A Budget Home Theater & PC Setup: 4K, HDR, UHD Blu-ray, and More
by Ganesh T S on December 26, 2017 8:30 AM EST
The 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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ganeshts - Tuesday, December 26, 2017 - link
I would love to get a rundown of the budget for that PR server backend. Still too limited IMO and not enough flexibility.Aspernari - Tuesday, December 26, 2017 - link
"On a budget", then recommends and links a receiver over twice the cost of the TV!Come on. Seriously.
Aspernari - Tuesday, December 26, 2017 - link
Replying to myself to further comment: His actual recommendation, the Denon AVRS730H is merely JUST AS EXPENSIVE as the TV.And then there's no actual speakers, or mention of speakers on the entire AVR page... So why are we getting a receiver?
At the price of the receiver alone, you can start getting into entry level Atmos-enabled soundbars.
ganeshts - Tuesday, December 26, 2017 - link
How is $349 / $429 as expensive as a $700 TV? Maybe you are seeing some other numbers?ddrіver - Tuesday, December 26, 2017 - link
Ganesh, are you actively trying to not understand the point multiple people are making? DO NOT PUT "BUDGET"-ANYTHING IN THE TITLE. Especially if you're going to use a $2000 HTPC with a GTX1080, or a $1000 receiver (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072Z9ZGSZ ). Did I already say it? This is not budget!Do you get your Christmas bonus for clicks? I clicked because I'm looking for a receiver recommendation on a budget and expected some good but cheap options. And I find you're actually using a $1000 model and just mentioning another almost $500 model (https://www.amazon.com/Denon-AVRS730H-Receiver-wir... ) once without detailing much on alternatives or what similar models I could go for. You went on to talk about the $1000 model for the rest of the receiver section.
Aspernari - Tuesday, December 26, 2017 - link
Whoops, I was thinking about the S405. Sorry, the receiver is only nearly as expensive as the TV when the TV is on a good sale. Now, let's get back to the absurdity of this article.This article lacks direction and focus. It misses the mark for both its stated purpose, and as any sort of reasonable guide or reference.
- Assume the reader is recycling speakers, but not any other components - Going all the way down to HDMI cables.
- Clearly a sponsored deal with Denon. It's disclosed but still awful since no other receiver is mentioned, alternatives like soundbars (again, low end Atmos is available for less than the recommended receiver) are never mentioned, and anyone looking for help unpacking the current audio tech is left on their own.
- $2000 HTPC, even as a joke option, is more than the entire rest of the recommended kit combined.
- Recommending all sorts of hardware that doesn't support features that should have been seen as requirements (Tegra and the $2000 HTPC failing to provide full HDR support, etc).
- Recommending a $200 Android device in an article about budget setups featuring a Roku TV.
- $200 more in Bluray playback equipment to the HTPCs, but no consideration for UHD bluray players or the Xbox One S - The recommendation is to deal with the minefield of compatibility issues rather than spend the same sum on a standalone solution that doesn't suffer from those problems - and plays games!
- I'm going to harp on the Denon sponsorship and the clear bias there again. There are two products named in the article subsections. The TV, and the receiver. And it's not even the recommended receiver! No other single product gets an entire page to itself. The section about the receiver is even longer than the TV. There's no info provided about the S730H, not even basic specs. Congrats on your free $1000 receiver, but it doesn't belong in a budget article.
I get that you wrote this as a "this is what I did" article, not a comprehensive guide, but come on. No alternatives suggested for the Denon is... Really galling.
we - Tuesday, December 26, 2017 - link
Apparently Ultra HD Blue-ray video and sound quality from the Xbox One S is somewhat disappointing.https://www.whathifi.com/news/no-xbox-one-s-isnt-v...
Aspernari - Tuesday, December 26, 2017 - link
There've been some patches since that article was published which, as I understand it, addressed most of the quality issues.I have an X, and have no complaints - but I also don't have another UHD disk player to compare against.
Aikouka - Wednesday, December 27, 2017 - link
I've mentioned this before, but the Xbox One's greatest flaw is that it's too noisy. Disc noise pushed me away from using the player after playing only a single movie (Sicario). I also ran into problems with the disc freezing in random spots, but not always in the same spot. (Do note that other players had no problems with the disc at all.) If you want a basic UHD player, I'd probably go with the Sony X800. I've had the best luck with mine so far with only a few hiccups in the beginning. I did replace it simply because I wanted a unit with Dolby Vision, which the only decent (but not cheap) option there was the Oppo 203.Galid - Wednesday, December 27, 2017 - link
There must be a lot of kids in here, this is not SUPER budget but it sure is budget in my mind. My home theater setup without the PC is worth 6k$ and it is considered cheap by many standards. The best budget and worthy contender for around 600$ would be the Onkyo NR727. I myself would not consider anything below but that's only 200$ cheaper. ONE of my speakers costs freaking 400$ and I'm really considered on the OK/cheap side. Do you guys ever go out in stores, you know, not those internet websites where you click and wait, ACTUAL audio video stores? WAW you guys need to see the light outside, it's made by the SUN! WAW!!! Any respectable audio video store will have AVR + speakers setups from 1k to 50k$++, so I would consider 1 to 5k pretty cheap.Wanna go ultra budget, buy used and freaking leave this website alone. What do you want, website full of used audio video pieces of equipment just leave this place. Sure this article could be better but it sure look budget friendly to me and I'm FAR from being a rich guy.
When I see people complaining about a 800$ receiver, I cannot help but wonder who's reading these articles. You work for mcdonalds 24h a week? Don't look at buying a home theater, get a BETTER JOB then come back ffs.