Looking to stream my softsubbed anime collection - is AndroidTV what I need?

by KentuckyFriedMystia

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Hello friends,

A little background: I have a couple of external HDDs filled up with a few terabytes of anime fansubs I've collected over the last dozen years or so. Most of them are in MKV container, H.264 10-bit video, and effect-heavy Advanced SubStation Alpha subtitles in a track separate from the video (though I also have a sizable collection of old hardsubbed XviD encodes).

I need a small box ("game console sized" or smaller) that can playback these files on a non-smart HDTV with zero lag or stuttering. The files can either be stored locally on the device, or if it can utilize my HDD with a USB3 port, that works too.

I want to take these to a vacation home and lugging my desktop computer up there is a pain in the neck. I used to have a laptop, but I sold it because I rarely used it. I'd much rather have something where I can just stick the box and my HDD next to the TV and control it with a remote.

Some Google searching led me to the Xiaomi MiBox 3, so I went to Walmart to check that out, but looking at the box, it seems that that device is more suited for someone who wants to stream their content from the cloud - not for someone like me who has all of their content stored locally. Is the MiBox a good choice for what I'm trying to do, or can you recommend something better?

Waldren

Mibox with vlc/kodi would do well. Raspberry pi with libreelec would be a good option if you don't need the other features of android TV.

Northyman

Hvem you checked out Plex? I use it for my downloaded series/movies. If you have internet access you can just stream it from your home computer. And use vide range of devices to play it on. Works lovely together other my shield as player

bobniborg1

I use a Mi Box to stream locally bit it streams over wifi so you'd need that. I use kodi as the front end but you can use plex or some other players.

BiggussDikkuss

H.264 10bit Anime is not video encoded using any legit video compression standard. So there is no hardware video decoding available using any hardware platform.

As such it has to be CPU software decoded and depending on the resolution and bitrate used, Mobile based chipset devices like the Mi Box or RPi's will not have enough CPU power to do even 1080p Anime software decoding. Avoid such devices at all costs.

For reliable 1080p Anime CPU software decoding you will need either Intel hardware, a NVIDIA Shield or a 8 Core CPU equipped device like a AMLogic S912 box running LibreELEC Kodi Krypton.