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[ted_b]

I have been a long-time JRiver user (even made some how-to videos for other audiophiles years ago).  The, long story someday, I got away from it somehow.  Well....I have just recently completed my new home theater/music room and I am finding myself immersed (pun intended) in both immersive movies (Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 setup) and in immersive music (Atmos, Auro-3D).

I bought a $279 Zidoo Z9X media server box from recommendations over on the AVS Forum, among others.  It does a great job on movie MKVs (ultra HD 4k, etc) and has nice movie capabilities (Dolby VS10 engine, etc).  But for immersive music (and anything else that needs format help and a good remote GUI) it is woefully lacking.  I end up splitting album-sized MKVs into chapetr-sized MKVs, which does no good for gapless music, tagging, etc.  Say nothing for Auro-3D stuff that comes in embedded FLACs (2L, etc) as the Z9X doesn't read the embedded height flag (my Sony bluray player USB does but no real GUI, etc).  My new home theater processor, A Lyngdorf MP-40, has ONLY 3 HDMi inputs (bluray and cable share one) so aside from my Apple TV4k HDMi input I have room for one more (the Zidoo Z9X one).  Suffice it to say I have no HTPC in the HT.

Soo.....I want my JRiver back!!    I don't think I need a lot of horsepower, but I may be dreaming.  I'm wondering if a JRiver ID, or another desktop box could work (now that JRiver's JRVR is fleshing out, at least on paper).  I need support for:
* MKV
* Auro-3D Embedded FLAC
* ability to tell box to send HDR or even SDR since my projector shows Dolby Vision a bit too dark
* send 3840 x 2160 23 or 24hz
* nice to have: MKA, M4A or MP4 support

I'm a vidiot so not sure if the video card in an ID or other NUC would do these things, but hell, the Zidoo was $279!

Any help to get me back to JRiver and it's fabulous JRemote (now called something else) would be a Christmas miracle. 
Thx
Ted

[JimH]

Hi Ted.  It's been a while.

I'll answer what I know.

>* MKV
Yes.  The wiki has a topic.  MC30 can rip using makeMKV.

>* Auro-3D Embedded FLAC
Yes for surround sound FLAC.

>* ability to tell box to send HDR or even SDR since my projector shows Dolby Vision a bit too dark
Yes.

>* send 3840 x 2160 23 or 24hz
If your display supports it.

>* nice to have: MKA, M4A or MP4 support
Yes on M4A, MKA, and MP4. 

It's easy enough to install and test MC30, leaving your old version in place.

You've got mail.

[ted_b]

Thanks Jim!  Do you or Hendrik have an idea of what size NUC I should put MC30 on, given the feature set I'm looking for?  I would guess the most horsepower is a 4k movie with some rendering, and an Atmos soundtrack? 
Thx
Ted

[JimH]

We don't make hardware recommendations.  There are just too many factors.

In general though, you shouldn't need lots of CPU power.  Video hardware, more so.

We don't have an Atmos license, but you can use bitstreaming.  Try searches here, using Google and adding JRiver.

There are video and hardware boards on the forum.

Try an old PC just to see how it does on what you want.

[eve]

We don't have an Atmos license

Jim,

We can take this to a PM but does this confirm that Dolby is open to the possibility of PC based playback software utilizing a software based Atmos decoder IF the licensing fee was paid per end user license?

Happy Holidays

[ted_b]

We don't make hardware recommendations.  There are just too many factors.

In general though, you shouldn't need lots of CPU power.  Video hardware, more so.

We don't have an Atmos license, but you can use bitstreaming.  Try searches here, using Google and adding JRiver.

There are video and hardware boards on the forum.

Try an old PC just to see how it does on what you want.

I'm not requesting hardware recommendations as much as asking the minimum requirements for JRVR.  And no, I do not need Atmos decoding licenses.....I have a Lyngdorf MP-40 pre/pro to do that. 

And thanks, but dragging an old computer down to the theater is not a test solution, but thanks anyway.  I'm kind of in a buy not build mentality right now.  Thx again....