I'll start by saying that I know I could probably search and eventually find all the answers I'm looking for. I in fact will be searching as well as posting this, but in the past few hours I haven't been able to answer all my questions, so I'm posting this too. With that you of the way....
I currently have a 2013 mac mini dedicated to running plex media sever. BD and DVD are ripped using makemkv and handbrake onto external HDD connected to the mini. Use plex apps on phone/ipad and plexconnect to appletvs throughout the house.
Everything works wonderfully and I'm quite happy with the current setup with one glaring exception - in my theater, I'm not happy with having basic dolby digital via plex and plexconnect. I want DTS HD-MA and TrueHD, and I'd even like if I could use uncompressed versions of the BDs. Also, being beholden to plexconnect's backdoor hackery of the appletv makes things a bit finnicky (every time we lose power, I have to manually reset everything). This means my wife doesn't use it because it's too confusing.
So my ideal solution *seems* to be the Dune HD Smart H1, as it could play either the iso or the mkv from the bluray disc off a NAS (which I also have), bitstream the HD audio, etc. But what I can not find, is what does the Dune interface look like? Is it graphical similar to Plex, or is there a way to make it graphical? I'd ideally like to have a nice GUI similar to plex so we could easily navigate movies by cover art.
Is dune the best solution, or is there another simple way to get the HD audio via a streamer/network player? Simplicity of USE is the key - complex initial setup is fine with me if necessary to put together the right tools. But complex setup probably means complex maintenance, which I also want to avoid.
Any helpful suggestions?
Edit: 3D is not a priority at all.
I currently have a 2013 mac mini dedicated to running plex media sever. BD and DVD are ripped using makemkv and handbrake onto external HDD connected to the mini. Use plex apps on phone/ipad and plexconnect to appletvs throughout the house.
Everything works wonderfully and I'm quite happy with the current setup with one glaring exception - in my theater, I'm not happy with having basic dolby digital via plex and plexconnect. I want DTS HD-MA and TrueHD, and I'd even like if I could use uncompressed versions of the BDs. Also, being beholden to plexconnect's backdoor hackery of the appletv makes things a bit finnicky (every time we lose power, I have to manually reset everything). This means my wife doesn't use it because it's too confusing.
So my ideal solution *seems* to be the Dune HD Smart H1, as it could play either the iso or the mkv from the bluray disc off a NAS (which I also have), bitstream the HD audio, etc. But what I can not find, is what does the Dune interface look like? Is it graphical similar to Plex, or is there a way to make it graphical? I'd ideally like to have a nice GUI similar to plex so we could easily navigate movies by cover art.
Is dune the best solution, or is there another simple way to get the HD audio via a streamer/network player? Simplicity of USE is the key - complex initial setup is fine with me if necessary to put together the right tools. But complex setup probably means complex maintenance, which I also want to avoid.
Any helpful suggestions?
Edit: 3D is not a priority at all.