looking for NUC or NUC-alternative recommendation

le11/12 broke nuc support

I too have nuc11pah (for similar reasons you mentioned , incl.CIR)

For some reasons le 11/12 does not detect/offer multiple hdmi and/or dp outputs.

I use hdmi for tv direct (4k) and sometimes dp for hd audio, for the 1% content that's worth switching on the 'big' audio.

In le 10 things work as expected, LE 12 OTOH insists on sending video to dp if both are on. That might be OK, if your receiver is 4k capable, mine isn't (why?)

Also, somewhat unrelated, watching 4k TV via the tv-headend client doesn't work, although triggering a recording, then watching the recorded video does work. I guess it's a format problem of the live rtsp stream.

I'm waiting for le12++ to see if that helps. Until then, the nuc is powerful enough to do 4k on le11 ( I dunno about HDR though, lack of content)

Quote from Gizmos

I went for an Asrock N100M

Still installing and configuring, but first impression is 👍🏻

HDR working ok and gigabit LAN?

Intel has dropped support for NUCs, So I guess that is pretty much the end of living room compliant HDR/HDaudio capable OSS.
The toy class devices are what's left raspi/amlogic/google sticks and the like.

What a pity.

At least le 10 could handle multiple hdmi so you could split video/audio.

LE 11/12 is going nowhere when it comes to intel devices.

Quote from yamcenutzer

Intel has dropped support for NUCs, So I guess that is pretty much the end of living room compliant HDR/HDaudio capable OSS.

"We have decided to stop direct investment in the Next Unit of Compute (NUC) Business and pivot our strategy to enable our ecosystem partners to continue NUC innovation and (censored). This decision will not impact the remainder of Intel’s Client Computing Group (CCG) or Network and Edge Computing (NEX) businesses. Furthermore, we are working with our partners and customers to ensure a smooth transition and fulfillment of all our current commitments – including ongoing support for NUC products currently in market."

I think the reference to “toy class” might be a little understating the ability of these boards. Yes the original concept was aimed at the “tinkering” class but what has emerged from this sector are some very capable next generation HTPC solutions either self built or pre built professionally.

Personally my own HTPC is self built around the Rock64 (RK3328) a 2017 era SoC which outputs HDR but if you investigate the newer boards from this manufacturer you may be pleasantly surprised at their capabilities.

The pandemic completely interrupted the manufacturing and supply lines of this sector of board production but I suspect that Intel’s decision to exit the NUC sector may well have been influenced in part by what they see coming down the line from the likes of Rockchip and other similar manufacturers.

Toy class means that the gui freezes all so often when scrolling through large collections of whatever e.g. a tv grid.

Toy class also means no decent remote, except maybe CEC, if that works, and then you're limited to a few buttons. Compare that to the ancient rc6 remotes, and you see what I mean

Toy class also means hd-audio on demand (although kodi/Librelec never got hot-plugging hdmi right)

The point being: if someone is willing to spend more than 50.-for a device that can drive a much, much more expensive 4k TV and possibly Amp, then ..... yes well what? kodi? le? Currently you can't even throw money at it, no decent media players.

The TV community has shown years ago, what (TV-) media player (aka decent sat receivers) should be able to do: e.g. 4 simultaenous FHD streams on a 4k display, aka 'sports bar mode' . And these are linux based!

Kodi? LE? thousands of add-ons but the core functionality of high q media playback?