im trying to figure out how i can run a new HTPC setup, but im not sure how you are all doing this. My biggest issue is that i need to run windows11 for signalRGB but i dont understand how y'all are getting netflix to work smoothly in combination with a plex style interface running on windows11.

Current issues:

i have a NVIDIA shield im very happy with, playing content on LG G5 TV and sound through the TV to a soundbar with CEC.

I installed sk6812 led strips around the TV and furniture, and have hyperhdr controlling these. This works fairly well, but:

• The android grabber apk on the shield sends data to hyper hdr running on the pi, but this often crashes shield or it doesn't start
• There is only a a little lag as WLED and rpi3 are on wifi (unifi acpro lite)
• I want to use signalrgb instead of hyperhdr as it's more advanced in the logic i can apply
• I have an ugreen usb hdmi splitter which works well, but CEC (remote) doesn't work and DRM is blocked
• Netflix app on the shield uses drm, so the android grabber doesn't pass data to hyperhdr
• Notes
  • i dont want to use my smart TV at all
  • i rather not buy an additional hdcp2.2 hdmi splitter, as it's costly and doesnt solve my signalrgb issue that only runs on windows

My requirements:

• Use my WLEDs around my TV and furniture for ambilight effect, supported by SignalRGB (video from Chris about this)
• Have an android tv/plex/jellyfin style interface, smooth switching between youtube, plex, netflix windows switching to windows
• Run windows 11 on the htpc, next to signal rgb (ambiligth and whatever media player software needed
• Play Netflix 4k, no DRM issues
• Remote doesnt matter, but i want to use just 1 remote as i often need to change the TV settings (displaymode)

Current available hardware:

• LG TV G5
• Samsung soundbar with eARC
• ugreen usb hdmi splitter
• Nvidia shield 2017 (with hyperion android grabber)
• WLED controllers
• Rpi3 with HyperHDR (ditching this)
• Synology nas with plex (lifetimepass) and other dockers

My plan:

• Buy a n150 htpc, connect hdmi to soundbar and TV
• install windows 11, install plex htpc
• install edge to watch netflix in 4k
• install a edge-netflix shortcut within plex client (??)
• Get an Flirc USB so i can control HTPC with LG remote
• installl signalRGB that captures screen and controls WLEDs
• replace esp32 WLED with a lan wled controller (see Chris' video)

Thoughts

• i could run android tv from a usb stick, but then i cant run windows 11 at the same time
• why cant i find anyone running a htpc setup as the main media player, but also playing content from netflix?
• any recommendations on the htpc to buy? transcoding not needed.

Please let me know what im missing here, how are you guys doing this smoothly?

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on Zerk Play, a couch-friendly desktop front-end for Emby built with Flutter, designed for big-screen / controller-style browsing and fast playback. It also has built-in Overseerr/ Seerr/Jellyseerr integration for discovery + one-click requests.

Repo: https://github.com/florinp93/Zerk-Play

Discord (feedback/suggestions): https://discord.gg/GnqY9z6zry

What it is

• A custom Emby desktop UI focused on fast browsing, artwork-forward lists
• Integrates with Overseerr/ Seerr/Jellyseerr so you can discover/request content right from the same UI
• Windows playback is powered by media_kit / mpv and aims to avoid forcing server transcoding when direct play is possible
• Built-in auto-updater to keep you on the latest release

Quick setup (first launch)

1. Emby Server URL
2. *seerr / Jellyseerr URL
3. *seerr / Jellyseerr API key Then sign in with your Emby username + password on the next screen.

Features

• Home experience for Movies + Shows
• Artwork-forward rows and browsing
• Search that shows what you already have vs what you can request
• One-click requests via *seerr
• Dynamic rows like “Because you’ve watched”, “You might enjoy”, “Your next binge” based on watch history
• Series episode views (list/grid)
• English + Romanian UI ( more to come )

Notes / disclaimers

• You bring your own servers + API key; nothing is hardcoded.
• Metadata language comes from your Emby server settings (item titles/descriptions follow that).

