Media Player Conundrum

[ILoveC4]

So, I have historically used the MyMovies Collection Management driver in conjunction with 2 Popcorn Hour Media Players to play my massive library of movies stored on my NAS.

MyMovies Collection Management driver has bit the dust, and I'm interested in getting some 4K media players anyways. This leaves me in a situation where I can completely mothball what I've got and start over.

Here are my requirements, and would love your recommendations:

• Automatically scrape my NAS drive and catalog movies with all metadata
• Play nice with Control4 for movie selection (my family is used to this)
• Output 4K content - for new 4K movies and also ideally upscale existing stuff
• Be low maintenance and not require a bunch of tinkering - I travel a lot and just need this to work

So what's recommended? Plex? Kodi? Nvidia Shield in conjunction with one of those?
For what it's worth we have AppleTV's and enjoy them...I understand Plex is available for them - would that allow us to use the MyMovies part of Control4 for movie selection? I've been out of the scene for a while as my old setup worked so well for so many years. Thanks in advance.

[-defunct-]

Plex. There is an awesome driver for Plex Integration.

[ILoveC4]

1 minute ago, Dunamivora said:

Plex. There is an awesome driver for Plex Integration.

I'm actually installing Plex on my NAS right now to see what it's all about. What device(s) would you suggest for Media Playback? As I understand it, Plex just manages the metadata and library, correct? I still need a client to actually playback the files.

[zaphod]

You can use Roku to playback Plex and it has very good driver integration with C4 as Roku is a very good API. And Roku has almost every app that you need - Netflix, Amazon Video, Youtube, Disney+, etc.

You haven't mentioned those other services, but presumably some of your family members will be using those.  Especially if you have any young'uns.

[-defunct-]

I second a Roku.

[ILoveC4]

Yes, we do lots of YouTube, Netflix and Disney+. I didn’t list them as requirements as we’ve already got those covered but having an additional place to watch them doesn’t hurt. 

[msgreenf]

Yes, we do lots of YouTube, Netflix and Disney+. I didn’t list them as requirements as we’ve already got those covered but having an additional place to watch them doesn’t hurt. 

it's a more seamless experience if you can do it all on one device. Then you don't see any black flashes when you change sources

[alanchow]

We have a driver for Zappiti coming out soon.  This device sits above Kodi in terms of friendlyness and below Kaleidescape.  Allows you to utilise your own content including Bluray ISO's with menu, 4k, Atmos, etc from NAS drives or internal HDD.

Upon my request they have also implemented Android based intent launching so this means that we can launch Netflix, Youtube, etc.

[Matt Lowe]

I third Roku, and offer up shield TV with irusb integration if you want one of the most powerful players on the market.

[zaphod]

Speaking of the Shield, can you run the C4 Android app on the Shield?  

[Matt Lowe]

Just now, zaphod said:

Speaking of the Shield, can you run the C4 Android app on the Shield?  

not that i am aware of. suppose you could its got the play store on it.

 

[msgreenf]

Or you could sideload the APK

[Alt]

Hi, Plex is great but be aware with Plex that it can not play all media formats. If you have a massive library as I do it was a no go for me as I have a ton of DVD's and Blu-rays rip to ISO and BDMV and I'm not will to spend the time and processing power to convert to MKV. I use Kodi with Librelec and CoreElec to stream from my NAS. For players I have a few Odriod C2 that have been the most solid of the bunch and will do 4k but no HDR. If I was buying new Players I would go with Odriod N2 4K and HDR. They have a CoreElec model that comes loaded with Kodi. I recommend checking them out here. Alan's Kodi Driver is awesome! 

[ILoveC4]

37 minutes ago, Alt said:

Hi, Plex is great but be aware with Plex that it can not play all media formats. If you have a massive library as I do it was a no go for me as I have a ton of DVD's and Blu-rays rip to ISO and BDMV and I'm not will to spend the time and processing power to convert to MKV. I use Kodi with Librelec and CoreElec to stream from my NAS. For players I have a few Odriod C2 that have been the most solid of the bunch and will do 4k but no HDR. If I was buying new Players I would go with Odriod N2 4K and HDR. They have a CoreElec model that comes loaded with Kodi. I recommend checking them out here. Alan's Kodi Driver is awesome! 

Thanks, Alt. I was just coming here to say my Plex experience has failed because I have over 950 movies that are Video_TS files or Blu-ray ISO, and Plex won’t play those. 
 

I’ll check out Kodi...

[ILoveC4]

3 hours ago, alanchow said:

We have a driver for Zappiti coming out soon.  This device sits above Kodi in terms of friendlyness and below Kaleidescape.  Allows you to utilise your own content including Bluray ISO's with menu, 4k, Atmos, etc from NAS drives or internal HDD.

