Taoron Posted May 7, 2017 Share Posted May 7, 2017 Helloooo! I am a system builder, who has been commissioned to build a beefy HTPC, for use with Control4. I've been researching as much as I can find, over the past 48 hours, but a couple of questions are still in my mind and I thought maybe someone here could answer, or at least point me in the right direction. My Media/HTPC Case of choice can handle 4 standard drives. Should I run a RAID array, for the best performance? I have 2 10TB Seagate Iron Wolf NAS Drives (SATA 6gb/s) chosen at the moment. The client is looking to load immediately, around 1500 DVD/BluRay discs. How much does a video card play into it, when using it only for Control4? Out of habit, I assumed lots of VRAM, good speed and cooling, etc. But, the more I look at other movie servers, the less I see any mention of GPU whatsoever. O.o Thank you in advance. =) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaphod Posted May 7, 2017 Share Posted May 7, 2017 Is the HTPC going to be used for playback as well or will something like Kodi or Plex be used on another device, like a Roku, Shield, Xbox, etc? I don't think you would need a video card at all as on board GPU would be good enough, unless the client wants to do VR. A fairly high end Intel CPU has pretty good video on the CPU that can handle any video playback. IMHO you are better off splitting this to two devices - a file server with the big hard drives and a lightweight PC or other device for playback at the TV, assuming that everything isn't centralized. And then you can throw a big tower case with lots of room for drives and good cooling. unRAID is a good OS for a server like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turls Posted May 11, 2017 Share Posted May 11, 2017 I don't really get the context of the question. There's not really anything Control4-specific about a HTPC build. If you are using Kodi, Plex, MyMovies, etc that has Control4 support, you just build the server / NAS / etc. how you normally would for those products and then it is later integrated into Control4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taoron Posted May 11, 2017 Author Share Posted May 11, 2017 1 hour ago, turls said: I don't really get the context of the question. There's not really anything Control4-specific about a HTPC build. If you are using Kodi, Plex, MyMovies, etc that has Control4 support, you just build the server / NAS / etc. how you normally would for those products and then it is later integrated into Control4. I've never encountered the Control 4 system before and having issues finding anything online as far as setup or connectivity and not 100% sure how it pulls the video. The device will only be storing and sending out DVD, BluRay and some 3D video to the Control4, so I was asking if a higher end video card is even needed. I would normally, in a standalone box hooked up to a large screen or multiple screens, want as much video power as I can get, but if I can save him $800 and lose the card altogether.... I guess I don't understand the integration with Control4. I'd hook it up direct to my monitor(s) on a regular build. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taoron Posted May 11, 2017 Author Share Posted May 11, 2017 On 5/7/2017 at 7:00 PM, zaphod said: Is the HTPC going to be used for playback as well or will something like Kodi or Plex be used on another device, like a Roku, Shield, Xbox, etc? I don't think you would need a video card at all as on board GPU would be good enough, unless the client wants to do VR. A fairly high end Intel CPU has pretty good video on the CPU that can handle any video playback. IMHO you are better off splitting this to two devices - a file server with the big hard drives and a lightweight PC or other device for playback at the TV, assuming that everything isn't centralized. And then you can throw a big tower case with lots of room for drives and good cooling. unRAID is a good OS for a server like this. Nope. No monitor on the box at all outside of when he is loading his discs. I have a 7600k Skylake on the build right now, with Intel 530 video. I found a nice HTPC Case that can handle 4 full sized drives and an SSD with 2 120mm rear fans. Starting him off with 2 10TB Drives and a power supply large enough to take 2 more later on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lippavisual Posted May 11, 2017 Share Posted May 11, 2017 Control4 products do not stream any video whatsoever. So you can build whatever HTPC you want. However, each display in the system will need either 1) a media player to attach to the display and can be capable of pulling the video files off of the server to play them on display, or 2) a HDMI feed from the HTPC (if video card is installed). Other than that, there isn't any other information required for your build. Most users will utilize KODI, Plex or MyMovies for the categorization of movies and those programs dump that info into Control4's local media database. This will allow your customer to pick up any Control4 interface and select Watch>Movies, then all the movies on the HTPC will populate for selection. For example, at my own home, I use a Synology NAS that holds all of my BluRay rips. Then I use an old laptop that runs MyMovies. I also have a couple of Dune Media Players that are connected into my house video matrix system. Using the free drivers provided by C4 for MyMovies and Dune, I get the experience that is explained above. However, some of these options are provided by third parties for the drivers and will cost extra $$ for the licensing of said drivers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyknight Posted May 12, 2017 Share Posted May 12, 2017 Oh my. I wouldn't recommend an HTPC at all, but setup a good NAS instead (personally I prefer FREENAS but lots of options are available - and stay away from 10TB (or other huge capacity) drives for that matter, but that is a discussion all on it's own). From there, the option would be to use either a dedicated media player like Dune, or possibly use KODI or PLEX on a compatible device for playback. Nothing against HTPCs as such, but they are just not the best (or easiest) choice within C4.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
9800pro Posted May 13, 2017 Share Posted May 13, 2017 As Cyknight said, stay away from htpc and Windows as such. Get a proper NAS, Synology or Qnap. Get several smaller disks, like 3 or 4TB and build a raid with them. Then get a media player like Nvidia Shield or Minix with Kodi on them. Purchase Kodi driver from Ken (Houselogix), it's system wide driver, as many players with Kodi you have. And on top of that you need a solid network. That's the way we do it for last year or so and it's least troublesome option, it always works. A mention, we use Minix U1 players with Libreelec OS. No Android, just plain Kodi environment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaphod Posted May 14, 2017 Share Posted May 14, 2017 On 13/05/2017 at 2:27 PM, 9800pro said: A mention, we use Minix U1 players with Libreelec OS. No Android, just plain Kodi environment. But can you use that type of device for Netflix, Hulu, etc? That's the advantage of using an Android TV box as it has a wide selection of apps for all streaming devices. The Xiaomi MiBox that Walmart sells for $69 is also very good for playback and much cheaper than the Shield. An alternative to a NAS is to set up a PC running unRAID and install dockers for Plex, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
9800pro Posted May 14, 2017 Share Posted May 14, 2017 It all depends on customer needs. Here in Croatia Hulu is unavailable and Netflix is 2 years behind US, content is for crap so we don't need it. If someone needs Android functions we leave Android, for pure media playback Libreelec is enough and way better then Android. If 3D/4K/HDR is requirement that new Oppo player is a sweet deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanchow Posted May 15, 2017 Share Posted May 15, 2017 Treat this like any other HTPC build and you will be fine. Integration of the HTPC should come afterwards and integration is dependant on the choice of media player software. Kodi, Pled Media Player and Plex Home Theater all work extremely well with Control4 with full integration of Movies, TV shows, Music and more into Control4's user interface. Lastly HTPC's are easily the most powerful boxes for Kodi and/or Plex without a doubt for playback though it is not as easy to setup and maintain. Here are a few animated gif's to showcase the integration of both Kodi and Plex into Control4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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