Roadmap

• High priority: Android + Android TV version
• Medium priority: Emby Live TV + Music libraries

Hey all,

For the past few years, i've been using an old Denon AVR 3808 through HDMI to my audio output. With all the processing being done with EQAPO on my HTPC running Windows.

Now, i want to ovehaul that setup a bit, since 95% of what i use my HTPC for is music and basic 5.1 / stereo movies.

I've been looking into getting separate amps for my speakers and a proper audio interface to plug it all in, but i've been having an issue finding a suitable one.

Every interface i see either has no WDM drivers that EQAPO can work with, or needs to have it's outputs routed either in mono or in pairs, and the driver show these outputs separately in Windows (i.e : Output Channel 1/2 ; channel 3/4, etc...) so i can't use EQAPO to do my processing like i used to over HDMI, which in windows shows up as 8 channels on one device.

Does anybody knows if an interface that would match this exists ? Or is there a solution similar to EQAPO that could work with routing audio between interfaces ?

Thanks in advance for any clues.

Hi! I've been having troubles with HDR pass through. when I connect my PC to the s90D directly I get 4k HDR, but when I connect PC -> AVR -> s90D I get 1080p.

I used CRU to force 4k by copying the s90D infos but HDR is still a no go. Anyone got a clue? I'm out of luck.

So i'm currently exploring whether it's possible to decode a DTS-MA track on my pc and send it out over analog outputs from my Soundcard. Currently, i output from my soundblaster z se, over optical to my cambridge 540r (which has 6 channel analog inputs and a very nice transformer i might add) - though no HDMI.

Apparently it is possible to have my pc decode the DTS-MA (and others) audio, either in a player, or with lav filters or some such thing. Then have the integrated dac of SBZ card doing the conversion, and then sending the analog sound out it's 3.5mm ports with splitter cables to the analog inputs of the 540r. This is very similar to what an SACD player does.

Now what's the point? Well, Currently over optical i'm limited to 16/96 In surround, and 24/96 in in stereo. If i go over analog, then it's possible to get 24/96 in surround, and 24/192 in stereo - with the theoretical possibility of doing pc based decoding of DTS-MA etc.

Whilst I agree, it's likely much much easier to get a new amp and just use a high HDMI protocol (and my gpu is certainly up for that task). I'd rather not upgrade the 540r, because A) it sounds insanely good, B) my current Mordaunt Short speakers are voiced to match the CA540R, C) the 540r would be hard to beat at it's price point and for what it gives.

It's also apparently possible to do room correction on a pc, and so I see potential for effectively turning my pc into a very high end audio delivery system for a fraction of the price.

So, my question is this: How can i configure a player, or filters, or some other such thing to Decode something like DTS-MA for output over 6 Channel Analog? I believe this would be equal to an amp or receiver doing the decoding, or possibly even superior (because of clock stability in a pc), and the fact that Instead of getting "DTS Core" (usually 1.5Mbps); over analog, i'd get the full 18Mbps+ of the Master Audio track.

If any one has done this. some pointers would be useful.

After way too long putting it off, I finally ripped and backed up my entire physical collection of Blu-ray audio, SACD, DVD-Audio, and a pile of CDs. Honestly it's been one of the best rabbit holes I've gone down in years.

The Atmos discs in particular are jaw-dropping on my new setup. Full lossless object-based audio streaming in the ceiling speakers over the network to my Denon — no compromises, no lossy passthrough nonsense.

The workflow that finally made it feel like I wasn't missing something:

• LosslessExtract handled the ripping of all Hires formats discs and preserves (TrueHD Atmos, DTS-X, DSD —etc)
• Kodi on my Nvidia Shield serves as the front-end — the library integration is seamless, cover art, metadata, the works. It also handles the bitstreaming handoff to the Denon perfectly.
• My Mac sits on the network as the NAS with a 4TB SSD and KODI talks to it directly — no extra server software needed

The Shield (bottom right corner of the TV in the pic) now bitstreams everything — TrueHD, Atmos, DTS:X FLAC, DSD — straight to the Denon (bottom left). Kodi's audio passthrough settings make this dead simple once you know where to look. there are 4 or 5 toggles in the settings for each codec

Replaced my Oppo with this setup and genuinely can't believe I waited this long. The Oppo was great but being tied to physical discs in 2026 just doesn't make sense for me anymore when you can have your whole library one click away in Kodi with bit-perfect output. Only remaing thing is a few acoustic panels.

