So I’ve been torrenting for over a year now (just in time to get attached to RARBG and get my heart broken) and mostly loving it. Now that I have access to actual high quality files I’ve been looking to improve my home setup. I was wondering what setups people have and what I should aspire to.
In the old days I would just stream with chromecast and then I got into the Laptop to HDMI cable setup but now I know the joys of a 5TB hard drive plugged directly into my TV and I don’t think I’ll ever go back. My TV isn’t all that big (only 45") and it’s only 1080p. It’s an older TV too so it can’t play HEVC files which limits what I can play in this setup. I’d love to be able to access the 4k HDR content out there. Does anyone have any advice on what kind of TVs are out there that would work well with this or other potential setups?
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the joys of a 5tb hard drive plugged directly into my TV
You’re missing out on the joys of a Plex or Jellyfin server with a quality streaming device plugged into the TV. No way would I waste time manually transferring files around like that. With Sonarr and Radarr I don’t even waste time manually downloading stuff.
I use a Nvidia Shield Pro to stream to, it works great for my 4k BluRay Remuxes. I personally hate using the built-in TV features because the quality and codec support can be a total crapshoot.
I’m guessing you have to plug a separate hard drive into the Nvidia Shield Pro to stream files that large? I’ve been thinking of going that route since Netflix has started being sucky. I don’t want to support them, but I miss their 4k Dolby Vision/Dolby Atmos/5.1 content for my own basic, little home theater.
Nvidia shield makes a decent Plex server in a pinch. You can use an external NAS or plug an external HDD in directly.
Almost everyone that runs Plex also runs some sort of NAS though. Personally I run mine off TrueNAS and have an unRAID backup.
Damn, Nvidia Shield Pro is kind of expensive, $200. And so are some of the NAS’s I’ve seen pop up on google. Trying to get both sounds like this will end up being a long-term project over a couple paychecks lol.
Sometimes you can pick them up used for $100 or so. It really is the best smart TV device short of a mini PC. Basically it’s responsive and “just works”
Get an Nvidia Shield or AppleTV. They are best-in-class devices and anything else is going to lead to some sort of compromise. They’ll last for years and are worth the money spent.
Then set up an app like Jellyfin, Plex, or Infuse (AppleTV only) to stream the files over your local network. You’ll be able to play back everything from those small 200mb rips to the 80gb+ 4K Bluray Dolby Vision remuxes with 7.1 lossless audio.
This is the bible of home theaters.
Yep! I use Sonarr and Radarr, connect to their web servers from my phone to get torrents going and they automatically organize the files on my NAS. Then Infuse picks up from the Apple TV and populates meta data.
It’s a beautiful solution. A couple of taps on my phone in the couch and I’ll have a clean, organized and beautifully presented addition to my library a couple of minutes later.
I’m still learning this stuff so I have two plans - try Usenet, and also run it all through cloudflare so I can get downloads going while I’m away.
Any tips on where you source the torrents from? Also looking into Usenet as well
Right now I use 1337x and eztv, but it’s not perfect
LG OLED TV-s are where it’s at. Superb picture quality and prices have come down considerably.
As for sound, Denon 3600/3700/3800 AVR–everything else is either overpriced or crap (or both). The 3000 series has good power amp section and Audyssey MultEQ XT32 which actually does something below 100 Hz where room correction is most needed (see https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/difference-between-audyssey-multeq-vs-multeq-xt-vs-multeq-xt32.14786/#post-460377). For speakers I quite like ELAC Debut Reference speakers and SUB3030 subwoofer–price-performance ratio is really good.
That’s for the normal consumer level stuff. Of course, if you have the time and will, you can do what I have done and go down the rabbit hole of DIY speakers and subs to end up with something that blows the socks off of actual THX cinemas–highly recommended ;)
5.1.4 surround. I use an nvidia Shield for playing back files (via kodi), and it works pretty well.
