A Budget Home Theater & PC Setup: 4K, HDR, UHD Blu-ray, and More

YouTube Streaming

Our HTPC testing with respect to YouTube has been restricted to playback of a 1080p music video using the native HTML5 player in Firefox. However, the shift to 4K and the necessity to evaluate HDR support have made us choose Mystery Box's Peru 8K HDR 60FPS video as our test sample moving forward.

The TCL 55P607's Roku platform has a YouTube app. Our sample stream played back the 4Kp60 HDR version encoded in VP9 Profile 2 along with AAC audio.

4K YouTube HDR on the TCL 55P607

The NVIDIA SATV also has a YouTube app. However, accessing the sample clip resulted in the fetching of the 4Kp60 VP9 version without HDR. Further research revealed that the Tegra K1 X1 SoC in the SATV does not support VP9 Profile 2. Google's refusal to use HEVC for the HDR videos on YouTube mean that SATV owners can forget about HDR in YouTube streams.

4K YouTube on the NVIDIA SHIELD Android TV

On the PC front, the KBL-U systems support VP9 Profile 2 decoding. Using the recommended browser (Microsoft Edge) allows us to play back the HDR stream after putting the desktop in HDR mode.

4K YouTube HDR on the ASRock Beebox-S 7200U using Microsoft Edge

The Zotac EN1080K, however, does not have VP9 Profile 2 hardware decoding. Our sample clip played back the 4Kp60 VP9 version without HDR even with the desktop set to HDR mode and streaming HDR videos enabled.

4K YouTube on the Zotac ZBOX MAGNUS EN1080K using Microsoft Edge

We also tracked the power consumption (using a Ubiquiti Networks mPower Pro) of the various playback devices while streaming the YouTube sample clip.

The Roku power numbers also include the display itself. So, it is not really fair to compare it against that of the other players. Disregarding the Roku data, we find that the ASRock Beebox-S 7200U is the most power-efficient of the lot with respect to YouTube streaming. If the display power consumption were to be considered in addition, it is likely that the Roku would emerge as the winner.