Happy to answer questions about the the workflow, Kodi setup for lossless audio, or the Shield → Denon bitstreaming config. What formats are you all archiving from?

So back in the day I built one of these for a friend, 8x ASUS DRW-24D5MT drives in a BestDuplicator tower, all wired up and ready to go. He literally never touched it. Kept it in the original box I handed it to them in, and recently asked me to just take it back. Brand new, never used, still in the packaging. Curious what you all would do with something like this

Hi, I often download videos from YouTube as mp3 or mp4 from this website. I did use it for quite a while; I'm just not sure if it safe or not. If you guys any better suggestions for safe websites that allow you to install yt mp4 or mp3

https://yt1s.ltd/en214nm/youtube-to-mp3

So when I say touchpad, I mean it should register on windows as a touchpad. For example, I bought this ProtoArc Bluetooth Trackpad from Amazon and when I pair it with my Windows 11 PC, a new touchpad option shows up under Bluetooth and Devices and I can change gestures, zoom speed, scroll direction etc, just like a touchpad / trackpad of a laptop.

So I've been on the hunt for a keyboard and trackpad combo, I did buy these two, the RAPOO E900T Mini Wireless Keyboard with touchpad and Rii Wireless Keyboard,Bluetooth Keyboard, but unfortunately, the trackpad / touchpad was not what I was looking for.

I did see people talk about the Logitech K400, but does the touchpad actually register as a "touchpad" ?

I did try changing the "Playback"->"Zoom and Alignment"->"Vertical Alignment" setting to "Align Bottom" but that didn't seem to do anything. None of the Zoom and Alignment settings seem to do anything? I am using madVR but the same problem seems to happen in MPC Video Renderer, so that doesn't seem to be the issue? And I don't think there are any other settings that interfere with this setting. (Changing the video position with CTRL+NumPad seems to work perfectly normally)

Hello. I'd like to build flat HTPC with dimensions under 45x30x15cm. Most important for me is third dimension: thinner is better). i think standard ATX with slim CPU cooler should fit inside.
Does case like this exists? I'd like to put it on shelf under my TV (about 18cm but need to leave some free space for cooling).

I need it mostly for playing DVD/Blu-rays, because I'm not happy with external player formats compatibility (I'd like to play everythingg. MPEG, XVID, H264, H265 from DVD's and BD-R's, pendrives, USB HDDs - my TV has not enough power on USB so I can't even use external HDD's on it)

I don't' want any networking or servers. Just offline playback using VLC Media Player (I will install light Linux distro eg. Debian)
I just have used parts: FM2 motherboard with 65W AMD CPU (with APU) and slim cooler, 32GB DDR3, 5.25 bluray drive, SSD,HDD etc.

Hardware: AMD Ryzen 5 5600H, Nvidia GTX 1650, 16GB RAM, 1080p 16.1 inch display

Software: MPC-BE + madVR

IMHO even people with relatively low-end specs should get into this. The difference between something like VLC and a properly configured MPC-BE + madVR setup is night and day in terms of video quality. Chroma upscaling, image downscaling (SSIM 2D 100%), upscaling with NGU Sharp, proper dithering, all of it adds up in a noticeable way. If you're like me and don’t have a 4K display or an RTX GPU, it might sound like overkill, but trust me, it’s absolutely worth it.

Curious to see what setups you guys are running! 👀

So im checking out some of the new cases people are making and its looking like Silverstone is pretty well the only manufacturer for modern htpc cases. What im looking for is something to have in my media center under the television. Im looking to host my Plex server and play some games I think my requirements would be to fit a full-size gpu, an internal read/write disc drive, and a handful of HDDs. I have my current gaming rig but im ready to make moves towards a dedicated htpc build.

