Game Stream Boxes


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There have been quite a few small boxes out there recently. Such as the NZXT DOKO and many more.

 

I play all my games on my high end PC, but when friends come over I have nothing to do with them because of this. 

 

So I want to get something to stream to my TV, the games from my PC.

 

- Needs to be small (I put all network devices behind my TV, yes I do)

- I would like 1080P streaming (Nvidia thing is 720P apparently)

- Must be Ethernet Wired (I think 100% of them are but will mention anyway)

- Supports at least 2 dongles (USB Ports)

 

Part of this question is for me to enjoy this experience, I want to get a few Xbox One Controllers (wireless). Though I have not been able to confirm if there is a dongle for Windows yet for these controllers?

 

I mention the NZXT DOKO because from what I have been able to find so far, it seems to be the best (small and 1080P) though wondering if anyone has more experience with this, and what are all the devices possibly?

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I would recommend waiting a little bit longer.

 

Streaming is the future but most existing systems stream the video using H.264/MPEG-4 AVC.  This is one of the video encoding standards used by Blu-Ray for example and is hardware accelerated in most GPUs and SoC today.

 

While H.264 is good its successor, HEVC, has recently been approved and is said to double the compression rate for similar quality video.  This new standard is what 4k Blu-Ray will be using and some newer phone SoCs are already coming out with hardware acceleration for it.  I'm not sure but I suspect 4k Redbox and such use HEVC as well.  Even if you don't plan on doing anything at 4k using HEVC on a 1080p connection will still allow it to use about half the bandwidth a traditional H.264 stream would have taken.

 

These standards don't change that often so it's not a normal PC situation where no matter when you buy it's outdated a few months later.  If you're looking to buy a dedicated streaming device I'd keep an eye out for one that support HEVC (also called H.265).  I haven't done an extensive study of what streaming devices are currently available so there may already be devices available with HEVC support.... keep an eye out.

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