With the age of the ReadyNAS OS, especially OS4.2.x, you are far better off running whatever streaming app you use on another device and simply using the NAS for storage. I believe the 2100 is fast enough to stream, but I doubt it's fast enough for reliable transcoding.
But with the Shield, you can simply run Kodi or VLC and play directly from a mounted share -- no streaming required.
So long as you are using Ethernet or a very fast WIFI protocol for the Shield, yes, 4K should be OK on a single device.
@Tristyd - If you have the 2100 rackmount NAS, then it can deliver about 75 megabytes per second sustained read speeds over gigabit ethernet. If you have the original ReadyNAS Duo (2-bay Sparc-based desktop), then it can deliver about 15 megabytes per second..
A typical 4K MKV requires about 25 mbps ( ~ 3 megabytes per second) of bandwidth. So it really doesn't put much load on your NAS, and is easily handled by either model.
A full BluRay 4K rip could take up to 128 mpbs (16 megabytes per second). That is the max bandwidth allowed in the BluRay specification. Still no problem for the rackmount, but the Sparc-based Duo might struggle to keep up.
A surprising amount of the bandwidth goes to the audio tracks. Removing audio tracks you don't need or want from the MKV can save a lot of space, and reduces the bandwidth needed for streaming the full file That will have no effect on the quality, since you are not transcoding anything.
It is for the audio quality I got the 4k Blu-ray rips ironically, as I got a very good Marantz SR8015 AVR and JBL speaker home theatre, and the audio from online streams is dead and flat compared to the DTS-HD and Dolby-Master audio tracks.
@Tristyd wrote: It is for the audio quality I got the 4k Blu-ray rips ironically, as I got a very good Marantz SR8015 AVR and JBL speaker home theatre, and the audio from online streams is dead and flat compared to the DTS-HD and Dolby-Master audio tracks.
You probably don't need both lossless soundtracks (since they should sound identical). And of course the tracks for languages you don't speak can be removed. I'd keep the "vanilla" AC3 track, in case you want to stream the video to a different device.
You could also transcode the video to a lower rate (leaving the audio untouched). There are a lot of I-frames in BluRay, so it can be re-encoded at a much lower rate with little to no perceptual loss. You would want to keep the original HDR. But that is a slow process unless you have a system with a GPU.
Most of them have maybe 10 audio tracks, 1/2 high quality, a AC3 and other languages like you said. Kodi can get stupid and play the AC3 track even though I’ve told it to play the HD or Master track.
Ah fantastic! Thank you both. Will give these a go today. The last Mkv I got is Twisters, it’s about 90Gb, it’s got English Atmos HD, DTS-HD, AC3 and about 10 others in other languages, wonder how much the file size will decrease:)
