# Forum > News > Community Chat > Hardware >  HTPC / NVIDIA Shield / TVIX or?

## visitor

Okay, so I have a home cinema with 7,1 sound system and a ~150" screen (projector) , in another room I have a 42" tv and in another room again a 40" tv.. And a 12 tb nas server where my media is. 
I do have one issue though, my NAS server is located 20 meters away, but connected to my router. On same network is my tvix and ps4 (in home cinema room) I currently have a Tvix 6500 to play and crunch through all different media files mkv, iso etc, but it is getting old (10 years) and has slowly started to stop during 1080p movies :'(

So I am debating what to get. Should I get a new Tvix or a HTPC and simply cast to the different pcs etc or a nvidia shield to do the same. 

12 TB Qnap NAS 410
Denon AVR 1910
Dali concept 1 speakers and 12" sub
Vivitek 1085 full HD projector
Playstation 4


What do you guys think?

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## powerblaze

I got the K1 NVIDIA Shield tablet and I have to say that I really love this thing.

Really its all about preferences but I dont know what specs the other tablets you mentioned have I recently found a pretty sweet app and its free also that can stream games/desktop with sound and has really neat customization for controls/keyboard.

Its called Remotr Ive been slowly figuring out more things I can do with it. If you do get one tho I recommend a On-The -Go cable to hook up other usb peripherals.
Personally tho I like the shield tablet as it has more features and really great hardware.

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## visitor

> I got the K1 NVIDIA Shield tablet and I have to say that I really love this thing.
> 
> Really its all about preferences but I dont know what specs the other tablets you mentioned have I recently found a pretty sweet app and its free also that can stream games/desktop with sound and has really neat customization for controls/keyboard.
> 
> Its called Remotr Ive been slowly figuring out more things I can do with it. If you do get one tho I recommend a On-The -Go cable to hook up other usb peripherals.
> Personally tho I like the shield tablet as it has more features and really great hardware.


I want a server of some sort to be able to stream it to my different media sources around the room

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## Sklug

I have a fairly robust HTPC/media server/steam machine setup, almost all wireless nodes on it, so that should not be an issue. How do I do it? 
*
FIRST*
I have my main gaming rig and most powerful PC also double as my media server. Why? For casting Steam to all of my HTPCs around my home and also to consolidate devices. Also running a 6700k i7 in it which is incredibly useful for transcoding. It saves me money from buying a separate device to transcode my files. This is important to me since I run Plex, and for example, I will have a 40GB lossless movie on my home media server, yet I am sitting at 40,000 feet in the air on an airplane using the free wi-fi on my tablet (Jet Blue let's say). Well, I am not going to be able to stream at 30 Mbps at 40,000 feet lol. I might be luck to get 2 Mbps. So, I transcode it down and then I watch movies at 40k feet using my home gaming computer more efficiently (especially since games don't take much advantage of hyperthreading in an i7).

*SECOND - Storage*
I have a separate NAS with 25 TB of data (5x 5GB drives). I keep my storage in a RAID 5 array (good for redundancy in case of drive failure. Ripping discs is so time-consuming). Transfer speed is great, though write speed not that great, which isn't a big deal though. Of note, I rip everything in uncompressed lossless quality, so many of my Blu Ray rips are like 40 GB. Some of my 3D Blu Ray rips are like 80GB raw. I COULD convert them down to x265 or something and still maintain great quality, I just don't because one, I can afford the drives, and two, storage space is only going to be cheaper over time and I know 5 years from now I am going to look at all my 10% compressions and convince myself that I need to re-rip everything in original quality. Again, ripping takes so long, even with a cutting edge computer and blu ray drive.

