Most Affordable Google-Certified Media Player Supporting Dolby Vision, HDR10+, Dolby Atmos, and DTS-HD

[tectpro]

Ethernet over USB could be a solution.

I'll see if I can test that.

This is actually a reason I stick with my Roku Ultra. It can handle the wifi throughput. The ONLY knock I have on it is since it does not handle the uncompressed sound streams Plex has to transcode for it.

I'll need to setup a small network, it might take me a while to test this, since I need to do other stuff as well.

 

[cartman0208]

But it's only 100mb and my 4k streams seems to push maybe 100-150

Really? But that can only be peaks
The highest bitrate video I have is the Gemini Man UHD rip where the video stream goes up to 85mbit/s due to 60FPS HFR ... if I add 5mbit for audio, it's still below 100

 

[coopervid]

That would work with the internet.
But not the internal network, as far as I recall.

I think as long as your internet speed is not the bottleneck but your WiFi speed this test would be sufficient.

 

[tectpro]

I think as long as your internet speed is not the bottleneck but your WiFi speed this test would be sufficient.

Roger that. But it will take a while.

 

[James]

Really? But that can only be peaks
The highest bitrate video I have is the Gemini Man UHD rip where the video stream goes up to 85mbit/s due to 60FPS HFR ... if I add 5mbit for audio, it's still below 100

In my experience 100 MBit/s is very "close to the edge". 1GBit/s is much, much better. Good streaming boxes (did I mention Nvidia Shield TV?) have Gigabit Ethernet, and it shows with NFS or SMB access to very big NAS over Ethernet.
USB3 to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (available for little money) could be a nice solution. I try to avoid Wireless whenever I can, because ... it sucks.

 

[coopervid]

In my experience 100 MBit/s is very "close to the edge". 1GBit/s is much, much better. Good streaming boxes (did I mention Nvidia Shield TV?) have Gigabit Ethernet, and it shows with NFS or SMB access to very big NAS over Ethernet.
USB3 to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (available for little money) could be a nice solution. I try to avoid Wireless whenever I can, because ... it sucks.

It has no USB3 port, only USB2 which is limited t0 480 Mbit/s= 60MB/s but should be sufficient

 

[DQ]

Really? But that can only be peaks
The highest bitrate video I have is the Gemini Man UHD rip where the video stream goes up to 85mbit/s due to 60FPS HFR ... if I add 5mbit for audio, it's still below 100

Sorry man I was vague. The number I am mentioning is total bandwidth used vs sheer video bit rate. I know those things are probably not all that different form each other overall but I imagine bandwidth used is higher given the audio and the overhead. But that's also a number I get from Tautilli so there is no guarantee as to how accurate that is. But those are discs I rip with no transcoding.

 

[coopervid]

The maximum bitrate per spec for UHD disc is 144 Mbit/s = 18MB/s which equals 4x speed of disc drives. So with something in the 25 - 30 MB/s range you should be on the safe side using WiFi.

 

[DQ]

The maximum bitrate per spec for UHD disc is 144 Mbit/s = 18MB/s which equals 4x speed of disc drives. So with something in the 25 - 30 MB/s range you should be on the safe side using WiFi.

The bandwidth consumption I am looking at must be mb and not MB but I figured it was mb. But this is not coming off a disc. If's a file coming through Plex.

I know that Wifi on paper can handle far more that 150mb but that's not the question at hand. If the device we are talking about has poor implementations or low resources, 150mbs transfer and presenting that at the same time could choke the heck out of it.

For a $200 shield that's not a concern. For a $50 device making the claims that one does it's worth doublechecking. Only reason I am curious about that part.

 

[coopervid]

The bandwidth consumption I am looking at must be mb and not MB but I figured it was mb. But this is not coming off a disc. If's a file coming through Plex.

I know that Wifi on paper can handle far more that 150mb but that's not the question at hand. If the device we are talking about has poor implementations or low resources, 150mbs transfer and presenting that at the same time could choke the heck out of it.

For a $200 shield that's not a concern. For a $50 device making the claims that one does it's worth doublechecking. Only reason I am curious about that part.

The assumption was always that Plex is not the bottleneck but the WiFi connection to Plex or Kodi. And that was my point regarding the minimum WiFi transfer speed. And if you rip an UHD 1:1 you will see the maximum bitrate of 144 Mbit /s also on these files comimg from Plex or Kodi.

 

[DQ]

The assumption was always that Plex is not the bottleneck but the WiFi connection to Plex or Kodi. And that was my point regarding the minimum WiFi transfer speed. And if you rip an UHD 1:1 you will see the maximum bitrate of 144 Mbit /s also on these files comimg from Plex or Kodi.

Yes, that's about what I see. Tautulli say 150 but obviously close enough. Plex can be the bottleneck if its transcoding of course (video) but that's not the case here and that's how we arrive at about 150mb transfer. So that is why I am curious about the wifi performance on this device and or it's hardware resources.

