they can perform small tests via sample files and post their results here, it would be very easy and useful for a potential buyer to refer this thread and order the hardware accordingly, specially in a budget.

What do you people have to say.

I will start with mine. I have 3 PCs that I have used as HTPC at some point or the other. One is NUC DN2820FYKH, other is Gigabyte E350N and my main HTPC is the one that I have the thread opened for. C2D@3Ghz, 4GB RAM and GT440. I will perform and share test results for my this HTPC. All HTPC were/are running openELEC latest version on SSD.

Before we move ahead let me share the demo test files you can download and perform the test and share here. For video files H.265/H,264 testing with and without 10 Bit color and profile from 4.0 to all the up to 6.1 can be downloaded from below link

Jellyfish Bitrate Test Files

You can download movie trailers in DTS-MA and PCM from below

Movie Trailers (HD)

More samples can be downloaded from below..

Samples - Official Kodi Wiki

Dolby TrueHD and ATmos can be downloaded from below

2D Demo Trailers (HD)



SO let continue

HTPC
C2D@3Ghz, 4GB RAM and GT440
Modo : ASUS P5B Delux


Below are my findings on the H.265/256 10 Bit testing.

jellyfish-3-mbps-hd-hevc.mkv PLAYABLE Smoothly
jellyfish-3-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv NOT Playable
jellyfish-10-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv NOT Playable
jellyfish-30-mbps-hd-hevc_4.1.mkv NOT Playable
jellyfish-110-mbps-hd-hevc.mkv Ofcourse not ,,, but gave it a shot .. :D

CONCLUSION

So for GT440, I guess the limit to play a H.265 (non 10 BIT) is max 3mbps. Anything above that would not play, (10 Bit anyhow would not play even for 3mbps). This is not surprising since GT440 is GF108 feature set C card that fully and only supports, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2 (a.k.a. MPEG-4 ASP), VC-1/WMV9 and H.264. Infact I was surprised the the card played H.265 3mbps .. :), which its not supposed to.

But let see how high bandwidth the card can support as far as H.264 goes. So the experiment continues

jellyfish-30-mbps-hd-h264.mkv PLAYABLE
jellyfish-90-mbps-hd-h264_5.0profile.mkv PLAYABLE
jellyfish-110-mbps-hd-h264.mkv PLAYABLE
Jellyfish-120-mbps-4k-uhd-h264.mkv NOT Playable

And anything beyond this @ 4K was not playable.

CONCLUSION

So the limit ends the moment we enter the UHD 4K H.264@120mbps. The card was able to play H.264 110mbps 1080p flawless.

As far as Audio goes the card was able to bit stream all HD Audio from all MKVs and ISO files, including and not limited to 3D ISO files. For BD ISO I tested MI:III 22GB ISO. For MKV I tested full AVATAR 3D ISO rip to MKV and also tested AVATAR 3D ISO native format.

This card had no issue playing any of the ISO files.

For potential buyers, GT630 is now the currently rebranded version of GT440.

FMs now I would request, who so ever have media players and HTPCs please, do perform the test via downloading these files and share the results here.

Next very soon I will also test the following and report .

GTX 660 with same C2D, 4GB RAM
NUC DN2820FYKH with openELEC
Gigabyte E350N ::: This might be a bot difficult to test, since my kid is using this as his PC, but will try if I can manage to run tests on it.
Roku 3
Raspberry Pi 2


Finally this is only for MKVs with H.265/264 codes, there are loads of other codes out there like DIVX, XVID, VC-1,VC-3 ...etc etc ...which also I will include in this thread if there is enough interest.

PLease only include PCs that you use as HTPCs, dont include gaming PCs that you use for gaming and occasional Movie viewing. As far as possible include dedicated HTPCs and Media Players.

Turn for other FMs to contribute ,,,,,

Regards
Sammy
 
HTPC: AMD Athlon 5150, Asus AM1M-E Mobo, 4GB RAM

H.265: Not Playable

H.264:
jellyfish-30-mbps-hd-h264.mkv PLAYABLE
jellyfish-110-mbps-hd-h264.mkv PLAYABLE
Jellyfish-120-mbps-4k-uhd-h264.mkv NOT Playable

The Motherboard is capable of HD Audio pass-through for: Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital HD, Dolby Digital True HD, DTS, DTS HD, DTS HD MA
 
HTPC : NUC5PPYH
Display: Samsung JS9000
Source: Synology Diskstation

H.264 (majority) played via NUC
H.265 4K 10 bit (main 10) (don't have many but steam it directly from the source to the media player on the TV)

DTS-HD passthrough does not work via the NUC (regular DTS/AC3 works)
DTS-HD passthrough works via direct playback on TV as well as on STB HD channels

I don't like the interface of the TV media player and would prefer to playback everything through the NUC- waiting for the Kaby Lake NUCs to hit the market and come down in cost before I upgrade
 
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HTPC: AMD Athlon 5150, Asus AM1M-E Mobo, 4GB RAM

H.265: Not Playable

H.264:
jellyfish-30-mbps-hd-h264.mkv PLAYABLE
jellyfish-110-mbps-hd-h264.mkv PLAYABLE
Jellyfish-120-mbps-4k-uhd-h264.mkv NOT Playable

The Motherboard is capable of HD Audio pass-through for: Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital HD, Dolby Digital True HD, DTS, DTS HD, DTS HD MA

Those are really impressive results neo. Can you also test 3DISO. The more you test the more I am impressed with this chipset.:) Download from here. 3D test clips ... Samples - Official Kodi Wiki

and if you have full BD ISO at your disposal nothing better than that.. :)
 
Can you elaborate on that, HD Passthrough does not work via NUC but works directly ????

