Is there a media player that isn't rubbish?

Incidentally, out of curiosity, am I the only one who hates Plex? :)

I've yet to find a DLNA server I like. For streaming at the moment I keep my files on the hard drive of a Windows 10 PC which is running a little shareware utility called Hanewin NFS server - that allows you to designate local Windows folders as NFS exports. Most streaming devices I've tried seem to be very comfortable getting files from an NFS share (far more comfortable than using SMB shares, anyway) so I don't usually feel the need for DLNA.
I don't use Plex, and don't see any reason to (have tried it though). Everything is stored on a NAS and is available to media players, TVs and mobile devices alike without the need for transcoding.
 
I use Plex only for metadata not as DLNA..

As a library service I think it works very well. Drop a file in and it sorts it out. Very family friendly
 
I love Plex. It works very well, is pretty, it’s continually being updated, has good platform and media support, good container support, is easy to configure and use, is platform agnostic and generally does what it says on the tin and costs nada. What isn’t to like?
 
Christ this seems a mindfield. I am so sorry to hijack your thread.... i can, if required make my own but it is essentially the same questions.

I was going to ask the same question- my mother has like a £30 quid box. its ok and she runs Kodi but I want more. I think we now live in a digital world and though not as good, many are moving away from physical media. Why spend so much on movies that sit on a shelf and can be streamed???? Anyhow I too want good player and AVF reviewed some the other day - i thought it was the ticket.... now i am not sure.

LPCM audio [up to 7.1] dolby THD, DTS HD, Dolby atmos, hdr10, dolby vision, HDR, 30 & 60FPS, netflix, koi, amazon etc... does this exist.
 
Christ this seems a mindfield. I am so sorry to hijack your thread.... i can, if required make my own but it is essentially the same questions.

I was going to ask the same question- my mother has like a £30 quid box. its ok and she runs Kodi but I want more. I think we now live in a digital world and though not as good, many are moving away from physical media. Why spend so much on movies that sit on a shelf and can be streamed???? Anyhow I too want good player and AVF reviewed some the other day - i thought it was the ticket.... now i am not sure.

LPCM audio [up to 7.1] dolby THD, DTS HD, Dolby atmos, hdr10, dolby vision, HDR, 30 & 60FPS, netflix, koi, amazon etc... does this exist.

What are you going to connect this magnificent device to ie, decode the video and audio codecs to handle the audio and video processing. The audio needs to go to a some sort of amplifier (usually a AV receiver), that can decode the all of the above and deliver the analogue results to up to 8 speakers (7 + Subwoofer). and a display capable of synchronising at any of the video resolutions/refresh rates and the signal resolution and a display with a hdmi input that can handle the decoded video data stream.

Do you have such devices ? If not no media player can possibly help other than recoding the audio and video to a level the audio amplifier and display can cope with.
 
Best Quality Available (recommended): Audio will be sent as uncompressed, multi-channel LPCM (up to 7.1 channels and 24-bit)
Yes, but the ATV4K can't decode anything more complicated than DD+. It's not just that it can't bitstream DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD, it can't do anything with them at all.

I suppose, if you don't care about Atmos or DTS:X, one option is to convert all the audio in your rips from whatever the original format was to multi-channel FLAC - many players can handle that even when they can't handle DTS-HD or TrueHD.
 
Yes, but the ATV4K can't decode anything more complicated than DD+. It's not just that it can't bitstream DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD, it can't do anything with them at all.

I suppose, if you don't care about Atmos or DTS:X, one option is to convert all the audio in your rips from whatever the original format was to multi-channel FLAC - many players can handle that even when they can't handle DTS-HD or TrueHD.


Atmos is coming in the new OS version

ideally we just want passthrough.
 
I am not as technical as many here but it is worth remembering while it is easy to list sound and video standards, many come with extra licencing costs . That's before the building, implementing, testing and software cost too.

The sales market is smaller too.
 
What are you going to connect this magnificent device to ie, decode the video and audio codecs to handle the audio and video processing. The audio needs to go to a some sort of amplifier (usually a AV receiver), that can decode the all of the above and deliver the analogue results to up to 8 speakers (7 + Subwoofer). and a display capable of synchronising at any of the video resolutions/refresh rates and the signal resolution and a display with a hdmi input that can handle the decoded video data stream.