Upon my request they have also implemented Android based intent launching so this means that we can launch Netflix, Youtube, etc.

Alan, this looks promising! I know you mention Blu-ray ISO, does it also handle Video_TS folders?

Honestly it looks like this is the best way to go assuming the metadata layer works well. 

[zaphod]

I know what you guys are saying, but, as you are finding, VIDEO_TS folders (and the BluRay versions of those) are going to be harder and harder to play. You should check out various batch processes to rip to other formats.

[alanchow]

1 hour ago, ILoveC4 said:

Alan, this looks promising! I know you mention Blu-ray ISO, does it also handle Video_TS folders?

Honestly it looks like this is the best way to go assuming the metadata layer works well. 

I haven't tried it personally but Zappiti's product page says it can (i've only tested it with the movies Zappiti preloaded on for the test unit they sent us).

http://zappiti.com/zappiti-mini-4k-hdr.html

[ILoveC4]

I haven't tried it personally but Zappiti's product page says it can (i've only tested it with the movies Zappiti preloaded on for the test unit they sent us).
http://zappiti.com/zappiti-mini-4k-hdr.html

What’s the timing on the driver? I wonder if they have a US Distributor...


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[Alt]

7 minutes ago, ILoveC4 said:

 

What’s the timing on the driver? I wonder if they have a US Distributor...


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I remember seeing them at Cedia in San Diego a few years ago so I assumed so...

 

[alanchow]

37 minutes ago, ILoveC4 said:

 

What’s the timing on the driver? I wonder if they have a US Distributor...


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They were at CEDIA expo last year so i'd assume so.

We arn't far off.  Just working with them with a few last bits to iron out some new things they added into firmware for us.

There is a free driver that they have on their website that you can use now but ours will obviously be better since it will have library support and also playback state.

[South Africa C4 user]

Zappiti definitely sounds interesting. I was looking at this a year or so back but was not overly impressed with the current driver.

Personally, I have moved away from the C4 interface and am playing all my stored movies from the Infuse app on my Apple TV. It plays everything that I throw at it and has a great interface.

Maybe @alanchow you can look at writing a driver to integrate this with C4.  I know the folk at Firecor (who wrote Infuse) were interested in (open to) integrating at one stage.

[Cyknight]

Still running KODI here.

Took some work to rename the movies and move to the required folder structure, but since I got a batch done for the test (about a 1000) it's been working well for me. Not quite the same as the standard C4 movie DB (same here, family is used to it) but not far off.

Just testing on two cheap 4K android boxes so far (before investing in shields) but I'm pretty happy with it so far. KODI's own interface is pretty nice too, we've actually moved over more to that than the C4 interface.

Just wish it was easier to edit metadata, though scrape was 95%+ accurate.

Plex is another option, but nice about KODI is that the media player is the one doing the scraping etc, meaning I can keep using my otherwise perfect servers (plex option is available for freenas but meh)

[blub]

I am still using Kodi in conjunction with Emby server. It just works for years now, Emby server never crashed once and is easy to use.

It always supsrises me that I seem to be the only one using it here...

[alanchow]

We have tested and developed so many media player solutions.

Kaleidescape is still by far the best if you can afford it.

If you can't then my selection would be Zappiti next.

Honestly if i were to start again (i'm a Kodi user currently) i would pick Zappiti over Kodi.

[Time2Jet]

I come from way back at the original Dune and upgraded every time a new model launched. Zappati was and is the real deal like mentioned unless Kaliedescape is in your budget.

I’m still confused however, and considering I no longer have 3000 titles on a NAS, what media streamer will give me mini apps of the common streaming apps and allow DV and Atmos on each service. I know it’s asked and answered, but add to it that (even with a paid driver) I want Control4 total control. I have a bunch of Roku Ultras and TiVo Bolts bit they won’t do what I need. (May upgrade to Edge, but not enough app info or apps) and am awaiting the TiVo Stream 4K. I assume there’ll be a driver and mini apps (albeit they sort of defeat the purpose of aggregating programming). Is nVidia pro the solution ATV 4K? IRUSB or direct IP? Mini apps? Atmos, DV etc?


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[blub]

We have tested and developed so many media player solutions.
Kaleidescape is still by far the best if you can afford it.
If you can't then my selection would be Zappiti next.
Honestly if i were to start again (i'm a Kodi user currently) i would pick Zappiti over Kodi.

Disadvantages of Kaleidescape and Zapiti is that for LiveTV one need an extra set top box.
Kodi can handle that as well, that's why I still use Kodi even though Kodi sometimes has bugs, but overall I would say it's pretty solid