A Budget Home Theater & PC Setup: 4K, HDR, UHD Blu-ray, and More
by Ganesh T S on December 26, 2017 8:30 AM ESTThe days of bulky HTPCs with built-in optical drives, massive internal storage arrays, and integrated TV tuners are long gone. The advent of over the top (OTT) online streaming services has moved a lot of functionality to the cloud. As NAS units become more powerful, it has made sense to move local media files to a central repository. All these have enabled the TV-connected PC to become more compact. Unless the consumer has specific requirements (like, say, high quality gaming), even ultra-compact form factor (UCFF) machines such as the Intel NUCs can fit the bill.
Home Theater Components: Keeping up with the Times
The primary functionality of HTPCs has evolved to become one of a powerful and versatile media player. However, recent advances such as 4K and high dynamic range (HDR) videos, as well as stricter DRM requirements such as HDCP 2.2 for premium content have made the perfect HTPC platform difficult to achieve. Before delving deeper into these new advances, it is helpful to have some insight into how the landscape has changed over the last decade or so. The advancements in that timeframe have meant that next attractive home theater feature was always around the corner. In the initial days of 720p televisions and other home theater equipment, it was Full HD (1080p). As 1080p became widespread, it was HD audio bitstreaming. After that, 3D support was sought after. A brief lull ensued before the market started slowly getting ready for 4K.
Over the last year or so, we have seen the appearance of displays and audio/video receivers (AVRs) supporting HDMI 2.0 / HDCP 2.2 along with HDR / Dolby Vision. Despite the announcement of HDMI 2.1, I believe that we have reached a point where it is possible to purchase a relatively inexpensive home theater and HTPC configuration without worrying about it getting obsolete within the the next 3 to 5 years.
On the media side, OTT streaming services have become popular to the extent that Netflix and YouTube moved to offer 4K videos to consumers ahead of Blu-rays. Fortunately, many modern PCs are capable of 4K Netflix playback, though HDR is available only on a subset of those configurations. UHD Blu-ray playback support is available through CyberLink PowerDVD 17. However, the hardware requirements are a lot more specific compared to premium OTT services. UHD Blu-ray playback with HDR requires that the home theater components fulfill additional requirements.
Building a Home Theater on a Budget
I started work on this home theater piece back in June 2017. The aim was to present a setup (TV, AVR, and HTPC) with all the bells and whistles, yet light on the wallet. While the TV (TCL 55P607) and the AVR (Denon AVR X3400H) were easy to narrow down based on the feature requirements and budget, the PC side proved to be more challenging. Our core requirements (compact form factor, 4K Netflix support, and HDR capability) narrowed down the choices to a NVIDIA Pascal GPU-equipped PC or a Kaby Lake PC with HDCP 2.2 capabilities. UHD Blu-ray support further narrowed this down to certain Kaby Lake PCs with a HDMI 2.0 / HDCP 2.2 display output.
In the course of our evaluation, we found that consumer electronic (CE) equipment almost always received features ahead of HTPC platforms. Keeping this in mind, we ended up evaluating a number of options for the fulfillment of HTPC duties
- Roku Smart TV platform in the TCL 55P607
- NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV (SATV)
- Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080K
- ASRock Beebox-S 7200U
- Intel NUC7i7BNHX
Prior to looking at the performance of these options, it will be of interest to readers to delve deeper into our choice for the other home theater components. Earlier this year, I happened to embark on a house remodel, and I took that opportunity to revamp the HTPC test components used in our system reviews. Our choice of components is geared towards a typical family room (15' x 15') home theater.
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Gasaraki88 - Wednesday, December 27, 2017 - link
You also obviously didn't read the title. It said 4K, HDR, UHD Blu-Ray. 1080p is not 4K nor HDR nor UHD-Bluray.You know what, you can say the TV is too expensive too. Get a 1080p 42" for $100. Get a old receiver for $150 that doesn't do Atmos. Get a cheap android tv box from China for $60. Too bad it can't do anything like the title said. You also wouldn't need a article at Anandtech because it doesn't even have a PC.
Bullwinkle-J-Moose - Thursday, December 28, 2017 - link
Gasaraki88You also obviously didn't read the title. It said......
"A Budget Home Theater & PC Setup:" then listed the authors requirements instead of mine
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StevoLincolnite - Wednesday, December 27, 2017 - link
If you want 4k blu-ray on a budget. The Xbox One S is it. It's not even up for debate.And if you get Kinect, you don't even need to use any kind of controller.
Gasaraki88 - Wednesday, December 27, 2017 - link
Stop looking at home theater articles if you are not looking to spend more than a $1000. You people just like complaining. Anandtech should just remove the comments section because it serves no purpose with these idiots around.Makaveli - Thursday, December 28, 2017 - link
wow so much anger. There is a lot of cheap people on this site. Have most of you complaining every been in an Audio video store??Most of you need to stick to using your XBox for your HT experience.
Cygni - Tuesday, December 26, 2017 - link
Don't take it personally, ddriver enjoys posting dumb histrionics on every single AT article. Dude is an absolute nutter.mr_tawan - Tuesday, December 26, 2017 - link
And he has so much free time to respond to every single article here. I wish I could have this much free time myself!lmcd - Tuesday, December 26, 2017 - link
Yea the dude has both time to post all his rubbish, and come back and search for replies in a comment system without notifications. That's dedication.Mo3tasm - Tuesday, December 26, 2017 - link
No seriously, this is a very bad comment system by all means, readability, comment organization, notifications, accounts etc.. I mean, it actually discourages one to write a comment. My free blog has a better one...ddrіver - Wednesday, December 27, 2017 - link
You have time to read AND reply to my comments. The difference is that you don't have anything to say and when you do it's either to insult someone else or to say something wrong.