Do you have such devices ? If not no media player can possibly help other than recoding the audio and video to a level the audio amplifier and display can cope with.


No not yet but thats not hard to find. Myself, like the op, want the best thing to provide the feed.
 
Atmos is coming in the new OS version

ideally we just want passthrough.
Atmos requires passthrough; but I think that only means Atmos over DD+ from sources like Netflix - it still won't handle TrueHD or DTS-HD when streaming across the LAN.
 
Really ineteresting thread.

The conspiracy theorist in me says the industry doesn’t want a one box solution, but I could be wrong.

I fear the move to streaming with the current generation will bring accessibility over quality.

Only forum users such as us in a minority market will ask for a device such as this.

I have a NAS with rips of my DVD and BR collection and then a few UHDs that I can’t rip.
I tend to use a Pi 3 as you do, as much because my wife and daughter find the iOS kodi app so easy to navigate.

Only this year have I managed to set up an Atmos array of 5.1.4 and even though they’re not that interested, the girls do comment on how much better the audio is in that room as opposed to the 5.1 in the front room.

One box would be great.
I had an Oppo 103, but never used it to stream due to the interface.
I’ve just tried a Zappiti but the girls didn’t like the interface and I must say I had expected more too.

I’ve never bothered with the digital copies you get with films - are they any good?

IF they bring Atmos support over LAN to the Apple 4ktv I think that might just do me, with infuse as the interface.
I don’t mind paying a bit more for a device if it does what I’d like ...
Here’s hoping.

I shall follow this with interest

Lighty
 
Atmos requires passthrough; but I think that only means Atmos over DD+ from sources like Netflix - it still won't handle TrueHD or DTS-HD when streaming across the LAN.

I guess we have to wait for the fall to find out....

Update: Apple announced Atmos support will be available in Fall 2018, and we are looking into adding this into Infuse.

Really ineteresting thread.

The conspiracy theorist in me says the industry doesn’t want a one box solution, but I could be wrong.

I fear the move to streaming with the current generation will bring accessibility over quality.

Only forum users such as us in a minority market will ask for a device such as this.

I have a NAS with rips of my DVD and BR collection and then a few UHDs that I can’t rip.
I tend to use a Pi 3 as you do, as much because my wife and daughter find the iOS kodi app so easy to navigate.

Only this year have I managed to set up an Atmos array of 5.1.4 and even though they’re not that interested, the girls do comment on how much better the audio is in that room as opposed to the 5.1 in the front room.

One box would be great.
I had an Oppo 103, but never used it to stream due to the interface.
I’ve just tried a Zappiti but the girls didn’t like the interface and I must say I had expected more too.

I’ve never bothered with the digital copies you get with films - are they any good?

IF they bring Atmos support over LAN to the Apple 4ktv I think that might just do me, with infuse as the interface.
I don’t mind paying a bit more for a device if it does what I’d like ...
Here’s hoping.

I shall follow this with interest

Lighty

We moved from a pi3 with Kodi to Infuse... The family friendlyness of the system is very, very good. Especially once Plex server for metadata was added natively to Infuse. Using the Harmony has abolished the horrible Apple remote to the draw..
 
I guess we have to wait for the fall to find out....

Update: Apple announced Atmos support will be available in Fall 2018, and we are looking into adding this into Infuse.[/QUOTE]To my knowledge, there is only single thing Apple has said will be Atmos-enabled on the ATV4K, and that's films that you purchase on iTunes. No mention of it on Netflix, or Vudu, or anything else.

That could change.
 
I'm currently running a dual setup with a Vero 4k (which is basically Kodi) for streaming my collection of films from the local network and Apple TV for Netflix / Prime / On demand catchup and 4k Apple movies.

Neither will do 3D sadly. I am getting increasingly frustrated with the vero and have been getting tempted to try and Zapitti - but I'm reticent to shell out another couple of hundred quid to find im disappointed with something else buggy.