The NUC cannot do DTS-HD passthrough due to HDMI 1.4 limitations
However, if I use the default media player on the TV , the TV passes the audio as-is to the AVR via HDMI ARC.

The way the setup is wired is the NUC feeds directly into the HDMI2 on the one connect box on the TV and passes DTS/AC3 to the AVR via TOSLINK
The HDMI1 on the tv is hooked to the HDMI Out/ARC on the AVR.
All other sources (STB/PS4/chromecast) are connected to the AVR

So I get audio from the selected source directly on the AVR and via ARC for media that is played directly on the TVs decoder

I think I will get DTS-HD from the PS4 as well if I use it as a playback device but haven't tried it
 
The NUC cannot do DTS-HD passthrough due to HDMI 1.4 limitations
However, if I use the default media player on the TV , the TV passes the audio as-is to the AVR via HDMI ARC.

The way the setup is wired is the NUC feeds directly into the HDMI2 on the one connect box on the TV and passes DTS/AC3 to the AVR via TOSLINK
The HDMI1 on the tv is hooked to the HDMI Out/ARC on the AVR.
All other sources (STB/PS4/chromecast) are connected to the AVR

So I get audio from the selected source directly on the AVR and via ARC for media that is played directly on the TVs decoder

I think I will get DTS-HD from the PS4 as well if I use it as a playback device but haven't tried it
Superczar, the limitation is not of hdmi but of to slink which can't handle dtshd. Why don't you connect the nuc to the avr and check.

Sent from my ONE A2003 using Tapatalk
 
^^ I would prefer personal results, that our FMs have done by their own, but yes as a reference, I guess there is no harm in posting.

They are not that huge, you dont have to go all the way up to 400mbps, just around 140 mbps 10 BIT H.265 should be the limit, which is around 500MB. Try that. Also try 3D ISO demo click and Audio to test passthrough. Those are small files.

I would like you to perform HD Passthrough test from both kodi on Q10 and, Q10's own media player. I would also like to test true 24p playback of Q10, via both Kodi and its inbuilt Android Media player. Hope you can help in these tests ..... :)
 
PC: i3 2100/8GB/GT 730 (Kepler GK208)
Display: Philips 9703

60 mbps h.264 - Playable
60 mbps hevc - Playable

90 mbps h.264 - Playable
90 mbps hevc - Unplayable (22 fps)

120 mbps h.264 - Playable
120 mbps hevc 10 bit - Unplayable (18-19fps)

160mbps h.264 - Playable

So I'm okay with anything upto 60mbps HEVC and pretty much anything you throw at it h.264.
 
Interesting and no surprise to an extent, GT730, is feature set D card that has DCI 4K decoding, hence 60 Mbps hevc playable, which is the limit for this card, absolutely understandable. GT710 and GT720 should also perform the same, if I am not mistaken. GT710 for just 3K would be the card to look forward to, given the fact it should play H.265 60mbps. Not sure if it safe coz audio part is still missing, but it HD Audio is not what we are looking at, 60mbps for 4K should be sufficient.

@reignofchaos
how far were you able to push the card as far as H.264 goes like GT440 went till 110mbps 1080p, the moment it entered UHD 120mbps it stutters. Till what bitrate were you able to push GT730 on H.264?

Any BD ISO you have at your disposal that you can test as well ..... thanks for the inputs though ....
 
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Any media player public out there .... specially Minix UI and Himedia public, would love to see some results.
 
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Interesting and no surprise to an extent, GT730, is feature set D card that has DCI 4K decoding, hence 60 Mbps hevc playable, which is the limit for this card, absolutely understandable. GT710 and GT720 should also perform the same, if I am not mistaken. GT710 for just 3K would be the card to look forward to, given the fact it should play H.265 60mbps, which is more than sufficient.

@reignofchaos
how far were you able to push the card as far as H.264 goes like GT440 went till 110mbps 1080p, the moment it entered UHD 120mbps it stutters. Till what bitrate were you able to push GT730 on H.264?

Any BD ISO you have at your disposal that you can test as well ..... thanks for the inputs though ....

Upto 160 was playable but not beyond.
 
Himedia Q10 Pro results for H.265 playback:

jellyfish-3-mbps-hd-hevc.mkv - Playable
jellyfish-3-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv - Playable
jellyfish-10-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv - Playable
jellyfish-30-mbps-hd-hevc_4.1.mkv - Playable
jellyfish-110-mbps-hd-hevc.mkv - Playable

H.264 playback test results coming up ....
 
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^^ would love to see the HD Audio passthrough test as well via Kodi and Himedia own inbuilt media player ...:)
 
Hi Media Q10 Pro results for H.265 playback:

jellyfish-3-mbps-hd-hevc.mkv - Playable
jellyfish-3-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv - Playable
jellyfish-10-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv - Playable
jellyfish-30-mbps-hd-hevc_4.1.mkv - Playable
jellyfish-110-mbps-hd-hevc.mkv - Playable

H.264 playback test results coming up ....

Thanks how far can you push the player ... can you try the below and report

jellyfish-140-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit.mkv
 
Oh never mind. Some other fellow member might contribute... Thanks anyway

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk
 
Those are really impressive results neo. Can you also test 3DISO. The more you test the more I am impressed with this chipset.:) Download from here. 3D test clips ... Samples - Official Kodi Wiki

and if you have full BD ISO at your disposal nothing better than that.. :)

Downloaded 3D BD ISO sample from Kodi and it played fine without any issues. Also got some Dolby True HD and DTS HD MA samples which also ran fine with AVR showing correct stream being passed on from MB.

Trust me, for a budget of 12K, the HTPC that I built using AMD Athlon 5150 and Asus AM1M-E is VFM.
 
The Marantz PM7000N offers big, spacious and insightful sound, class-leading clarity and a solid streaming platform in a award winning package.
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