Hardware Spec Recommendation

[PiracyIsWrong]

I have a family of 12 members, who would mostly use the watch-together feature, we might even be abroad and watch over the internet. I have this setup using cloudflare and kemp. I need to now build a small box (mini PC) as we are going abroad, I cannot take my rack with me.

So I want to know what are the implications, espeically in performance, when using HDD vs SSD vs M.2 for streaming, especially to multiple people, (about 12 max). I want the best performance. So which storage configuration as well as the physical storage mode would be best for that use case, I just want to click the media and buffer it, skip it, without delay.

Secondly, how do I go about customizing and updating it easily. Do I just update the docker image? How can I customize the default colors etc a little bit.

I want to just build it once and forget about it, I will most likely run proxmox in the mini PC, one to manage storage, and one for dolphin, or should I just have one linxu host with docker running? Because ATM I just share the synology quick connect portal with family members or close friends to upload their media. I have been working on building a site for easier uploads. But is there already a premade one etc?

I also read about transcoding vs direct play while doing a little bit of research, I found that the file itself matters a lot for performance of the stream and quality, so I now only put the best files in the server, or use handbreak to process them before uploading.

Sorry it is a lot of quesitons, if you can link me to other helpful threads will also appreciate, I dont care how technical it is, I am just trying to save time and build it quickly as I am very busy, so a guide will be apprceiated.

[Efficient_Good_5784]

I have a family of 12 members, who would mostly use the watch-together feature, we might even be abroad and watch over the internet.

If you're talking about syncplay, the current implementation is not maintained, so syncplay might not work as expected.

[TheDreadPirate]

Storage: The OS, Jellyfin app data, database, and transcodes should be on their own SSD. Doesn't matter if SATA or NVMe. Either is fine. Your media can be on a HDD and that should be able to handle 12 users.

Media Formatting: If you want to avoid transcoding, you should encode your media as H264 video, AAC stereo, with burned in subtitles or external SRT subtitles, in a MP4 container. That is the most compatible format.

Transcoding: If you want better storage efficiency you can use HEVC or AV1, but that will definitely need transcoding on a lot of client devices. With 12 users, you should plan to have a dedicated GPU to handle transcoding. An Intel Arc GPU is the most cost effective GPU and even has AV1 codec support. You should avoid having 4K HDR content on your server since even with a dedicated GPU that is a difficult task to handle with that many users.

OS: If you don't plan on having actual VMs, and are only using containers, it would be much simpler and easier to just install Debian or Ubuntu and using Docker. We have a lot more documentation for supporting that kind of setup.

[bitmap]

To add to TDP's great recommendations, you can silo media (e.g., 4K/HDR) in their own libraries and restrict access to those libraries to avoid transcoding on incompatible devices.

I have found that MP4 format compressed H264+AAC with 5.1 or fewer channels is broadly compatible. Most devices that only support stereo will not require transcoding to play a 5.1 track, they'll either downmix or drop extra channel content. I have only seen dropped audio channels with 5.1+ FLAC audio (center channel, i.e., dialog is often dropped).

I did say *compressed* H264 because you'll need to be aware of your network limitations. Remuxes are bloated as hell and will quickly overwhelm your upload capacity and/or require transcoding if you enable bitrate limits (either globally or per user). In other words, don't just rip Bluray content to 80 GB MKV files and expect even passable performance.