I was recently looking for a device that could play 4K video at 24fps and apparently finding such a device isn’t as simple as I thought. I would like something better than the built-in media player in my TV, but the list below should paint a better picture of that:
- Obviously, it should be able to play 4K AVC and HEVC content with hardware acceleration, in the Jellyfin desktop app. If it was able to handle AV1 in at least software, that would be a nice bonus.
- Be able to play back HDR files with tone mapping, as that’s what the test file will require.
- Give a better experience than the built-in player in my TV. This means snappy menus, instantaneous skipping and jumping in the video without having to wait for it to load or buffer, assuming that the bottleneck isn’t the network connection.
- Have a powerful enough GPU to use some of the more advanced upscaling algorithms in MadVR from 1080p to 4K.
- Quiet operation with low idle power or fast bootup within ~10 seconds, perhaps an IR receiver to allow the use of a remote, a reasonably low profile and a direct HDMI 2.0 output.
That’s quite a list, especially towards the end. On the note of hardware decoding, Jellyfin’s desktop app should support all codecs, according to the compatibility matrix, so that’s what I will use, on Fedora 40. I don’t have a HDR compatible display, so that’s not a requirement. MPC-HC and MadVR is Windows only, so those will run on Windows 10.
I would like to note that there are probably lots of ARM-based devices that could fulfill most of those requirements, but I’m more familiar with x86-based devices, so I will only be considering those here.
The tests are done with the Jellyfin desktop client, with Settings > Client Settings > Hardware Decoding set to Enabled, as this generally improves things and the MPC-HC tests use MadVR with its default configuration, but HDR tone mapping enabled for the display.
The tests use two files. One is a 4K 24p HEVC SDR file with an average bitrate of 38Mbps and the other is likewise a 4K 24p HEVC HDR file with an average bitrate of 70Mbps.
Intel Compute Stick with an m3-6Y30
The compute stick is just that, a stick, the size of a slightly oversized USB drive with a HDMI port at the end. Its scientific name is STK2m3W64CC. This was released in Q1 of 2016, so not a new device by any means, but the integrated HD Graphics 515 should have hardware acceleration for AVC and HEVC at 4K. Unfortunately, it is simply laggy for both files. And the high-pitched noise of the fan is rather distracing.
Intel Skull Canyon NUC with an i7-6770HQ
Another Intel device from Q2 of 2016, the NUC6i7KYK. The same Skylake architecture, but with a much higher power envelope and a reasonably beefy Iris Pro 580 iGPU with 128MB of EDRAM. It comes with a HDMI 2.0 port (that uses an internal DP to HDMI conversion chip, as Intel CPUs have not had native HDMI 2.0 connectivity for a long time) as well as Thunderbolt 3, which is a really nice touch.
SDR works, HDR does not, regardless to the player used. The fan is rather noisy, even at the lowest setting, perhaps some undervolting would help, but that wouldn’t exactly represent the out-of-box experience. It would certainly be audible during quieter passages. The power consumption seems to be 50W during SDR playback in Jellyfin.
Intel NUC8 with an i7-8559U
This is the NUC8i7BEH from Q2 of 2019. This has an integrated Iris Plus Graphics 655 GPU. This means a more advanced video decoding engine, along with the usual. Has the same HDMI 2.0 port with the conversion chip, TB3 and the IR receiver.
SDR files play rather nicely in both Jellyfin and MPC-HC, but it also struggles when it comes to HDR. The cound levels are not very noticeable, although I did set the fan to the quietest option in the BIOS. I personally wouldn’t find it disturbing during playback. The power draw alternates between 30-40W when playing the SDR file in Jellyfin.
Intel / ASUS NUC13 Pro with an i7-1360P
This is the most recent NUC with a Raptor Lake chip. Very sleek design, I love that they abandoned the use of glossy plastic for the top lid, as it doesn’t scratch that easily and shows fewer fingerprints.
What I’m not quite as satisfied with is HDR playback. SDR is okay, it averages around 35W and has the same noise levels as the NUC8, but HDR video is still choppy. Jellyfin is noticeably choppy and MPC-HC drops a frame every second or two when using madVR as the playback engine. I am genuinely surprised, as I didn’t buy this NUC for playback specifically, it’s too expensive for a HTPC, but I didn’t expect that it would struggle with anything. The chip is a year and a half old and 4K HEVC HDR content has been around for much longer than that.
And one would think that would be okay if I used CPU decoding, as it has 12 (4P+8E) cores after all, but that’s not the case. The CPU is pinned at 100%, pulls 70W and the HDR video is choppier than before.
Thinkpad T14s gen3 with an AMD 6850U
It plays anything and everything. No issues with HDR content. It has an integrated Radeom 680M with 12CUs and apparently an adequately speedy hardware decoder. But of course, this isn’t what I want to use as a HTPC, so I’ve just thrown it in to the comparison, as SFF PCs do exist with similar chips.
The power consumption is around 15W during SDR and 17W during HDR playback in Jellyfin, running on Fedora 40. This does include the built-in screen at minimum brightness.
The HP T740 with an AMD V1756B
This is technically a thin client with an embedded AMD CPU, which has an AMD Vega 8 iGPU. It is roughly equivalent to a Ryzen 5 2500U, 2600H or 2400G. It runs under the codename Great Horned Owl, which is the embedded variant of the Raven Ridge chips. I have previously written about the T740 in detail, so I would rather not repeat all of that, but just say that it’s a very exciting device with a HHHL PCIe slot, quad-core CPU and two m.2 slots.
Regarding the video playback, it works flawlessly. Both the HDR and non-HDR videos. No lag, no choppiness. It’s astounding to see that a 6-year-old AMD GPU is still better than the 13th gen Intel that was released last year.
In terms of power consumption, the T740 uses 28W for non-HDR and 33W for HDR playback, and it’s whisper quiet. Yes, it does have a fan, but under these loads, it’s not even audible. Way better than any of the NUCs that I’ve tested, thanks to the much larger fan and heatsink.
Being a thin client, the BIOS is very barebones, especially when compared to the NUCs. No options to set voltages or memory frequencies, it will just run at the module’s rated speed, although I’ve had success installing 3200Mhz SODIMMs and they did run at their rated speed. Furthermore, thanks to the HHHL PCIe slot, I should be able to install a dedicated GPU if I ever needed one for AV1 decoding, but for now, the integrated Vega 8 can play everything I need.
The power consumption is a little bit on the high side, I think it could benefit from some undervolting, but that’s not possible, as I’ve just explained above. All in all, it’s probably the best solution I’ve found and the T640 with an R1505G could also be just as good, although that only has a Vega 3 GPU with two cores, but I would expect the video decoding engine to be the same.
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