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[vbphil]

Hi, I'm currently using MC26 on an older Lenovo ThinkCentre M53 Mini from my Home office. It streams audio pretty good throughout the house to various other devices. All's good. I'd like to move the mini to the living room's media cabinet where I can hook it up to my LG OLED 4K Smart TV, but i need an upgraded mini.

So, I'm in the market for a new Mini. I'm guessing that once I get hooked up to 4K video I'll want to do more with video, not sure what at this point, as well as just audio. I'm looking at something like an Asus VivoMini VM45. Are the Asus Mini's a reasonable choice or are the others?

Thanks,   -phil

[zybex]

I'm using a Gigabyte Brix and I'm extremely happy with it - it replaced my previous Zotac Zbox nano:
https://www.gigabyte.com/Mini-PcBarebone/GB-BLCE-4105-rev-10#ov

Quad-core CPU, 8 GB RAM, 512GB M.2 SSD, Win10. It supports 4K HEVC 10 bit hardware decoding, which is what I bought it for. I'm running MC26 server there, plus a whole bunch of other services. It's on 24/7.

It does have a small fan, but I'm yet to hear it - literally NEVER hear it working in idle, much less when something is playing.
If you need Digital audio out, there are other models with that. I output to the HDMI TV and from there to the amp.

[vbphil]

zybex, I'm curious, do you play video content from the PC like movies, games or other content? I'm not sure if I would since I have TiVo, Amazon Firestick and video apps on the TV as well.

[zybex]

I play everything via this HTPC:
- Mostly movies with JRiver's MC as front-end (but using MPC-HC as the player, I don't like the embedded player)
- Spotify for audio - I gave up having my own collection long ago, spotify is enough for my ears
- Netflix and Amazon Prime movies/series - the TV also has the apps, but I much prefer the speed and control of the Win10 apps
- Browsing and Youtube, limited use.
- Some simple games, not much... I have a dedicated gaming machine, this one doesn't have the horsepower for heavy gaming. It's great for party games though.

edit: for storage, I have 20 TB on a NAS sitting on another room where the fan noise doesn't bother.

[vbphil]

zybex, Where's a good online retailer for your BRIX?

[zybex]

That depends on your country.
I'm in germany and got it here: https://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/Gigabyte-GB-BLCE-4105-Brix_1287853.html

This is a barebone system - price doesn't include RAM, SSD and Windows, you need to get those separately, or get a ready-to-use model which is also sold in some places.
A keyboard/mouse also helps - I got a Logitech K400, and also an air-mouse thingy (like a remote) which is nice after you get used to it.

[fleetz]

That depends on your country.
I'm in germany and got it here: https://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/Gigabyte-GB-BLCE-4105-Brix_1287853.html

This is a barebone system - price doesn't include RAM, SSD and Windows, you need to get those separately, or get a ready-to-use model which is also sold in some places.
A keyboard/mouse also helps - I got a Logitech K400, and also an air-mouse thingy (like a remote) which is nice after you get used to it.

I am seeing fan noise as an issue are you experiencing this?

[zybex]

No, no noise at all. The fan noise issue (fan speed always at 100%) was apparently in the first units, and was fixed with a BIOS update. The one I bought was already updated and didn't have the problem. Meanwhile there have been further BIOS updates so that issue is long gone.

[algol]

Are you able to run Red October HQ decoder video without any issues on the Brix?  Also does it support 8 channel PCM audio over HDMI - I seem to recall some issue with that in the past?

[zybex]

The output is HDMI v2.0a, so it supports up to 32 audio channels, up to 4K@60hz video, HDR, the works:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#Version_2.0

Red October HQ... I had to run a bunch of tests to answer this.
TLDR:
- Red October HQ works in "Advanced -> Custom" mode, after switching the LAV HW Acceleration from DXVA2 Copy-Back to DXVA2 Native.
- 1080p plays fine with "Balanced" Quality Setting
- 4K plays fine with "Best Performance" Quality Setting, some stuttering on Balanced
- Best Quality is unwatchable with lots of stuttering/dropped frames

Longer answer:
I use JRiver as a library/catalog, but not as a player; instead, I use MPC-HC as an external player with my own config for MadVR and LAV filters. Anyway, I enabled JRiver's player and tested it with a mix of 1080p and 4K videos, x264 and HEVC, up to 25 Mbps (note: I've tested a 4K HEVC 10bit @ 140Mbps sample on MPC-HC with no problem

The default Red October HQ settings use a LAV Video Decoder config which doesn't work well on this MiniPC, causing lots of stuttering and dropped frames. The problem is the HW Acceleration mode in LAV, which is set to "DXVA2 (copy-back)". I had to change it to "DXVA2 (native)", and then everything works. Some older post-processing filters might not work with Native mode, but I haven't found any so far.
Copy-back vs Native: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX_Video_Acceleration#DXVA2_implementations:_native_and_copy-back

Copy-Back copies each frame back to main memory after decoding it, then the frame is post-processed (if needed) and sent back to the GPU frame-buffer for display. All this back-and-forth copying requires lots of PCI/DRAM bandwidth, and these cheap Celeron-based MiniPCs don't have enough of that.

"Quality Setting" options:
The Quality Setting in MC options corresponds to different post-processing options for MadVR renderer. Most of these options require heavy CPU usage, so they will cause stuttering on this low-power miniPC, because it takes too long to postprocess each frame. In general, I only enable HW-accelerated options in MadVR and disable all other fancy post processing options. I don't see the need for them anyway, as the picture quality is just awesome without them.

Best Performance: this is identical to what I use with MPC-HC; only HW accelerated options are enabled (DXVA), and some performance optimizations are also enabled. This plays anything and everything I throw at it without any frame drop. CPU usage hovers at just 20% and 1GHz speed, basically the GPU is doing all the work.

Balanced: This enables some MadVR post-processing filters, using more CPU. It plays all 1080p content fine, but 4K stutters with some frame drops. CPU usage goes up to 70% for 1080p and 100% for 4K, and CPU speed is now at 2 GHz. GPU usage is also higher (more shaders running). I don't see *any* difference at all in visual quality, but maybe that's just me.

Best Quality: More MadVR software post-processing options are enabled and a few HW acceleration options are now disabled, with heavier software algorithms selected instead. This is too much for this little Celeron, and now even 1080p stutters.

One side note: my TV is 1080p, not 4K. Any video not in native resolution needs to be upscaled or downscaled - this is where MadVR post-processing options enter the picture. Up/Downscaling can be done via hardware (DXVA2) which is very fast, or via software with different algorithms which will require a fast CPU - more so for 4K as it has to process 4x as many pixels as 1080p. So while I have issues playing 4K video on my 1080p TV with software scaling enabled, on a 4K TV the problem is most likely reversed: 4K streams will play just fine, but 1080p will stutter due to software downscaling. YMMV.

With HW/DXVA options, the GPU does it all on the fly and these issues are not present. If you want to have those software post-processing filters for chroma/upscale/downscale/effects/etc, you'll need a beefier CPU. It's not so much about the GPU, which can handle anything just fine; it's the software post-processing that needs more CPU power to run the algorithms in real time. Personally, I don't see any quality improvement with these software options, so I'm happy with this little PC.

(edited)

[algol]

Thanks for the answers and all the research/testing that went into getting the answers!  I'm only doing 1080p for now so this looks like a good solution.