Posts by jbinkley60

I would think so. My older NUCs are an i5 model NUC6i5SYH and an i7 NUC5I7RYH and both have been sufficient as long as you leverage their hardware decoding.

I can't speak for the 7th generation with regards to HEVC but my 8th generation handles it just fine. The NUC8i7BEH models have been on sale if you look around and wait for sales. I picked one up for $399 on Black Friday. I've seen others at $429 but I suspect they will be on sale again before the end of the year.

Audio passthrough is fine. No issues on any source format. I am passing through HDMI. The RC2 build is more stable and the only issue I have now is the built=in infrared receiver has limited distance so I installed a Flirc. This issue seems to be more common with the 7th and 7th gen NUCs. The other issue I am seeing is what many are calling micro-stuttering playing interlaced content, especially 1080i. This is a Kodi 18 issue across many HW platforms, according to the noise on the Kodi forums. All progressive content is fine. Overall I like the new NUC.

I picked up a USB-C to HDMI adapter cable today and will do some testing. I have a couple of Intel NUCs and may want to try a similar configuration. I'll let you know what I find.

You can look at Mezzmo. It will handle serving up on demand video, live stream captures, music etc.. It supports uPNP clients ()i.e. LibreElec), web clients, Android clients and more. It might do what you want. I've been using it for years and their support is excellent.

For those interested, here's the thread with Intel. It is getting more interesting. I've got my gen 1 Flirc working pretty good now. I had some issues with button delays but changing the delay times on my Harmony remote and some additional Flirc programming has fixed everything. It is pretty responsive now.

I've got a thread going with Intel now on the IR receiver issue. I already exchanged the NUC for a replacement and the problem persists. We'll see what they come back with. It seems to be an issue on the 7th and 8th gen NUCs. I didn't want to use an external receiver but right now it is my only option. I sit further than 6 feet from the TV. I could look at other approaches like a Harmony HUB, wireless remote etc. but for now I'll stick with the external remote for the near term.

So I am in the process of upgrading from a NUC 5I7RYH and have also previously had a NUC 6i5SYH both running LibreElec as HTPCs. It sounds like my upgrade goals are similar to your to support HEVC and HDMI 2.0 for 4K @ 60fps. Right now I am limited to HDMI which limits me to 30 fps. As for noise I never hear the new unit. Nor did I hear the old units. As long as you enable the HW offload the CPU utilization stays low and thus the cooling fan isn't an issue. I use the quiet profile in the BIOS. The NUC has been great playing all formats. The only issue I am having right now is high bitrate MPEG2 @1090P where I am upscaling to 4K @30fps (due to an upstream AV receiver still only supporting HDMI 1.4). The issue is I can get an out of sync audio/video condition when using HW decoding and skipping. It lasts for about 10 seconds and then gets back in sync. If I disable HW offload for MPEG2 it is fine. All other formats play beautifully. The other NUC issue I have is the built-in infrared receiver has distance limitations. Much over 6 feet and it becomes useless. I've gone with a FLIRC USB IR right now and it is working fine.

I have a NUC8i7BEH and memory utilization remains low. CPU remains low as long as HW decoding is enabled. Attached is a top command output of my NUC playing a 12mbps MPEG2 1080P file while doing 4K upscaling. You can see it isn't breaking a sweat. It has 8GB of memory but 4 is sufficient.

I have a NUC8i7BEH and can run 3840x2160 @60fps. LibreElec RC1 provided this as an option in the 2 video resolution and refresh settings. My TV is a Samsung F9000 with a OneConnect 3500U/ZA box. It's a few years old but supports HDMI 2.0a. I didn't need to do anything special.

The latest on my issue is that Intel suggested I return my NUC8i7BEH for a replacement, which I did and the problem persists. If I go much beyond 6 feet the internal IR remote pretty much stops working or is very sluggish when it does work. I've gone ahead and disabled the internal IR receiver and installed a FLIRC gen1 USB IR receiver. It is working fine. Intel seems like they might actually be digging into this issue based upon their E-mail response. I am cautiously optimistic but somewhat doubtful. It looks like a HW design issue.

Thanks. These look very similar. I did go ahead and post a new thread on the Intel Community forum to see what they say. I've also ordered a USB IR receiver. I'll see how it works. I also previously had an Intel NUC 6i5SYH that I used for an HTPC for a short while. It didn't exhibit the CIR issues. Based upon the forum comments and threads this seems to have started with the 7th gen and higher units.

So my issue is definitely BIOS or hardware related. Actually it appears to be distance related with the NUC 8i7BEH. I loaded Windows and Kodi and am seeing generally the same thing except I have found that if I move the remote control to within 6 feet it works consistently but further than that it starts to get sluggish. I don';t know if there is some type of sensitivity setting on these. I am going to dig around Intel's website. I also ordered a separate USB IR receiver. I'll try that and see how it works. I'll also reinstall the LibreElec SSD in the new NUC and try the distance testing.

I moved my RC1 build to my old NUC 5I7RYH and saw no issues with the IR responsiveness. On the new NUC 8i7BEH it is intermittently sluggish and stalls at times. I suspect my issue may be related to how new the hardware is and whether LibreElec has the most current Intel drivers or something else. I've tried two versions of BIOS, including the latest, and it persists I am going to install another SSD in the NUC and do a Windows 10 / Kodi build and see how things go with the IR receiver .

I am running 8.2.5 on my NUC model 5I7RYH and the RC1 candidate on my NUC model 8i7BEH. I am seeing the sluggish IR responses on the NUC 8i7BEH. which has the latest 0051 BIOS. I am going to move that SSD over to the older hardware and see if the problem follows the build or stays with the hardware. FYI on the NUCs you can also update the BIOS via F7 in the BIOS with the bio file without needing the Windows updater. Intel isn't good about communicating that on their website.

Sorry for the confusion. I meant LibreElec. I corrected my post. I had OpenElec on the brain due to the posts above mine.

Which version of LibreElec are you running ? I have 2 NUCs a NUC 5I7RYH and NUC 8i7BEH and am not seeing the CPU issue. You could try SSHing into the NUC when the CPU us high, do a top command and see what process is running high. I am looking into my CIR remote being sluggish in responding intermittently with \my new NUC 8i7BEH running the latest RC1 code,

I ran some HEVC 1080P test files with my new NUC and the RC1 build. This was done using a Mezzmo uPNP server. The results were outstanding. Excellent quality, low CPU utilization and very smooth playback.