use mkvmerge. You can get one nice mkv file with NO quality difference from the DVD you have, and also throw away the trailers from the DVD. I've done it before and it doesnt take long too since its not encoding.

I can play back a 20gb mkv using wifi on xbmc using my Fire TV, so I dont agree with him. Just downloaded a 34gb mkv, will try and see. Shouldnt have buffering problem too since my phone able to stream wirelessly from my NAS~

lol yeah I saw wrongly
thing is i always use xbmc for NAS streaming that I forgot there are pl who use it for mashup , live tv, etc. I only have one fire TV so cant test firetv to firetv, but upon testing the 34gb mkv file, there are small pause every 15-20 minutes which im sure can be solved by increasing xbmc's cache. If not, its defintely caused by the wireless n chip of the fireTV. My note 3 can stream the 34gb file from my NAS without slowdown at all, even after half an hour, but that's wireless AC.But since most of my movies are below 10gb, im not gonna bother with a cable lol. bdmv I never try before

maybe when guardian of the galaxy comes out, I'll try bdmv

celeron is good enough, you will get everything you need with it...23.976Hz playback, HD audio passthrough....and of course the more usual stuffs like smooth 1080p playback. Just make sure you get an SSD or msata as the HDD
If you got more cash to splurge, feel free to go for the i3 or i5 version, but not really required for xbmc or casual windows 8 usage

all the info u need is here

http://kodi.wiki/view/Intel_NUC

it seems to be that HD audio is only available on linux for celeron, so i3 would be your best bet if you need HD audio

This post has been edited by arslow: Nov 27 2014, 10:46 AM

yup thats the way to go, especially since its not that expensive nowadays anyway, price has come down considerably since launch. You should be able to use every single capability of kodi with the NUC

plex is for you


https://plex.tv/

install the server software on your server, and the client software on your android device, you can eaily change the quality to 1mbps 480p, as longa s your server has an ok CPU

have a 24/7 i3 4130 NAS turned on 24/7, didnt really notice an increase in electricity bill before and after getting it
Haswell standby performance is REALLY low, not much to worry on terms of power consumption

I dont have a Kill-A-Watt meter or anything so can only give a subjective answer to this, but there are many data available online which further proves my point~

not accurate ones u can manually alter the search term, using the webGUI. Just try exploring the webGUI and try out the functions, should be a pro in using it in no time


click the fix incorrect match button to fix the incorrect one

yes, all your points are very true, and the main reason i went for that i3 rather than a simple celeron was because of plex. xbmc is used for playing back media on the tv, but with the plexbmc addon, so the core of my media consumption is the plex media server (on unRAID OS which is based on Slackware)

NUC is more of a really premium way of maxing out the capabilities of xbmc. iinm a raspberry pi isnt able to passthrough HD audio, though I have no idea if he needs that or even has a receiver capable of decoding those formats

This post has been edited by arslow: Nov 29 2014, 10:59 PM

its a sin to transcode remuxed BDs
those are usually played back on the TV on my fireTV. Plex is used only for series as they are watched using mobile devices by many in the house, or even when we're outside. Just tried a few scenarios:-( server is set at "make my CPU hurt" settings)

1 1080p transcode(with int. sub and max quality settings) and 1 720p transode(with int. sub and max quality settings) was smooth,. do note audio was also being transcoded here.

3 720p transcode with the above settings was also smooth. 2 1080p trancodes at the same time wasnt possible without buffering on one client. This is more than enough for my current situation as most clients plys back the videos without video transcode and only audio transcode, which doesnt pose any issue up to 5 simultaneous transcodes( I have not tried more than that, as even 5 is an unlikely situation lol)

all the above transcodes are itunes videos(WEB-DLs)

did try with one remux, transformers 4 with similar settings as above, couldnt have another 720p trancode at the same time without buffering lol. But then again a movie is never played using plex on a mobile device, unless its a laptop, and that doesnt need a video transcode.

was almost gonna get a xeon while NAS shopping, glad I didnt but yeah transcoding is really heavy on the CPU

the raspi is a great client to get xbmc up and running for someone who doesnt require much from xbmc (basically most of the casual users) but the board itself, with its appearance would most probably put off alot of people, thinking its something for advanced tinkerers

If only I can somehow get 23.976Hz and HD audio passthrough on my fireTV, things would be so perfect...

This post has been edited by arslow: Nov 29 2014, 11:44 PM

of course can, but im not sure how you wanna give a constant power supply to the device AND connect the phone to the TV, unless you wanna use mirroring only

for me, if in bed, its definitely plex, while kodi on tv, both shares the same library

but of course I dont use those channels/addons stuff so this is possible for me

Yeah, the q5 in Malaysia are mostly the China one, which is just not good for local playback, if you need features like perfect 23.976hz, Atmos, 3d mvc ISO playback. You will need to get the European one for those.

But the again if addons are your main source for entertainment in kodi then it's not gonna make a difference, be it China or Europe model.

And yes, it uses a wrapper on the European version.