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[Paul S.A. Renaud]

I am studying the options to start playing 4k HDR content with JRiver on a big screen. So far I am using JRiver MAC and watch video on an Apple Macbook Pro computer. All my video-material is on a Synology NAS. I was thinking of using a NUC (windows 10) with JRiver Windows and connect audio via USB to DAC (I am only into two channel) and connect video via HDMI to smart TV (with HDR 10 en DV support). What are the minimum requirements for the NUC in terms of CPU, but also GPU / Videocard. What needs to be done to have HDR10 or DV play flawlessly on the Smart TV?

[BryanC]

It's complicated and depends on the bitrate of your source content as well as your hardware display. To simplify matters I would just try and make sure that my hardware is capable of hardware decoding everything. You can achieve this with an Intel iGPU using QuickSync, and you can check generational format support here. I'm personally holding out for AV1 hardware decode for additional futureproofing which means I am waiting for the Tiger Lake NUCs. If all of your rips are 10-bit HEVC, then you can get away with hardware decoding on anything newer than Apollo Lake.

If you are using an older CPU you can always pair it with a GPU that supports hardware decoding additional formats. For Nvidia this is called PureVideo (HEVC 10-bit is Feature Set F+) and AMD's is UVD (HEVC 10-bit is UVD 6.0+).

The other concern is your display. Is this a capable HDR display (local dimming, high contrast, etc.)? If not, the display will perform tonemapping which is typically quite crappy. Luckily you can perform tonemapping in madVR for much better results, although it requires some serious GPU horsepower (at least the equivalent of a GTX 1650, depending on the source content) and some fiddling.

This all assumes that your content is 10-bit HEVC Main-10 profile rips. If it is not, then there are many other considerations to make regarding software decoding and upsampling.

[Paul S.A. Renaud]

It's complicated and depends on the bitrate of your source content as well as your hardware display. To simplify matters I would just try and make sure that my hardware is capable of hardware decoding everything. You can achieve this with an Intel iGPU using QuickSync, and you can check generational format support here. I'm personally holding out for AV1 hardware decode for additional futureproofing which means I am waiting for the Tiger Lake NUCs. If all of your rips are 10-bit HEVC, then you can get away with hardware decoding on anything newer than Apollo Lake.

If you are using an older CPU you can always pair it with a GPU that supports hardware decoding additional formats. For Nvidia this is called PureVideo (HEVC 10-bit is Feature Set F+) and AMD's is UVD (HEVC 10-bit is UVD 6.0+).

The other concern is your display. Is this a capable HDR display (local dimming, high contrast, etc.)? If not, the display will perform tonemapping which is typically quite crappy. Luckily you can perform tonemapping in madVR for much better results, although it requires some serious GPU horsepower (at least the equivalent of a GTX 1650, depending on the source content) and some fiddling.

This all assumes that your content is 10-bit HEVC Main-10 profile rips. If it is not, then there are many other considerations to make regarding software decoding and upsampling.

Thanks for the input. I am buying a new Smart TV anyway and the ones I am looking at all have the necessary specs. I also will buy a new NUC for this.

My rips are all from original 4K HDR discs which I own and paid for. I use MakeMKV.

However, my collection of these HDR discs is still small (<25). Most people will probably think: forget the whole HDR thing. For me it is just a challenge to make it work.

[BryanC]

If you just need 10-bit HEVC/VP9 decoding using Red October Standard then any NUC post-Apollo Lake will work.

You can see the list of NUCs here, beginning with the oldest generation (Apollo Lake) that will work for your needs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Unit_of_Computing#Apollo_Lake_2

There are other compact options besides the NUC like embedded Ryzen (Udoo Bolt, V1000, etc.) which may give you more bang for your buck. If you do want to utilize madVR for chroma upsampling then you'll want as powerful an iGPU as possible, and AMD still beats Intel in that regard.

[Paul S.A. Renaud]

In my home I mostly run an Apple environment (JRiver on Macbookpro, etc.). I have been considering buying a MAC mini (for audio with JRiver). So far, intuitively I have always been leaning towards a Windows NUC. Could a MacMini also be used for HDR/4K video playback with JRiver. Or do I need the windows NUC for the optimal video playback.

[zybex]

I use a Gigabyte Brix with a NAS on another room:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,126065.0.html

It does HW decode of up to 4K HEVC 10bit, CPU usage never goes above 20%.
I use MC as frontend, MPC-HC as the video player, MadVR with most options off (mostly DXVA HW options are on), and LAV Filters with HW accel options enabled.
An extremely important setting is the refresh-rate matching, ie, automatically sets the TV to whatever FPS the movie is on (23.976/24/25/30...). This plays any movie absolutely smoothly. I use MadVR to enable it, but MPC-HC also supports this directly.

I don't think you can get the same level of control on a Mac.