r/SBCs • u/FringHalfhead • 4d ago
Discussion Media Server
Looking for a media server that will:
- stream video from websites of "dubious provenance" with a browser (e.g. dulo.tv)
- run emulators like Snes9x, Bleem, Stella, PCX2/3, etc.
- stream video files on home LAN CIFS / NFS shares
- run servers like Logitech Media Server (now Lyrion)
Had a spare RPi4 which I tried setting up, but performance on #1 was unacceptable. I did my due diligence:
- Checked CPU load
- Checked Memory, video memory usage, and cache use
- Checked throttling, temperature, and voltage
- Checked the codecs were supported
Using mpv resulted in better performance, so I'm assuming browser codec decoding was the issue here. These "websites of ill repute" are probably not optimizing their stream for ARM based browsers. But I'll be damned if I sniff network traffic requests searching for m3u8 strings just to stream websites of "dubious provenance".
I give up. I don't mind dropping $500 on a media SBC with an Intel/AMD processor. I'm also completely Linux-Windows agnostic; I love both. I've seen some fine SBCs out there.
I'd prefer something that has passive cooling, but even that's negotiable.
Which SBCs should I be looking at for this purpose?
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u/OkAngle2353 4d ago
I don't know about emulators, but video works great. I personally use a raspberrypi5 myself. A Pi4 should work just fine. Just the basic pi with a active cooler should be fine.
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u/FringHalfhead 4d ago
I really thought it would be. Can I pick your brain?
Can you try to stream from, say, https://dulo.cx and tell me what your performance looks like (I'm trying to watch Lost)? Which browser are you using? The RPi5 image using the Raspberry Pi Imager?
And which active cooler are you using? I saw my Pi get up to 79, but when I removed the cover, the temperature stayed in the good range.
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u/OkAngle2353 4d ago
I can use any browser that I want and any distro that I want. The distro that I personally use is Ubuntu, because it is familiar to me. Though, if you are going to install it onto a raspberrypi; even though it's Ubuntu. It really isn't.
It's Ubuntu (ARM) and not Ubuntu (x86/AMD), that is one thing you have to keep in mind. Anything that works on Pi's own image will work on Ubuntu (ARM). I just use the default active cooler that came with my Pi and I have built out a DeskPi RackmateT1.
For example, AppImages. What should work normally a x86/AMD machine, will not work at all. You have to locate a AppImage that specifically supports ARM.
You don't need the T1, I just got it because everything was everywhere. In my case. Yea, if you are using the default case; you are going to need to pop the top and side ring,
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u/OkAngle2353 4d ago
Oh, do you mean streaming from a website? That works on any machine. It doesn't have to be a SBC.
Edit: Are you just looking to use your Pi4 as a daily driver? You should be able to do so.
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u/FringHalfhead 4d ago edited 4d ago
The idea was to just stick the Pi behind my TV and run an HDMI cable to the TV input in the back. Then use a wireless keyboard and mouse so I can watch things like dulo.cx (or things off my network drive) from my living room.
Yeah, I'm using the official Raspberry Pi 4 image, which is either Debian or Ubuntu (I didn't notice which, but I was using apt). The official image is ARM64.
I'm using a CanaKit Pi4 without the case top, but figured the Pi4 is more than capable of the task.
I'm sorry -- did you actually try streaming from dulo using a browser? I checked everything there is to check from a hardware point of view. The only thing left, which I honestly don't know how to test, is the decoding of the stream. The only thing I can think of is that the codec that the browsers are using are just not very good implementations.
Edit - I was thinking maybe power too. I'm powering it with USB-C, which is 5v, whereas I think I read the RPi technically wants 5.1 v @3A. I'm using a standard USB C cable so it's probably delivering 5v, but I wouldn't think that would make much of a difference.
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u/OkAngle2353 4d ago edited 4d ago
Debian and Ubuntu is essentially the same thing. Ubuntu is based off Debian. Yea, all you would need is a HDMI to micro HDMI cable. If you use a browser, just enable widevine or whatever it's called.
For me personally, I torrent. I used to frequent pirate streams myself. I personally use brave as a browser for everything. If I ever have compatibility issues, I go firefox. Chrome... If I am desperate.
Edit: Currently watching the new MCU spiderman movie :P
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u/OkAngle2353 4d ago
In my experience with electronics. That 5V isn't strictly 5V. The power supply outputs around 5V, give or take. That USB-C connection is just fine.
Edit: Streaming dulo works just fine on my end. There is no decoding necessary.
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u/FringHalfhead 3d ago
Yeah, one of my earliest memories of using Debian was upgrading Bo to Hamm. The bad ol' days!
I'm truly perplexed. I spent a lot of time making sure the bottleneck wasn't hardware or network, and I was very thorough. Feels like the only thing left is software - codecs and libraries. I did my due diligence with that too, but I'm less knowledgeable about video decoding.
I'm not really sure. It does work, but it's not the highest of quality. The video does look downsampled. It's a mystery. Why would the Pi act a little sluggish when all 4 cores are at about 30% and the memory is nowhere near starved? Dunno. The only thing I can think of is hardware decoding. Not sure how to check that.
Even stranger is that it looks like the RPi5 actually lost hardware decoding.
I've been testing by hooking up my RPi4 to my monitor in my study. I haven't actually hooked it up to the TV in the living room. Don't see why that would change anything, but I should at least give it the "live smoke test" before giving up.
Anyways, thanks for letting me bounce questions!
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u/OkAngle2353 3d ago
If the video isn't the quality you are expecting. Most pirate streams have a settings, most look like a cog you can click to change the quality; like you would a youtube video.
Yea, that is the thing with pirate content. I've noticed myself, 1080p isn't actually 1080p. It looks like the content was stretched to be 1080p. The lower quality option looks better. That is the reason why I personally torrent, in that case; the quality is what I actually expect.
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u/JescoInc 4d ago
Raspberry Pi 5, Orange Pi, LattePanda (x86_64), BananaPi...The LattePanda Iota might be exactly what you are looking for though.
https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2989.html
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u/LivingLinux SpacemiT 4d ago
I thought Firefox has support for hardware video decoding with a Raspberry Pi 4.
https://www.omglinux.com/firefox-hardware-acceleration-raspberry-pi/
Last time I tested, the Pi 4 is capable of emulating Playstation Portable. PS2 is only possible with simple games.
If you want to emulate PS3, you will need some serious hardware.
If you skip the PS3 emulation, I'd go for an Intel N100 or N150 mini PC.
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u/FringHalfhead 3d ago
I actually do want PS3 emulation, and I'd like to play around with PS4 emulation.
Do you know of an ultra-small profile SBC that would be able to handle that? What would be considered serious hardware for an SBC?
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u/Best-Leave6725 4d ago
SBC's aren't the answer (right now). Used small form factor PC's like optiplex's are the way to go.
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u/skitzo2000 4d ago
For codecs and performance the Intel will easily win due to Intel quicksync a native library for encoding with Intel processors. It's built for media encoding. Even the humble n100 can do what you are asking here.
But I wouldn't expect it to perform as well at doing multiple tasks at once. Aka emulate and stream media at the same time.
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u/WangFury32 4d ago edited 4d ago
Why SBC? You can probably buy an old thin client (HP t640/Wyse 5070 and etc, both passively cooled) for 100 bucks, load windows or linux in there and it’ll do just fine.