During the last two years, my approach towards (occasional) replaying of DVDs and streaming of AV contents (mainly from BP's Digital Concert Hall) has been very straightforward:
1) Place an old 24 inches iMac in front of the sofa and connect to the mains
2) Connect the iMac to the Naim DAC via 10m optical cable
3) Enjoy
This has worked quite well until recent browser (Firefox 45.0.2) and Flash Player (21.0.0) upgrades have conspired to reveal how old a 10 years old iMac actually is. Now the CPU load goes up to about 140% when streaming from the DCH archive in full screen mode and I am experiencing massive frame drops and upscaling artifacts. I might be able to revert to more usable FF/FP combinations but it is clear that, after 10 years, the iMac is now reaching its limits. Thus, I am considering replacing the current setup with something new.
An obvious possibility is to replace the old iMac with a new 27 inches retina iMac. But I was wandering whether a smart tv or a combination of a disc player (Oppo, Arcam, ?) and a monitor could be more better alternatives.
I have to add that I am only interested in solutions which can be easily set up and removed. Once a film or concert is over, the iMac (monitor, tv) should readily get out of the living room. In my current setup, the optical cable is steadily connected to the Naim DAC and disappears in a cabinet when the connection to the iMac is not needed. In a disc player based solution, I would put the disc player on a separate shelf beneath the DAC and the optical cable would be replaced by an HDMI cable. In a smart-tv based solution, the current setup would not change.
What do you think? What are the pros and the contras of iMac vs. disc player vs. smart tv? I would be grateful if you could provide some advice. Thanks, nbpf
Posted on: 14 April 2016 by tonym
It's a bit of a "No-brainer" as they say. An Oppo disc player (other brands are available) into a good quality TV from the likes of Samsung, Sony, Panasonic etc., taking an optical digital feed from the disc player or TV to your DAC, would be a far better solution. I use a 27" iMac for computing purposes and it's great, but it won't play BluRay disks and it's complete overkill for playing DVDs.
Posted on: 14 April 2016 by nbpf
It's a bit of a "No-brainer" as they say. An Oppo disc player (other brands are available) into a good quality TV from the likes of Samsung, Sony, Panasonic etc., taking an optical digital feed from the disc player or TV to your DAC, would be a far better solution. I use a 27" iMac for computing purposes and it's great, but it won't play BluRay disks and it's complete overkill for playing DVDs.
Thanks tonym!
I understand that a disc player is necessary in order to play blu-ray discs. On the other hand, I only have (a few) DVDs which are also ripped and made available by a DLNA server on the LAN. I do not plan to start buying blu-ray discs and I am mainly interested in streaming AV contents, at this point, mainly from the DCH.
Thus, a good TV with a decent wireless card, support for the DCH and a good optical audio output is possibly all I need.
But then I was wandering whether a new iMac wouldn't in the end be a more flexible solution than a TV running Android, Tizen, Firefox OS or some other very limited OSs. TVs tend to be bigger, of course. But this not necessarily an advantage in my case.
Best, nbpf
Posted on: 14 April 2016 by tonym
In that case, why not buy an Amazon FIRE TV, or maybe an Apple TV (not as good as the FIRE IMO) rip all your DVDs to computer, install PLEX media server & stream directly to TV?
Posted on: 14 April 2016 by nbpf
In that case, why not buy an Amazon FIRE TV, or maybe an Apple TV (not as good as the FIRE IMO) rip all your DVDs to computer, install PLEX media server & stream directly to TV?
That's possible but what would be the advantages of an Amazon Fire TV (or of an Apple TV) if I could stream directly to a TV (I haven't had one for meanwhile 20 years, I assume that one can meanwhile stream diretly to a "smart" TV) or to an iMac?
Posted on: 14 April 2016 by tonym
Depends on the smart tv, but you'll find they don't offer so many options, or ease of use, as the devices mentioned. If you're all Apple, you can stream directly with Airplay to the Apple TV.
Posted on: 14 April 2016 by nbpf
Depends on the smart tv, but you'll find they don't offer so many options, or ease of use, as the devices mentioned. If you're all Apple, you can stream directly with Airplay to the Apple TV.
I understand, thanks! In this case I am going to buy a new iMac and forget about smart TVs, Apple TVs and Amazon TVs altogether. That should keep me running and flexible for a couple of years. And I know that, if the optical audio output of the new iMacs is low quality, I can always connect my small Meridian Explorer to the USB port to provide a clean optical SPDIF stream to the Naim DAC. The 5K display should also be very good, they say (but I will be missing the matte screen of my current iMac, I am afraid). Best, nbpf
Posted on: 19 April 2016 by nbpf
It's a bit of a "No-brainer" as they say. An Oppo disc player (other brands are available) into a good quality TV from the likes of Samsung, Sony, Panasonic etc., taking an optical digital feed from the disc player or TV to your DAC, would be a far better solution. I use a 27" iMac for computing purposes and it's great, but it won't play BluRay disks and it's complete overkill for playing DVDs.
tonym, I have checked current 40" and 48" TVs from Samsung: they are nice but quite big and it is not clear that their optical SPDIF output is very good. TVs apparently do not support connecting a USB DACs to their USB ports. TV stands usually have have no swivel (I'd like to be able to turn the display from landscape to portrait to get it more easily out of the way when not in usage). Thus, I am now considering buying an Oppo (103, 105?) + a 32 inches monitor as an alternative to a 27" retina iMac and to a 40" tv. Pricewise it's more or less the same but: does it make sense to connect an Oppo disc player to a 32" monitor? If so, any recommendation on 32" monitors? Best, nbpf