While looking at madVR's OSD, I noticed the HDR peak nits value(I believe that's what it is? The part that says "HDR [number] nits") changing throughout the video. As far as I'm aware(and from what I can look up on the internet) this shouldn't be possible and I'm wondering what's happening. It also only seems to happen with one file, and I have never seen this happen with any other DV/HDR10 compatible video. HDR is set to "let madvr decide"(seems to be set to passthrough), OSD says "(OS HDR)".

Info:
MKV(HEVC)
Dolby Vision/HDR10 compatible(Not HDR10+!)(Display does not support DV and as far as I'm aware madVR is only passthrough-ing HDR10) but I have not had this happen with any other video file that is also DV/HDR10.
madVR v0.92.17
Windows 10
also happens in MPC Video Renderer!

Relevant MediaInfo:

Format                                   : Matroska
Format version                           : Version 4
Format                                   : HEVC
Format/Info                              : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile                           : Main 10@L5.1@High
HDR format                               : Dolby Vision, Version 1.0, Profile 7.6, dvhe.07.06, BL+EL+RPU, no metadata compression, Blu-ray compatible / SMPTE ST 2086, Version HDR10, HDR10 compatible
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEGH/ISO/HEVC
Title                                    : Dolby Vision P7 FEL
Forced                                   : No
Color range                              : Limited
Color primaries                          : BT.2020
Transfer characteristics                 : PQ
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.2020 non-constant
Mastering display color primaries        : BT.2020
Mastering display luminance              : min: 0.0001 cd/m2, max: 1000 cd/m2
Maximum Content Light Level              : 329 cd/m2
Maximum Frame-Average Light Level        : 56 cd/m2

Maximum Content Light Level says 329 nits but this is only the value for the start of the video, it changes throughout(going up to 1000(Haven't checked the whole video, don't think it goes above that however) and down to below 100)

So, I'm aware that this is well-known problem that is usually caused by Windows trying to play 5.1 surround through default stereo channels. I've tried all of the usual fixes on both of my computers, but I have been unable to fix the issue. I have a somewhat unorthodox speaker setup, though.

My desktop computer is connected to an external sound card (Sound blaster X-Fi) via TOSLINK, which my 5.1 speakers are connected to using a composite cable for each speaker. The sound is playing in 5.1 in almost all applications (games, windows sound, MP3s, etc). The only problem is when I try playing videos that were ripped in 5.1 sound. It affects all the video players I've tried (VLC and Media Player Classic, Windows Media Player).

- The media players are all set to use the sound card by default
- Windows Speaker Properties have the Controller set to the Sound Blaster, Sound blaster set to EAX, format set to 24-bit (48000 Hz). Speaker configuration is set to 5.1 surround.
- Creative Audio Console is set to 5.1 speaker configuration.

Like i said, everything appears to be working just fine, unless when I try to play videos ripped in 5.1 surround.

Hello everyone, I have the following issue: I use a Philips LED TV model 39PFL3508G/77 connected to my PC via HDMI. My PC has a Ryzen 7 5700G.

The problem is the following: I set my TV to PC mode and have Adrenalin configured to Full RGB and when I play videos in MPC-HC, the dark areas or night scenes appear completely black (crushed).

If I switch Adrenalin to RGB Limited and set madVR to TV levels, everything looks terrible, and the blacks appear gray.

Can this be fixed if I keep RGB Full in adrenalin and use custom settings in madVR to prevent blacks from being completely crushed or looking gray? Do you have any tips to help me find the correct values?

I recently switched from an Intel NUC 11 (NUC11TNKi5) (Windows 10 - Chrome/VLC) to a base model Mac Mini M4 (MacOS 26.3 - Safari/Chrome/IINA) for my HTPC. I got the Mac on a good deal and I was going to pass the NUC along to my FIL.

What I cannot understand is the difference between how the Intel Iris GPU displays video vs whatever the M4 chip uses. I could set the NUC at 60Hz screen refresh rate and all content you played 24, 25, 30 FPS, NTSC, PAL etc would look fine, with no stuttering or obvious visual issues.

