Finally I have a state of the art streaming box which is capable of automatic frame switching ...
plus has ability to play local content, even without transcoding
plus has ability to play 4k
plus supports Bluetooth headsets
plus has full app support
plus has a sleek design
plus can passthrough the audio signal
The first app which enables that all is ... tata ... Firecores Infuse App. With the release 5.6.2 is uses the potential of tvOS11.2 (still beta) to display any video at the native frame rate ... Hooray.
I waited for this since 2010 ... long way home ... so bye bye Dune ... good old friend.
One thing is missing to most complete streaming box ever and that is the Amazon Prime App, but I am pretty much confident that this will be available soon.
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Saturday, November 18, 2017
2017 Setup (all 1080p)
Displays:
Sony 42 Zoll W805, European model
Epson TW 4400 projecting on a 90" (200cm by 112cm) screen
(all in our living room)
Player:
Dune Prime HD (2009 model), Meanwhile supported by DPC Plex plugin
VU Solo 4k (prepared for 4k) Satellite receiver with hard disk, enables to stream to Ipad (the concept is working since the first iPad generation
Apple TV 4k
Server:
i7 7500T (35W) Skylake CPU with hardware transcoding accelerator (Quick Sync Video)
10TB storage in a Raid 1 config
Plexserver
Mobile Devices:
Ipad Air 16GB
Ipad Pro (2015) 128GB
Plex App on all devices (including the satellite receiver, not counting the Plex App in the TV).
Apps on the Apple devices:
Plex
Infuse
Netflix
VU Player (in theory the satellite receiver supports up to 8 clients simultaneously each with different channel tuned, dish has to be updated with a LNB which support FBC).
Sony 42 Zoll W805, European model
Epson TW 4400 projecting on a 90" (200cm by 112cm) screen
(all in our living room)
Player:
Dune Prime HD (2009 model), Meanwhile supported by DPC Plex plugin
VU Solo 4k (prepared for 4k) Satellite receiver with hard disk, enables to stream to Ipad (the concept is working since the first iPad generation
Apple TV 4k
Server:
i7 7500T (35W) Skylake CPU with hardware transcoding accelerator (Quick Sync Video)
10TB storage in a Raid 1 config
Plexserver
Mobile Devices:
Ipad Air 16GB
Ipad Pro (2015) 128GB
Plex App on all devices (including the satellite receiver, not counting the Plex App in the TV).
Apps on the Apple devices:
Plex
Infuse
Netflix
VU Player (in theory the satellite receiver supports up to 8 clients simultaneously each with different channel tuned, dish has to be updated with a LNB which support FBC).
Friday, November 17, 2017
Update Q4 2017 - There is light at the end of the tunnel ...
What happened in the last two years:
A lot of hardware came to the market which, I tested none of them ... lack of time. Interesting might be Sony PS4 Pro and Xbox One X as they support UHD 4k and as well the whole streaming apps. On top the Xbox one X no gives the customer a UHD Bluray player in their hands. Still both boxes have active cooling with a fan, which might be an issue for some people including me.
Dune also brought some new 4k models to the market, but unfortunately the DPC plugin is not yet available, even there is someone in the Plex forum working on it. But no progress lately.
I gave up on the Raspi solution. Why:
a) it does not support without any pain (or not at all) Netflix and Amazon Prime
b) it does hardly support (might be not true, but painful) Bluetooth for headsets.
I bypassed b) with a Bluetooth aux in device. That I used also to attach it to the Dune player (as it was still the best quality player for Plex). Connecting to such Bluetooth receiver devices is sometimes not straight forward. But BT is generally sometimes nasty. Apple kind of reacted on this with the W1 chip,which I never had an experience with, restricted to EarPods and Beats headsets I think.
Connecting a BT headset to the FireTV: That is the worst experience ever, you have always to go via a new pair cycle, at least for my headset (Sennheiser Momentum2). That is so bad ... so I gave up on the FireTV ... even I had installed Kodi and with the Kodi-connect plugin with official Plex "support" (as one can talk of that currently ... another story)
Apple TV4K!!!!
So what happened: Already with announcement of the new iPad Pro models there rises some hope at my site, that things will become better at Apple playing video well. Why: The brought in this new display technology which they call "ProMotion technology". This is supported with (at that time new) A10X SoC the first time. They already gave the information, that for the first time cinema movies will be played back on the iPad with 24 frames ... Hooray!
So my takeaway was: Hopefully this will be transferred to the ATV4K ultimately.
And the ATV4K came out ... and yeah it has it, since it has the same processor A10X. So I ran in the Apple store and checked the video settings. So it has 24p settings, but unfortunately only 4k HDR and SDR at 24p, not 1080p. So that disappointed me a bit ... but this was for tvOS 11.0.
So meanwhile the tvOS 11.2 beta is out and --- tata ---- it has some very important enhancements:
Dynamic Framerate Switching
Dynamic HDR Switching
And it supports 1080p at 24p as well!
So hoping for that I bought the Apple TV 4K even before that announcement (having some free time during serious back issue period). And yes I can confirm that 24p playback is possible for all material, if you switch manually to 24p. So Apple TV can play 24p material without any issues (at least what I can prove with my 1080p SDR setup).
And in the beta the automatic switching is already working for Netflix and itunes Movies.
Apps like Plex and Infuse, which do not use the standard player (at least that is the assumption) have to do some work, but be patient - once the 11.2 is officially out there will be updates available. At least Infuse already announced.