 

[Jason90405]

I have this box. It's better than the Nvidia due to the HDR Youtube support and huge 32GB memory.

Dune HD Homatics Box R 4K Plus

2-in-1 Premium Netflix-certified Streaming Media Player + Dune HD Media Center. Netflix in 4K Dolby Vision & Atmos, AV1, 4GB, Wi-Fi 6, 1Gbit, ISO 4K DV P7 FEL. Extremely Feature-Rich Android TV Box. How to setup Dune HD Media Center: http://dune-hd.com/app Key Features Highlights...

www.dune-hd.com

It also has Ethernet support too and play Bluray Menu's

 

[tectpro]

I have this box. It's better than the Nvidia due to the HDR Youtube support and huge 32GB memory.

Dune HD Homatics Box R 4K Plus

2-in-1 Premium Netflix-certified Streaming Media Player + Dune HD Media Center. Netflix in 4K Dolby Vision & Atmos, AV1, 4GB, Wi-Fi 6, 1Gbit, ISO 4K DV P7 FEL. Extremely Feature-Rich Android TV Box. How to setup Dune HD Media Center: http://dune-hd.com/app Key Features Highlights...

www.dune-hd.com

It also has Ethernet support too and play Bluray Menu's

For roughly 50 USD more you can get an Nvidia shield.
Also, I was talking about an budget friendly device.

Additionally:
I wouldn't touch Dune players even with gloves on.

Why?
Problems with Dune players:
- Player not switching on
- Certain files not playing
- Some functions not working as expected
- Player crashes
- Missing files/folders when accessing via SMB
- Player not switching off with Bluetooth remote
- Issues with resuming playback
- Frequent freezing of the player
- Unplayability of some files
- Playback issues like freezing and stuttering

As for that specific model:
- TrueHD pass-through problem with eARC ports
- Optical output functionality concerns
- Device not turning on properly after sleep mode
- Difficulties in adjusting screen size with the remote
- Abnormal stripes during H.264 video playback


I'm not claiming the budget-friendly box is perfect, but at a certain price point, I expect a certain level of quality.

 

[tectpro]

Update on video playability l.

I played the videos with Kodi.

For the Jelly Fish Bitrate Test.
The box has no issue playing h264 till
jellyfish-110-mbps-hd-h264.mkv
After that there is no more HD video in h264 and the 4k video jellyfish-120-mbps-4k-uhd-h264.mkv, stutters when played.

As for hevc videos.
It was able to play the jellyfish-200-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit.mkv with no issues.
Once the jellyfish-250-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit.mkv is played it starts stuttering which gets worse with the higher bitrate videos from the Jelly Fish Bitrate test.


For the Kodi 4K (UltraHD) Formats it was able to play all videos that could be downloaded.

Exeptions:
- I wasn't able to download the videos from Mega. Still investigating.
- It stutters when playing the ProRes HDR DCI-P3 video and buffers a lot
- the dolby vision videos from Dolby pop an error 403 when trying to access them
- some formats I tested playing on YouTube and HDR PQ and HDR HLG did play and been reported by the TV with no issues.
- 8k to be tested

For the Video codecs that been on the jellyfish and Kodi page it supports
h264, h265 and h265 10bit, AV1 and VP9
H265 and h265 10bit, AV1 and VP9 also in 4K.
I did not test h264 in 4k with lower bitrate yet, will need to encode a testfile from the Jellyfish videos.

Tests are still on going.

 

[Jason90405]

For roughly 50 USD more you can get an Nvidia shield.
Also, I was talking about an budget friendly device.

Additionally:
I wouldn't touch Dune players even with gloves on.

Why?
Problems with Dune players:
- Player not switching on
- Certain files not playing
- Some functions not working as expected
- Player crashes
- Missing files/folders when accessing via SMB
- Player not switching off with Bluetooth remote
- Issues with resuming playback
- Frequent freezing of the player
- Unplayability of some files
- Playback issues like freezing and stuttering

As for that specific model:
- TrueHD pass-through problem with eARC ports
- Optical output functionality concerns
- Device not turning on properly after sleep mode
- Difficulties in adjusting screen size with the remote
- Abnormal stripes during H.264 video playback


I'm not claiming the budget-friendly box is perfect, but at a certain price point, I expect a certain level of quality.

But HDR on Youtube is very important to me. Unfortunately Nvidia is incapable of showing HDR on Youtube clips. I loved my Nvidia Shield for a long time but no HDR is a big problem for me.

 

[tectpro]

HDR and Audio (Atmos) passthrough in Kodi should work. If you have time to test this...

EDIT: And refresh rate setting, of course. (23.9/24/50/59.9 Hz).
This is very important.

HDR and Atmos pass through is no problem.

As for the refresh rate I only saw an switch for auto adjust.

But I run into issue now with ISOs not opening anymore.

Additionally Google TV seems now bit over the top with access right policies.

Ethernet over USB could be a solution.

Unfortunately I was not able to test this, I'm still looking for an adapter