QQ Media Player NUC Buyers Club - Discussion

[HomerJAU]

All because I didnt want to get up off the couch and change the disc.

And I didn’t want my daughter and her friends handling my precious discs. Her favourite band is ‘Sticky Fingers’ (literally)
And I didn’t want my wife on my back complaining about my stack of ‘recently added’ or ‘to be played’ and ‘recently played’ discs I hadn’t filed away. I’d claimed a space to manage incoming/outgoing logistics

 

[HomerJAU]

This is a true story. I had all my Bluray movies (and what was left of my DVD movies) stored in many large plastic bins on shelves in my garage, they’d been there since we moved into this house in 2018, never touched, all ripped. Well over 2000.

I finally thought, why do I still have these, phoned a 2nd hand dealer, do you want movies, thinking I may get a buck each and I’d be rich! No not interested.

I took them to the local tip, filled the entire back of my 4WD with back seats removed. I asked if I could chuck them in for recycling. Answer: No, chuck them in the dumping pit. I drove there and as I biffed the first container over the edge. “hey, don’t do that, tip them out on the edge!” So emptied the lot and chucked the empty plastic bins over the edge.

As I drove off, I swear there were about 3 workers scavenging through the pile, and another 5 on the way. I didn’t know they had that many employees!

(Most were Region 1 imports from US, ha ha, they won’t play on AU BD players).

 

[LuvMyQuad]

So let me get this right.
This little affordable NUC is going to cause me to buy and set up a NAS with new hard drives, then start digitizing all my music and blurays........for thousands of dollars and man hours later.

All because I didnt want to get up off the couch and change the disc.

Ok I get it.

You dont have to have a nas. You can plug usb drives directly into the nuc. Thats how my son runs his rig.

 

[Marplot]

This is a true story. I had all my Bluray movies (and what was left of my DVD movies) stored in many large plastic bins on shelves in my garage, they’d been there since we moved into this house in 2018, never touched, all ripped. Well over 2000.

I finally thought, why do I still have these, phoned a 2nd hand dealer, do you want movies, thinking I may get a buck each and I’d be rich! No not interested.

I took them to the local tip, filled the entire back of my 4WD with back seats removed. I asked if I could chuck them in for recycling. Answer: No, chuck them in the dumping pit. I drove there and as I biffed the first container over the edge. “hey, don’t do that, tip them out on the edge!” So emptied the lot and chucked the empty plastic bins over the edge.

As I drove off, I swear there were about 3 workers scavenging through the pile, and another 5 on the way. I didn’t know they had that many employees!

(Most were Region 1 imports from US, ha ha, they won’t play on AU BD players).

At least in the US, you can donate them to a library who will sell them ~$1 each and help fund media purchases.
I have done that a number of times.
I also gave a lot of jazz CDs to the local Diocese when they were using them to help out elderly with some music program.

 

[Marplot]

I'd use s24 (24 bit) not s16 (16bit)

just got around to testing my updated dsf conversion and with ffmpeg there is no s24 you have to use s32 but retains 24-bit precision.
Input #0, flac, from '01. Concerto No. 1 In F Major Bwv 1046. Allegro.flac':
Metadata:
album_artist : Academy Of Ancient Music
title : Concerto No. 1 In F Major Bwv 1046. Allegro
TSRC : USHM10846101
composer : Johann Sebastian Bach
artist : Academy Of Ancient Music
album : Bach Brandenburg Concertos
genre : Classical
track : 01
date : 2009
encoder : Lavf61.7.100
Duration: 00:04:12.91, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 5983 kb/s
Stream #0:0: Audio: flac, 88200 Hz, 5.0, s32 (24 bit)

 

[PK]

My advice: Get bigger drives. 3 x16TB in RAID 5 drives you 32TB of usable storage (the rest is used for data redundancy, 1 drive can fail and you still have all your data).

Ok I think these guys check all the boxes you mentioned:

https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS1621+
https://global.synologydownload.com...+/enu/Synology_DS1621_Plus_Data_Sheet_enu.pdf
https://kb.synology.com/en-us/DSM/tutorial/Which_Synology_NAS_models_support_the_Btrfs_file_system
https://global.synologydownload.com...year/DS1621+/enu/Syno_HIG_DS1621_Plus_enu.pdf

https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-red-pro-sata-hdd?sku=WD161KFGX

1 6 Bay DiskStation
3 of the Red Pro Drives.
Look good?
Thanks, PK

 

[LuvMyQuad]

That leaves a lot of room for expansion PK. And 32TB would dwarf my collection.

Whats the price of that NAS?

I use a 4 bay Synology with four 4TB WD red drives. Those WD reds are winners. They have been with me from the start. They outlived the 1st NAS and are on thier 2nd NAS now

 

[LuvMyQuad]

I thought it might be good to give you all some info on the NUCs you will be recieving.

Bios has been updated to the most recent version. All were set to default values and the boot configuration was adjusted to boot to usb drives and the internal SSD. You will need a wired keyboard to make changes to the bios

The HDMI firmware has been updated to the most recent version. That gave them HDMI 2.1 compatibility.

The remotes were paired to your device. Just pop 2 AAA batteries in.

Each one was cleaned with canned air to remove dust. A few indicated the cmos battery had died. New batteries were installed in those units. A few had noisy fans. Those fans were replaced. Its the luck of the draw who gets a new battery or fan.