_So, where are we so far? I am still at a single computer, my gaming/work/power rig that is also doubling as a media server, plus I have a separate NAS device. Depending on your tower/motherboard, you may not even need a NAS. For example, my motherboard has 6 SATA plugs as well as an mSata SSD slot. Unfortunately I needed a NAS because I run a 3 drive RAID 0 SSD array. Oh and, with those 8TB drives out there now, with 12 TB on the horizon, a NAS just might not be necessary._ 

*THIRD - My HTPC devices*
So, what do I need now? All I need now is a device that can stream my signal. All transcoding, all number crunching, all everything is done on my powerful rig. I could literally use a Raspberry Pi to stream a 1080P signal, it can handle it (though you will need more if you are doing 4k). However, they are a little clunky speed wise, and some compatibility issues and setup is a pain. So, the easy way? I just built myself 4 mini PCs with some cases I liked, with a low-power fanless processor, and leave Windows 10 on them (with auto-update and crap turned off, and heavy security restrictions beyond my own local network). Think of something like the NUC. It cost me about $350 each to make, but you can do it for less. Hell, I think you could buy yourself a NUC for $120 bucks which would do the job just fine. I was just particular with some things about mine with some features, as well as buying a fancier little case that was like 50 bucks each on Amazon lol. The important thing is to remember you need something with HDMI out to the TV of course.

*FOURTH - HTPC Setup part 2 - Home Network*
Of my 4 HTPCs in my home, 3 of them are wireless and are in 2 separate rooms of the house. One, my bedroom, the other a guest room, and the 3rd I have out in the garage for when I am working on some other fun misc. stuff. How do I handle the wireless? WIRLESS AC all around. You pretty much need to go with this if you have a large home, or if you are streaming large files. Since I do uncompressed lossess, and I might have network load on more than 1 device at a time, I run some fairly expensive equipment to get the max bandwidth possible, and it might be overkill, but I am kind of obsessive about future-proofing. So, if you are gonna do wifi, that is fine, just make sure you do a little research and get a robust AC network going in your home not wireless N. Also note, wifi networks are backwards compatible. However, to maintain this, if let's say you have 6 devices on the wife network, if 5 of them are Wireless A/C, but you have an old-school laptop or smartphone chilling on a Wirless N connection, the entire wireless connection maintain's its ability to be backwards compatible by slowing down all devices on the network to the least common denominator, even if the other devices are more capable. So, upgrading that wireless router to ac is useless if you don't upgrade everything else as well. 

*The main Home Theater PC - The Family/Movie room*
While I don't have a projector like you, the concept will work just the fine. This 4th HTPC I have on the home network direct line, no wifi, purely because I can without cord clutter being an ugly issue. I plug my HTPC HDMI output to the AVR's input, and the AVR output to my TV's input. I also use the univeral Harmony ultimate remote and custom programmable buttons. This has allowed me to easily make swap buttons where I just push one time and it bounces between the Windows 10 Netflix app and my media server program (I am a former XBMC/Kodi fanatic turned Plex convert due to Plex apps being literally on everything, it is so nice). This is why you COULD use an Nvidia Shield for your main projector HTPC, since the Plex app runs on shield, if that is your program of choice. It would just be overkill for me since I do all my gaming computations on my home server. Oh and, in regards to the remote, one thing that makes the programmable remote quite fun as well, is that there are some programs you can get to smart-home yourself, where you can control things like the lighting in your home through an app and such (of course with custom wifi enabled custom hardware switches installed too lol) . Well, this allows me to with the push of a button, change the lighting in the family room to Movie read, or make various configurations. You can really have a lot of fun with it.

Finally, I put Steam on all of my devices. Even over wifi no delay is noticeable with exception to one thing I noticed. Pinball requires super precision. Over wifi those types of games you may want on a direct line, no wifi. But, I can cast all my games to all of my HTPCs over steam around the home at 100% Ultra graphic settings at 1080P (only my desktop has the nicer 1440P monitor, not the bedroom TVs), and it runs flawlessly. No need to get a fancy GPU in each room. All I do is have a controller in each room. It saves a ton of money. 

So, do you need a new server, or should you just use your main computer as your media server? Maybe this info will help you solidify some ideas. If you go with the shield, that is a great idea if you are just looking for your projector but to also be your steam machine. The only reason, imo, that wouldn't make sense is if you had a vastly more powerful gaming computer than the Shield. If so, I would use that essentially as your "steam server" per say.

GOOD LUCK!

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## visitor

Thanks sklug, I decided with a shield, it seems much more powerful than fire, appletv or the likes, while a nice and quiet and 4k capable device

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