Need Advice on Digital Media Hub

fgysin

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Hi
I was wondering if someone has some advice for me... It was years since I last messed with my setup, and it seems technology and trends moved on... We have the following setup - and are missing a key piece:

Setup:
  • WLAN / LAN network in our house
  • Drobo NAS, connected to the network (it has an IP and everything)
  • An ONKYO digital receiver/amplifier: this connects to the beamer, the speakers, etc. and takes inputs as HDMI
  • Beamer / speaker setup connected to the ONKYO receiver
What we are missing:
A device which can (via WLAN or better LAN) connect to the NAS on the network, access the media there (photos, music, movies, ...) and output them to, e.g. HDMI, which we can then connect to the ONKYO receiver.

So far we always used a laptop for this, connected to the ONKYO receiver via HDMI cable. This is obviously a hassle... :(Some years ago I once had a "Popcorn Hour" player, but that broke at some point - and I wasn't really able to find a similar device again... It seems that nowadays all the products I can find focus on free or paid streaming services from the web, not accessing your own NAS on a local network...

Now, I'm aware that I could, in essence, just build a small computer / raspberry / ... that then does all the magic. But to be honest I'd rather not spend hours and hours setting this up, tweaking updates, etc. I'd very much appreciate some out-of-the-box solution...

Requirements
  • We really only need a device to play media off of the NAS - we don't have Netflix or any other streaming services and aren't looking to get any...
  • And I'd very much like to have the device connect via LAN, instead of WLAN. I have had too many bad experiences trying to stream high quality media over WLAN.
  • Price is not a huge concern - I'm rather concerned that we'd want to make sure that it is possible to update codecs/encodings/... to make sure the device is able to play the latest audio and video formats (that was always a problem with the Popcorn Hour, it never was able to play x265).
  • I want to be as independent from the NAS as possible... So I'm looking for a solution that is not installed on the NAS itself (since it's a proprietary system I'm unsure what options exist anyway).
Maybe I'm not seeing the obvious... Can a Roku do what I need? Can I somehow get this all done with Plex? Thanks a lot in advance for your help!
 
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Hi
I was wondering if someone has some advice for me... It was years since I last messed with my setup, and it seems technology and trends moved on... We have the following setup - and are missing a key piece:

Setup:
  • WLAN / LAN network in our house
  • Drobo NAS, connected to the network (it has an IP and everything)
  • An ONKYO digital receiver/amplifier: this connects to the beamer, the speakers, etc. and takes inputs as HDMI
  • Beamer / speaker setup connected to the ONKYO receiver
What we are missing:
A device which can (via WLAN or better LAN) connect to the NAS on the network, access the media there (photos, music, movies, ...) and output them to, e.g. HDMI, which we can then connect to the ONKYO receiver.

So far we always used a laptop for this, connected to the ONKYO receiver via HDMI cable. This is obviously a hassle... :(Some years ago I once had a "Popcorn Hour" player, but that broke at some point - and I wasn't really able to find a similar device again... It seems that nowadays all the products I can find focus on free or paid streaming services from the web, not accessing your own NAS on a local network...

Now, I'm aware that I could, in essence, just build a small computer / raspberry / ... that then does all the magic. But to be honest I'd rather not spend hours and hours setting this up, tweaking updates, etc. I'd very much appreciate some out-of-the-box solution...

Requirements
  • We really only need a device to play media off of the NAS - we don't have Netflix or any other streaming services and aren't looking to get any...
  • And I'd very much like to have the device connect via LAN, instead of WLAN. I have had too many bad experiences trying to stream high quality media over WLAN.
  • Price is not a huge concern - I'm rather concerned that we'd want to make sure that it is possible to update codecs/encodings/... to make sure the device is able to play the latest audio and video formats (that was always a problem with the Popcorn Hour, it never was able to play x265).
  • I want to be as independent from the NAS as possible... So I'm looking for a solution that is not installed on the NAS itself (since it's a proprietary system I'm unsure what options exist anyway).
Maybe I'm not seeing the obvious... Can a Roku do what I need? Can I somehow get this all done with Plex? Thanks a lot in advance for your help!
I had a popcorn hour A300 and as you say it could not play hevc 265 files so I moved on to a Vero4K which I've been using for 3 years now the newer Vero4K + would be an excellent player for you

 
Thanks for the advice!

Is there anything to say to the comparison of the Vero4K+ vs the A95X?
 
Basically anything that can run Kodi will do the job very nicely
 
nvidia shield pro
 
Just wanted to post a quick update: I bought a Vero4K+ and am thoroughly happy with it.
Setting it up was easy enough to get the ball rolling, but offers all the flexibility and options to tweak and fiddle to soothe my needs as an IT guy... So far played all my content well, very happy with the setup.
 

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