There is one extra requirement though: it needed to be in the sub $200 budget because I only wanted it as Plex client, not server. So the search was on to find a hardware that would be able to fill those gaps. No HD Audio (Dolby TrueHD and DTS-MA) passthrough when using PHT on Windows.No gigabit ethernet port, only 100 Mbps.I had to use Flirc USB to control it from my Logitech Harmony remote. Even though it had built-in IR receiver, there was no Windows driver for it.

Its Quad Core Intel Atom processor were choking to handle 1080p H.265 encoded videos. No hardware accelerated for HEVC (H.265) video format.This means, I couldn’t install the next generation Plex Media Player which unfortunately required 64-bit MacOS or Windows. It could only be installed with 32-bit version of Windows (or any other 圆4 based operating system) due to limited BIOS and drivers support.It had served its primary purpose well but I started to find some limitations from it: A little backgroundįor over a year, I had been using Minix Neo Z64 running Plex Home Theater as client to browse and play media library from my Plex Media Server on my TV. They no longer support booting from (micro) SD card, as shared by one of the readers. UPDATE October 21, 2017: Intel has released a newer generation of NUC series (identifier: NUC7XXXXX). UPDATE November 30, 2016: Plex Media Player is now available for all Plex users * Plex Media Player is currently only available for Plex Pass users. Plus the release of Plex Media Player* last year with Embedded Platform app. That perception have now changed with the HEVC hardware accelerated encoding support in the newer chipset generations. Plus you probably need to make some additional spending on Windows 8/10 for the operating system. Before models with Brasswell and Sky Lake chipsets however, I always considered it as a big investment because you would need to grab one with i3, i5, or i7 processors to be sure it would be able to handle all media formats. The Intel NUC has been around for a while and considered as one of the best kit to build an HTPC.

Plex media player dolby digital