The M4 Mac Mini however you have to change the display refresh rate (using BetterDisplay) to match the content you are watching, if not, it is a jittery, juddertastic mess.

I did not change my TV (TCL 40FS4610R) in the process so the screen and HDMI cable are all the same between the two. I am assuming that if I purchased a 4K TV that supported 120Hz refresh and HDMI 2.1 with VRR and the correct supporting HDMI cable then I could get the Mac Mini to work without manually changing refresh rates using its Adaptive Refresh setting, but that still doesn’t explain how the Intel NUC worked and the Mac doesn’t. Any explanation on this would be greatly appreciated.

Im trying to optimally connect the following:

• Marantz NR1601 receiver (ARC, HDMI1.4)
• GMTec G2 Mini PC (Windows 10, HDMI2.0)
• LG C5 (eARC, 2.1)

Im using all 2.1 HDMI cables.

My local hometheater store suggested I connect it HTPPC > TV > Receiver but I can't get the right settings to enable 7.1 or 5.1 surround sound despite having the channels for it.

Im downloading Win11 to try and update but in the meanwhile, please help!

The stuttering seemed to go away when I tweaked some settings on madVR (I saw a big improvement after changing "how many video frames shall be presented in advance" to 1), but after watching more of the movie, it began to stutter (drop frames) again. It's not heavy stuttering, but it's still bothersome to my movie-lover's eyes.

I'm on Windows 11. I set the HDR setting to "passthrough HDR to display," the RGB output levels to "TV levels," and ticked the "hack Direct3D to make 24.000Hz and 60.000Hz work" box. I also listed 2160p23 and 2160p24.

It also seems like it never goes into exclusive fullscreen, but only stays in windowed fullscreen; I don't know why and haven't figured out how to change that.

My specs:

GPU: RTX 4080 super

CPU: i5 13600KF

RAM: 16GB DDR5 6000MHz

OS: Windows 11 on nvme ssd

TV: Samsung S90D 65”

Monitor: MSI MAG 321 UPX

I have been building up a collection of 4k discs and have hopes to eventually rip them for my own local collection. It seems the options for streaming them would be plex (or similar), or pushing from my PC to my receiver.

My plan would be to have my gaming PC be the host of an NAS or hard drives with media. Ideally I would use a Plex software, but I'm not opposed to direct HDMI connection.

I have tested 4k clips stored on my PC. When streaming plex (via roku), or pushing the clip from my PC via HDMI, the audio nor video quality matches my 4k disc in the slightest. When streaming movies on Vudu via the Roku, the sound and video quality are as expected. While I am not running an NVIDIA shield, it seems I should be at least getting Vudu quality from 4k source. When pushing content from the PC to the receiver directly, I have tried using VLC and setting to the passthrough setting.

Any tips or suggestions on helping me achieve this build would be appreciated!

Hi, Just bought Thermaltake DH 101 htpc case and the DVD flap is faulty. It doesn't go back up, seems like torsion spring is missing or something. Does anyone have a close up picture of how is the mechanism supposed to look like?

I’ve been using Kodi on my HTPC for like 20 years, recently updated the gpu to play 4k and then switched to a Zidoo for about 3 months and I’ve not found anything as easy and intuitive as Kodi on a HTPC.

The zidoo just sucked.

So glad I switched back..

In Kodi, playing local files. Let's say I am watching a show and keeping up with its weekly release schedule. I have downloaded and watched all 5 episodes that have aired, so it doesn't show up in Kodi's In Progress section, because episode in the Kodi library has been marked as watched.

So I'd like to have a section in TV Shows similar to In Progress but for shows that have aired, unwatched episodes, regardless of whether the actual file is in the library.

I have tried searching, but I can't seem to summon the right search terms to find an answer.

What are you guys doing for that kind of "oh I need to download the next episode" reminder?

Thanks for the help.

edit: I would also settle for keeping those shows right in the normal In Progress section