As to Apps:
1) Plex: Plex lately struggles a bit with support. So many user are complaining here and there. Some are active Plex subscribers (as I am), and they don't get support at all. So paying 5$ per month is not a lot, but summarizing that over years it is a lot. So I am considering to stop my subscription. Actually there is only one feature I will miss with not being an active subscriber: Streaming from one iPad to another one for mobile use (in my case important, since only one iPad has 128GB storage).
2) For that Reason: Is started with Infuse: I like it very much, it does not transcode, has it own video player. And once it has implemented the automatic switching before Plex I will go all in. Means end the plex subscription.
Transcoding: I accept transcoding (I even updated my server for that reason). But I don't think a device like ATV4K attached physically to the LAN should not need transcoding, bandwidth and everything is available. So why? Actually I see some trend to go in that direction, but that is far away from being productive.
Ironically I have (from older times) some problematic video streams (interlace transport streams) which don't playback the video but only the audio. Reason: It tries to direct play it. It fails. So the workaround is enable transcoding manually. Not a good experience for the user. So I a complaint about this - as many other users - but simply no reaction. So sad ... even doing to beta testing does not address this problems.
Finally: I wait for the Amazon Prime App on ATV. Here my hope is it appears simultaneously with the tvOS11.2 and plays smoothly everything with the frame-rate switching.
I will update!
PS: Because of Westworld I bought the Sky streaming box, which is the ROKU box in fact. That box is the crappiest ever I had in my hands, it is not worth to write anything about it (most likely this box is a ROKU 3 box, so older device).
A lot of hardware came to the market which, I tested none of them ... lack of time. Interesting might be Sony PS4 Pro and Xbox One X as they support UHD 4k and as well the whole streaming apps. On top the Xbox one X no gives the customer a UHD Bluray player in their hands. Still both boxes have active cooling with a fan, which might be an issue for some people including me.
Dune also brought some new 4k models to the market, but unfortunately the DPC plugin is not yet available, even there is someone in the Plex forum working on it. But no progress lately.
I gave up on the Raspi solution. Why:
a) it does not support without any pain (or not at all) Netflix and Amazon Prime
b) it does hardly support (might be not true, but painful) Bluetooth for headsets.
I bypassed b) with a Bluetooth aux in device. That I used also to attach it to the Dune player (as it was still the best quality player for Plex). Connecting to such Bluetooth receiver devices is sometimes not straight forward. But BT is generally sometimes nasty. Apple kind of reacted on this with the W1 chip,which I never had an experience with, restricted to EarPods and Beats headsets I think.
Connecting a BT headset to the FireTV: That is the worst experience ever, you have always to go via a new pair cycle, at least for my headset (Sennheiser Momentum2). That is so bad ... so I gave up on the FireTV ... even I had installed Kodi and with the Kodi-connect plugin with official Plex "support" (as one can talk of that currently ... another story)
So whery is the light?
Apple TV4K!!!!
So what happened: Already with announcement of the new iPad Pro models there rises some hope at my site, that things will become better at Apple playing video well. Why: The brought in this new display technology which they call "ProMotion technology". This is supported with (at that time new) A10X SoC the first time. They already gave the information, that for the first time cinema movies will be played back on the iPad with 24 frames ... Hooray!
So my takeaway was: Hopefully this will be transferred to the ATV4K ultimately.
And the ATV4K came out ... and yeah it has it, since it has the same processor A10X. So I ran in the Apple store and checked the video settings. So it has 24p settings, but unfortunately only 4k HDR and SDR at 24p, not 1080p. So that disappointed me a bit ... but this was for tvOS 11.0.
So meanwhile the tvOS 11.2 beta is out and --- tata ---- it has some very important enhancements:
Dynamic Framerate Switching
Dynamic HDR Switching
And it supports 1080p at 24p as well!
So hoping for that I bought the Apple TV 4K even before that announcement (having some free time during serious back issue period). And yes I can confirm that 24p playback is possible for all material, if you switch manually to 24p. So Apple TV can play 24p material without any issues (at least what I can prove with my 1080p SDR setup).
And in the beta the automatic switching is already working for Netflix and itunes Movies.
Apps like Plex and Infuse, which do not use the standard player (at least that is the assumption) have to do some work, but be patient - once the 11.2 is officially out there will be updates available. At least Infuse already announced.
As to Apps:
1) Plex: Plex lately struggles a bit with support. So many user are complaining here and there. Some are active Plex subscribers (as I am), and they don't get support at all. So paying 5$ per month is not a lot, but summarizing that over years it is a lot. So I am considering to stop my subscription. Actually there is only one feature I will miss with not being an active subscriber: Streaming from one iPad to another one for mobile use (in my case important, since only one iPad has 128GB storage).
2) For that Reason: Is started with Infuse: I like it very much, it does not transcode, has it own video player. And once it has implemented the automatic switching before Plex I will go all in. Means end the plex subscription.
Transcoding: I accept transcoding (I even updated my server for that reason). But I don't think a device like ATV4K attached physically to the LAN should not need transcoding, bandwidth and everything is available. So why? Actually I see some trend to go in that direction, but that is far away from being productive.
Ironically I have (from older times) some problematic video streams (interlace transport streams) which don't playback the video but only the audio. Reason: It tries to direct play it. It fails. So the workaround is enable transcoding manually. Not a good experience for the user. So I a complaint about this - as many other users - but simply no reaction. So sad ... even doing to beta testing does not address this problems.
Finally: I wait for the Amazon Prime App on ATV. Here my hope is it appears simultaneously with the tvOS11.2 and plays smoothly everything with the frame-rate switching.
I will update!
PS: Because of Westworld I bought the Sky streaming box, which is the ROKU box in fact. That box is the crappiest ever I had in my hands, it is not worth to write anything about it (most likely this box is a ROKU 3 box, so older device).
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