Despite its limitations the apple tv is brilliant - and easily provides the nicest and reliable interface for services in the correct frame rate. I tried out infuse (and there are also versions of Kodi) which transcodes the HD Audio to PCM which works well enough although i cant see how that can ever work with Atmos / DTSX.
 
Neither will do 3D sadly. I am getting increasingly frustrated with the vero and have been getting tempted to try and Zapitti - but I'm reticent to shell out another couple of hundred quid to find im disappointed with something else buggy.
Pick up a Zidoo X9S (or X8) for 3D (and 4K HDR). A couple recently sold in the classifieds for less than £80, and Amazon occasionally drop the price to less than £100.
 
Pick up a Zidoo X9S (or X8) for 3D (and 4K HDR). A couple recently sold in the classifieds for less than £80, and Amazon occasionally drop the price to less than £100.

I might be wrong but ive always been under the impression that the android player have plenty of their own 'bugs' as well. Despite my frustrations with it, the Vero is at least solid and reliable with my Blu Ray 1080p HD Audio / Atmos/ subtitles frame rate /MKV's and is easy to use.

Its not just me that uses the setup at home (it is all tied in with a harmony) but i don't really want to introduce a third player 'just' to use for 3D and dont want to replace the vero with something that wouldnt be as stable at doing the basics.

Do you use the Zidoo for everything? Did you try the Zappiti's?
 
I might be wrong but ive always been under the impression that the android player have plenty of their own 'bugs' as well. Despite my frustrations with it, the Vero is at least solid and reliable with my Blu Ray 1080p HD Audio / Atmos/ subtitles frame rate /MKV's and is easy to use.
It seems all of these media player boxes (and high-end BD spinners too!) have issues, it's a case of working around them unfortunately.

Its not just me that uses the setup at home (it is all tied in with a harmony) but i don't really want to introduce a third player 'just' to use for 3D and dont want to replace the vero with something that wouldnt be as stable at doing the basics.
I use a Harmony with the Zidoo, and as it boots straight in to the poster wall on the media player app, even the family can get a film up and running without too much bother.

Do you use the Zidoo for everything? Did you try the Zappiti's?
I did get a Zappiti 4K Mini HDR initially, but then wanted to get more for the other TVs in the house. The cost was too much, so I looked around and came across the Zidoo - at more than half the price, but based on the same chipset. Even though there were some differences in the media player app (the Zappiti is more mature, but the Zidoo is catching up IMO), I decided to sell the Zappiti and buy more Zidoo's. That was almost 12 months ago, and have had no regrets.

Edit: I posted a mini review at the time, which might be of use. The software has come on a lot since then though.

www.avforums.com/threads/zidoo-x8-vs-x9s-vs-x10-vs-zappiti-mini-4k-hdr.2109080/
 
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Spot on plum
With the clout google have the shield should have cornered the market
Maybe they will scoop up the Oppo boys and work up a shield 3?
One of my issues is that I really don’t like Android.
I’m not an apple boy at all, but I tried Android and got sick of fixing the family phones with niggles, so we just stay a gen or 2 behind the apple curve.
I’m not fussed about a glass phone so might be keeping my 7+ for a while yet!
Media player wise, if apple do give us 4k passthrough I’ll be all over a 4k tv and infuse.
 
There's simply not the demand for chipset manufacturers to build that in.
Sorry but it is a standard feature of video decoder cores. I worked for a company making those kind of chips.
As to software support, that is up to the system manufacturer.
 
The primary market for many (all?) of the SoC used in media players (and credit card sized computers) is mobile phones.
Nope, these SoCs are designed exclusively for use in set top boxes and lack any of the features required for mobile phones.
 
Correct, they are completely different.
 
You could get a £50 generic box, flash LE on it, and have a better picture with local content, proper auto-switching, etc. And that'll do Netflix now too.
How do you get LibreELEC to do Netflix?

Also, where could you get a £50 generic box?
 
Loads on Ebay - search for S905 or S912. Just be aware some of the 905 variants don't do HDR...
Ideally you want an S905X box if you're going down the LibreELEC route.

Source code for the Mali GPU drivers in the S912 SoC aren't available so those builds have to use software emulation to provide an OpenGL interface for Kodi = high CPU load and relatively poor performance.
 

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