Trouble with Playing 4k Content.

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Sabrezn

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Hi Guys,

I am at that point, where I am having to post about it for help, this never happens.

Right so we are the proud new owner of a 4k tv, yipeee. I have an xbox 1s as well as a gigabyte brix i5 with 8gb ram connect to the tv as an HTPC.

On my HTPC I run both Kodi and Plex and have a separate media server in our home office with holds all the content.

First things first, I realised very quickly that I cannot stream my 4k content via the server as my Ethernet network is limited to 100mb as I have cat5 connector leads and not cat6, so I will def need to change that.

Therefore I have content hosted locally on my htpc to prevent any buffering issues, however I have not found a suitable media play to play the 4k content smoothly on the HTPC. I have tried VLC player, kodi, pot player and some other oddly named ones.

The best at this point is the native windows movie player on Win10 but this still causes lots of issues. Surely there is a better option than this? I am not able to utilise plex as my plex server sits on my media server in the study and due to size/speed limitations this doesn't work.

All of these players caused stuttering and sound offsets, I have tried various files and formats with little success.

Has anybody else been able to get this right, I have trawled the net but I am really struggling to find a solution.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks guys

J
 
You need hardware decoding to handle the H.265 files 4k comes in. If your HTPC can't do that then nothing but an upgrade will help.

7th gen intel, 10 series nVidia(and the 960 and 980) have H.265 hardware decoding built in.

So you have your upgrade excuse ;)
 
Pox said:
http://www.techhive.com/article/3112868/home-tech/why-your-home-theater-pc-still-cant-stream-4k-ultra-hd-video.html

it's a stupid rights-protection thing. Your HTPC will not (probably ever) be able to stream 4K.
Click to expand...

This is frustrating, i am able to stream 4k content from netflix and youtube etc.. where available. Its only the locally stored content which i am struggling to play, I thought this had something to do with the processing power needed.

There must be a solution..
 
ScottulusMaximus said:
You need hardware decoding to handle the H.265 files 4k comes in. If your HTPC can't do that then nothing but an upgrade will help.

7th gen intel, 10 series nVidia(and the 960 and 980) have H.265 hardware decoding built in.

So you have your upgrade excuse ;)
Click to expand...

Nope. You're talking abut HDCP2.2. That's not required if you pirated your files.

Sabrezn said:
This is frustrating, i am able to stream 4k content from netflix and youtube etc.. where available. Its only the locally stored content which i am struggling to play, I thought this had something to do with the processing power needed.

There must be a solution..
Click to expand...

Check your CPU usage when playing those files.
 
Sabrezn said:
This is frustrating, i am able to stream 4k content from netflix and youtube etc.. where available. Its only the locally stored content which i am struggling to play, I thought this had something to do with the processing power needed.

There must be a solution..
Click to expand...

All depends on what format the video files are in.

Any i5 (Braswell or newer) can leverage Intel's QSV to decode HEVC, however you need the latest Intel chips to support HEVC 10 bit decoding. This could likely be the issue you're facing as if there isn't hardware enabled decoding that CPU in your Brix will never be handle decoding HEVC.

So, first identify the format the video is in then go from there.
 
Also 100Mbps Ethernet is more than fast enough to do even three or four 4K streams, is it a Samsung 4K TV?
 
Chevron said:
Nope. You're talking abut HDCP2.2. That's not required if you pirated your files.
Click to expand...

I'm really not... Trying to software decode 4k H.265 will end in tears.

EDIT: not saying 7th gen Intel and 10 series nVidia are the only kit with hardware decoding.
 
Last edited:
DrJohnZoidberg said:
All depends on what format the video files are in.

Any i5 (Braswell or newer) can leverage Intel's QSV to decode HEVC, however you need the latest Intel chips to support HEVC 10 bit decoding. This could likely be the issue you're facing as if there isn't hardware enabled decoding that CPU in your Brix will never be handle decoding HEVC.

So, first identify the format the video is in then go from there.
Click to expand...

Thanks I will check this out.

This is the HTPC i have, and am pretty sure it should cope with the decoding, http://www.gigabyte.com/Mini-PcBarebone/GB-BXi5-4570R-rev-10#sp
 
Sabrezn said:
Hi Guys,

I am at that point, where I am having to post about it for help, this never happens.

Right so we are the proud new owner of a 4k tv, yipeee. I have an xbox 1s as well as a gigabyte brix i5 with 8gb ram connect to the tv as an HTPC.

On my HTPC I run both Kodi and Plex and have a separate media server in our home office with holds all the content.

First things first, I realised very quickly that I cannot stream my 4k content via the server as my Ethernet network is limited to 100mb as I have cat5 connector leads and not cat6, so I will def need to change that.
Click to expand...

Some Cat5 cables will do Gigabit over a short distance, Cat5e will do gigabit over cable runs <100m, Cat6 is a nice-to-have for home use (10 gigabit).

If the files you're trying to watch came from the internet, chances are they were compressed to well under what your 100mbps network is capable off (assuming your cable runs are not like 80-100 meters).
 
If you have an Xbox 1, it supports x265, so why not use the Plex client on that?
 
Soul Assassin said:
Also 100Mbps Ethernet is more than fast enough to do even three or four 4K streams, is it a Samsung 4K TV?
Click to expand...

No LG, but it isnt the tv, i think that may have something to do with the transcoding or direct play on the plex server, i just struggle with some files on the network.
 
Sabrezn said:
No LG, but it isnt the tv, i think that may have something to do with the transcoding or direct play on the plex server, i just struggle with some files on the network.
Click to expand...

Just use Plex on the TV and under setting on the app set it to direct play only, the LG TV should be able to hardware decode x265 4K video.
 
Mike Hoxbig said:
If you have an Xbox 1, it supports x265, so why not use the Plex client on that?
Click to expand...

I was struggling to stream the content from my media server in the office, house is wired with cat6 with leader cables being cat5, also i believe the plex client on xbox1 doesn't play 4k, it reduces it to 1080. I tried playing the content straight of a hard drive on the xbox and it wouldn't play the content, assuming this being a file format issue.

If i could get the xbox to play all the content through plex and at the right res i would use this as the htpc but it wasn't working out and have reverted to utilising my htpc for all my local content.
 
Ill give this a go, but then i have a third way to watch content, my wife may just implode! hahaha
 
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