Hello everyone,
I have what I would consider a good server-side setup for Plex running in a Mac Pro with content stored in a NAS (Synology) and a 2 gigabit link between the two. Although the Mac Pro is powerful enough to transcode just about anything to any device, I'd like to have a client that can Direct Play all of my media. With that in mind, I'm now searching for the "perfect" Plex client, but it is proving to be much harder than I anticipated.
For content consumption I have a Samsung 4K TV and a Denon receiver with HDMI 2.0 and support for 4K (2160p) @ 60Hz and HD-Audio (DTS:X, DTS-HD MA, Dolby Atmos, Dolby TrueHD). So far I've tried the following clients/players, all of which have some limitations:
- Plex for Samsung Smart TV: forces me to use ARC (Audio Return Channel) which does not support HD-Audio.
- PHT on the Mac Pro: issues with 24p, no HDMI 2.0 support (can be circumvented with this), no HD-Audio support in OS X Core Audio.
I've also read just about everything on most of the common players out there (Roku, Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV, Nvidia Shield, Raspberry Pi 3, Apple TV, etc.) but they all seem to have similar limitations.
In a perfect world I'd like a player that supports HDMI 2.0, 4K UDH (2160p) and HD-Audio bitstream. But 4K is not vital (most content I own is still 1080p) and I'm willing to compromise to a player that supports 1080p and HD-Audio bitstream. Most of my movie collection consists of uncompressed 1:1 copies of my blu-ray movies using MakeMKV.
Seeing how Windows doesn't appear to have issues with 24p and is capable of bitstreaming (ie. passthrough) HD-Audio, I'm starting to lean towards a Windows-based HTPC or one of the more powerful Intel NUC with support for HDMI 2.0 and Gigabit ethernet.
Does anybody have any advice? Thanks in advance.