Turning a mini PC into a media centre

WeeGord

WeeGord

Well-known member
Afternoon folks, just after a few pointers if that's OK. I've a Windows 10 mini pc that I have that I'm looking to turn into a potable media centre.

I have loads of videos, TV series, music, photographs etc that I'm wanting to use locally as a media centre.

However, I'm not sure which are easy and simple to use on Windows, and which ideally allow access to on demand TV services like Prime and Netflix as well as the likes of BBC iplayer, ITV X, 4OD etc.

Have any of you set something up similar yourselves, and what software did you use? Thank you.
 
My personal PC at home is set to allow me to watch TV and streaming services. There are good apps on Windows for most streaming services BBC, 4OD, etc. (ITVX is a bit shight mind), Prime works really well, I've not used Netflix for some time but the app worked well as far as I recall. NowTV works fine.

The inbuilt Photos app is useful for photographs though if you want to properly catalogue a collection you might want to consider something like Adobe Lightroom. If you use a Google Account their photo management software seems to work reasonably well.
 
I would use the mini PC for storage and put it somewhere on your ethernet network

WiFi will be too flakey for consistent performance at 4k quality - good rips are basically much higher quality than netflix etc. Wifi is a burst transmission tech so even if it works most the time, it will never be as stable as ethernet

For media server, use either plex or emby - both require a sub but its a one off and both are good at what they do. I prefer emby but YMMV

For end-point consumption, i.e. playing on your TV< I would recommend an nvidia shield TV pro - this is a silent device and it will run Emby Client as well as netflix and pretty much any other streaming service, and will play anything you throw at it - 4k, dolby vision, dolby atmos etc

On your media server itself, if you want to simplify grabbing content I would use usenet. can get subs for about £5-10 a month. you can then use Radarr and Sonarr to tell it what TV shows you want to watch, what movies you want to look out for, and it will automatically grab them at the quality settings you specify e.g I instruct mine to grab dolby atmos 4k with dolby vision as first priortity and it will step down from there but upgrade it later if a better version comes out. There are similar apps for music too.

For download client, SABNZBD+

So your chain would be TV -> Nvidia shield to play content -> Playing from Media Server -> media server running a Media server app of Emby or Plex -> Downloading content using SABNZDB+ and content located by Sonarr and Radarr

Shield and Media PC both on ethernet so that you have full internal speed available for stability and download speed etc.

I much prefer this setup to firesticks etc as everything is full quality - the IP TV services are heavily encoded so this will look and sound far better.

Is your PC low power? We have a NAS which only draws about 30w so we can run it 24/7. If you like the idea of home automation you can also run home assistant on it.
 
If you have decent internet then all you need is Stremio and a Real Debrid account. You don't need to store and manage anything locally and it's much less hassle. It's basically netflix functionality with a full library with max quality video and sound.

I've looked into the other methods and used to have as full Usenet setup but stremio is really simple (and free) and the Debrid account costs about £30 for the year.
 
Great info from above posters, most of which is new to me. Was wondering how obtaining these services compares with the “ bloke in the pub” who sells firesticks which are seemingly available everywhere now?
 
caravan club said:
Great info from above posters, most of which is new to me. Was wondering how obtaining these services compares with the “ bloke in the pub” who sells firesticks which are seemingly available everywhere now?
Click to expand...
Just done bit of googling the above info, very interesting and a fair few steps on from the old kodi ways of watching stuff!
 
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