Best possible choice for XBMC used to access NAS media files...
#1
Question 
Greetings and I greatly apologize if this has been answered. I had trouble finding what I was looking for.

I have a NAS storage with good performance on my home network using NAS4Free.

I am looking for 1080P XBMC device to access the media over the network but I want versitility in all the formats used in such a device.

I want to be able to run as many audio, video formats that are possible so I can keep the incompatible format to a minimum.

I don't care if the device has or does not have a hard drive for local storage.

I was on Amazon and Newegg and a few other websites looking at reviews etc and it only confused things for me.

I don't mind doing some modding of a device like a Raspberry Pi or converting an Apple TV etc but again I want to be able to find a device that can hopefully read formats of movies that an Android can use as well as an ipad etc.

Any ideas to get me going? Smile

Thank you sooooo much for your time on this issue.

--
The circumstances of one's birth is irrelevant. It's what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.
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#2
Well most of the formats are well read by XBMC core, so there is not issue there, but for us to help you, you need to tell us more about your media like is Standard Def avi?, High Def 720p? 1080p? Do you want to play 3D movies? BitstreamHD audio? . So we can point you in the right direction
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#3
Question 
Thank you very much for the reply.

Here are some examples of devices I wish to play xbmc to that will end up needing some kind of XBMC streaming device to.
-One 720P TV
-Two 1080P TV's

I also have one 3 tablet's and a few smart phones that I would like to have support for. These would be as follows:
-Two iPhones
-Two iPad's (2nd and 4th Generations)
-One Android Tablet

Other devices I have that I have no idea if they would be any good or possible to use would be an XBox, Playstation3, Wii U and Wii.

I have not yet started ripping movies from my collection because I don't even know which format I should even consider ripping in with all of these choices to choose from. If I was not working so much these days, I "might" be able to put more focus in this to research it better then I have. So any information is VERY much appreciated.

I don't mind moding a device like an Apple TV or Raspberry Pi for example but I would like to know which direction to start taking this.

If this helps in this, my current network has my NAS hooked up to a switch that is configured with link aggregation and the NAS has a ZFS setup with SSD cache drive so network transfer speeds are good and will will still yet be fine tuned for greater speeds.

Again THANK YOU! Blush
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#4
You can handle 1080P on 100meg ethernet generally so super high bandwidth isn't necessarily needed. In my case I compress my BD with x.264 and shave about a third of the file size off. I store them in MKV containers and they play fine from a modestly quick unRAID NAS (run from an ESXi VM), your emphasis on speed is unnecessary for playback. For DVD I rip them to ISO format, remove languages I don't speak, and don't compress them at all. ISO format works very well and retains menus. You won't be retaining menus with BD rips.

For your portable devices I would suggest running an instance of Plex media server somewhere - it streams to devices like you specified VERY well! I use this on the road and will be moving my backend for this from a Win7 VM to Linux shortly I think as I don't need any of the stuff that requires Silverlight I don't think.

For the TVs I would suggest either a small Atom\ION based PC or a Pivos XIOS which would use even less power, be dead silent, and costs very little. Flash it with Linux and an XBMC build, configure it, and be done. You might be able to stream to an XBOX or other console using UPNP or DLNA but I've got no experience with doing that. Personally I run Atom\ION based hardware for front-ends but have been playing with a Pivos and find that it is dead simple to setup overall and works great, especially considering it's cost. There are threads here dedicated to the Pivos where you can get more information and they have a pretty good support forum, some XBMC devs work for them so it receives good support all around.

I personally wouldn't do a Pi as they tend to be slower and some effort to use over other solutions - I also know two people that have had the hardware fail on them. The new ATV haven't been jailbroken either so they aren't viable.

Hope that helps!
Openelec Gotham, MCE remote(s), Intel i3 NUC, DVDs fed from unRAID cataloged by DVD Profiler. HD-DVD encoded with Handbrake to x.264. Yamaha receiver(s)
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Best possible choice for XBMC used to access NAS media files...0