Home Theater Setup

So I’ve been torrenting for over a year now (just in time to get attached to RARBG and get my heart broken) and mostly loving it. Now that I have access to actual high quality files I’ve been looking to improve my home setup. I was wondering what setups people have and what I should aspire to.

In the old days I would just stream with chromecast and then I got into the Laptop to HDMI cable setup but now I know the joys of a 5TB hard drive plugged directly into my TV and I don’t think I’ll ever go back. My TV isn’t all that big (only 45") and it’s only 1080p. It’s an older TV too so it can’t play HEVC files which limits what I can play in this setup. I’d love to be able to access the 4k HDR content out there. Does anyone have any advice on what kind of TVs are out there that would work well with this or other potential setups?

Shurimal,

LG OLED TV-s are where it's at. Superb picture quality and prices have come down considerably.

As for sound, Denon 3600/3700/3800 AVR--everything else is either overpriced or crap (or both). The 3000 series has good power amp section and Audyssey MultEQ XT32 which actually does something below 100 Hz where room correction is most needed (see https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/difference-between-audyssey-multeq-vs-multeq-xt-vs-multeq-xt32.14786/#post-460377). For speakers I quite like ELAC Debut Reference speakers and SUB3030 subwoofer--price-performance ratio is really good.

That's for the normal consumer level stuff. Of course, if you have the time and will, you can do what I have done and go down the rabbit hole of DIY speakers and subs to end up with something that blows the socks off of actual THX cinemas--highly recommended ;)

Hallowed_Grave,

I have a 7.1 home theatre setup with a 4K 55” hooked up to AppleTV.

I use the Infuse app. They have a free trial version in the App Store. Tried it, the setup was easy for me and the player did exactly what I wanted: play media files from a local network drive. Supports a wide range of encodes, audio codecs, 1080p, 2160p, HDR, and so forth. I bought the lifetime subscription after that, which is good for all future versions including the big updates.

For setup, I have a small PC with 2 x 5TB HDDs shared through my local network. Both the PC and the AppleTV are connected via Ethernet (no wireless or you might experience playback issues from time to time)

crossover,

Get an Nvidia Shield or AppleTV. They are best-in-class devices and anything else is going to lead to some sort of compromise. They’ll last for years and are worth the money spent.

Then set up an app like Jellyfin, Plex, or Infuse (AppleTV only) to stream the files over your local network. You’ll be able to play back everything from those small 200mb rips to the 80gb+ 4K Bluray Dolby Vision remuxes with 7.1 lossless audio.

AvgCakeSlice,

Does AppleTV have a Jellyfin app yet? We’ve got a few around the house and I’d love to switch to Jellyfin from Plex.

crossover,

There’s app called Swiftfin that should do it.

CriticalMiss,

There’s Swiftfin but YMMV because it’s in a very slow development phase.

radau,

Infuse has been the only way it was usable for me. Tried Swiftfin but as of a week ago it had too many issues with my media where it would refuse to play until you messed around with the developer settings which you then have to change back for the other media that did used to play. Infuse I paid $10 for the year just to try it and it has been flawless

Sharpiemarker,

This is the bible of home theaters.

QuarterlySushi,
@QuarterlySushi@kbin.social avatar

Yep! I use Sonarr and Radarr, connect to their web servers from my phone to get torrents going and they automatically organize the files on my NAS. Then Infuse picks up from the Apple TV and populates meta data.

It’s a beautiful solution. A couple of taps on my phone in the couch and I’ll have a clean, organized and beautifully presented addition to my library a couple of minutes later.

I’m still learning this stuff so I have two plans - try Usenet, and also run it all through cloudflare so I can get downloads going while I’m away.

cutitdown,

Any tips on where you source the torrents from? Also looking into Usenet as well

QuarterlySushi,
@QuarterlySushi@kbin.social avatar

Right now I use 1337x and eztv, but it’s not perfect

gjoel,

5.1.4 surround. I use an nvidia Shield for playing back files (via kodi), and it works pretty well.

twistedtxb,
@twistedtxb@lemmy.ca avatar

Most (all?) Bravia series televisions have built in android TV and the interface is imo super slick and not bloated.

I have a x950h plugged in ethernet and I can stream Plex in 4k HDR DV without any issues. It’s basically plug and play.

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