Keep in mind these are used NUCs. Nothing says the CMOS batteries wont die next week, or the fan will get noisy tomorrow. All that can be said is they didnt have those issues when they left me.

For used components, the cosmetics look quite good for the most part. There were a couple that had a stripped screw on the bottom side. You may get one. It dosent affect it functionally or cosmetically. So no worries.

Each NUC has a new 512GB M2 SSD. They have a 5 yr manufacturers warranty. The disc image needed to run Kodi and Libreelec were flashed to those drives.

In the course of doing this i have been able to verify the following as being functional:
HDMI port
All 3.0 and 2.0 USB ports
Ethernet connection
Bluetooth operation
That the unit boots to Libreelec/Kodi

I did not verify the following:
WiFi functionality
Thundebolt port functionality
Connections for optional 2.5" HHDs on the BEH models, but the cables are there.

If my shipping boxes arrive tomorrow as expected, the first group can ship late this week. I will be using the order of the sign-up lists. I will supply you with tracking. I will be sending out PMs to get your shipping addresses shortly. Please wait for a PM from me.

Ill be glad to answer any questions you may have.

 

[humprof]

I thought it might be good to give you all some info on the NUCs you will be recieving.

Bios has been updated to the most recent version. All were set to default values and the boot configuration was adjusted to boot to usb drives and the internal SSD. You will need a wired keyboard to make changes to the bios

The HDMI firmware has been updated to the most recent version. That gave them HDMI 2.1 capability

The remotes were paired to your device. Just pop 2 AAA batteries in.

Each one was cleaned with canned air to remove dust. A few indicated the cmos battery had died. New batteries were installed in those units. A few had noisy fans. Those fans were replaced. Its the luck of the draw who gets a new battery or fan.

Keep in mind these are used NUCs. Nothing says the CMOS batteries wont die next week, or the fan will get noisy tomorrow. All that can be said is they didnt have those issues when they left me.

For used components, the cosmetics look quite good for the most part. There were a couple that had a stripped screw on the bottom side. You may get one. It dosent affect it functionally or cosmetically. So no worries.

Each NUC has a new 512GB M2 SSD. They have a 5 yr manufacturers warranty. The disc image needed to run Kodi and Libreelec were flashed to those drives.

In the course of doing this i have been able to verify the following as being functional:
HDMI port
All 3.0 and 2.0 USB ports
Ethernet connection
Bluetooth operation
That the unit boots to Libreelec/Kodi

I did not verify the following:
WiFi functionality
Thundebolt port functionality
Connections for optional 2.5" HHDs on the BEH models, but the cables are there.

If my shipping boxes arrive tomorrow as expected, the first group can ship late this week. I will be using the order of the sign-up lists. I will supply you with tracking. I will be sending out PMs to get your shipping addresses shortly. Please wait for a PM from me.

Ill be glad to answer any questions you may have.

Amazing, @LuvMyQuad! Thanks for all of your work and for this detailed rundown. Wish I could go back in time and get you hired as my university's head of IT (or even just my college's roving tech support guy) for the past 30 years...

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Wish I could go back in time and get you hired as my university's head of IT (or even just my college's roving tech support guy) for the past 30 years...

Thanks for the complement. But i only know enough to be dangerous. @HomerJAU had to give me mucho assistance on some of these steps. He deserves everyones thanks.

 

[HomerJAU]

Thanks for the great update from our Production Manager (Paul)

A few indicated the cmos battery had died. New batteries were installed in those units. A few had noisy fans. Those fans were replaced. Its the luck of the draw who gets a new battery or fan.

This reminds me to say the CMOS battery & fan replacements are an unexpected cost. We will add this to our project costs to be shared by all R1 &R2 Nucheads. That will be a levy on your unpaid shipping fee.

I’m not sure what that is but may be $100 shared by 48 users so only a couple of bucks levy per user. Paul has the numbers and will announce the shipping fees very soon.

 

[HomerJAU]

Ok I think these guys check all the boxes you mentioned:

View attachment 114388
https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS1621+
https://global.synologydownload.com...+/enu/Synology_DS1621_Plus_Data_Sheet_enu.pdf
https://kb.synology.com/en-us/DSM/tutorial/Which_Synology_NAS_models_support_the_Btrfs_file_system
https://global.synologydownload.com...year/DS1621+/enu/Syno_HIG_DS1621_Plus_enu.pdf

View attachment 114389
https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-red-pro-sata-hdd?sku=WD161KFGX

1 6 Bay DiskStation
3 of the Red Pro Drives.
Look good?
Thanks, PK

To me that's the perfect NAS setup to keep you going are a long while!

 

[PK]

That leaves a lot of room for expansion PK. And 32TB would dwarf my collection.

Whats the price of that NAS?

I use a 4 bay Synology with four 4TB WD red drives. Those WD reds are winners. They have been with me from the start. They outlived the 1st NAS and are on thier 2nd NAS now

OK, good to know, thanks...
Around $900-$1100...BH Photo
Amazon had a listing with the same price yesterday, don't see it now...I may need to look a little more...

 

[PK]

To me that's the perfect NAS setup to keep you going are a long while!

Ok cool! thanks for the advice