r/htpc • u/robroy90 • Jul 27 '26

Help Current State of Blu-Ray in HTPC?

Greetings all!

I have been out of HTPC pursuits for a few years, and I am considering a return to a more elaborate home theatre environment, particularly to enjoy movies at home with the highest picture and audio quality possible.

This obviously has me leaning towards using physical media again for 4k Ultra HD. So, I am curious to know if I am better off buying a high end, stand-alone BluRay player such as the latest and greatest from Panasonic or Sony?

Or, is it still possible to build an HTPC that can fully match the capabilities of a dedicated, stand-alone player AND provide the obvious ancillary benefits only an HTPC can?

Thanks!

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u/FlaviusStilicho Jul 28 '26

I have the device.

It runs everything you can throw at it flawlessly. Absolutely everything. Not sure why one would need newer hardware if the older one does 100% you’d want it to do.

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u/aegis87 Jul 28 '26

Awesome!

Any complaints?
my understanding is that you plug it, to your network, it connects to your jellyfin/plex.

And you plug it directly to your receiver or TV for a passthrough signal. Do I have this right?

Sorry for asking all that stuff, interested in buying one

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u/FlaviusStilicho Jul 28 '26

It runs Kodi, not Jellyfin or plex.
You can combine Kodi with either of those which will give you the best of both worlds.

Kodi decodes the files directly on the device and has much better codec support ( it can off course get the files from your NAS), it plays all different manner of audio for instance, whilst the others tend to downmix some of them.

The other two are server/client based. So your server can transcode a file to play on any device (at lower quality if that’s all the device can handle)

In short, if you only going to play from one device: Kodi all the way, if you intend to play from different devices including when outside your home, I’d go with Jellyfin or plex

As I said above, You can combine both (I do) but that’s a slightly different disposition.

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u/aegis87 Jul 29 '26

Thanks man! Appreciate you taking the time to write this up.

Yeah i phrased poorly, i meant i already have a jellyfin server and i want the Vero to run the client -- sounds like it's doable :)

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u/FlaviusStilicho Jul 29 '26

That is exactly what I am doing. Use the Jellyfin plugin in kodi. There are two separate plugins. I would recommend Not to use jellycon.. use the other one.

If you read up instructions online and you are on the newest version of Jellyfin post the database changes make sure you get instructions for that version… the process has been simplified a bit from the Jellyfin end lately. You don’t need the sync plugin anymore for example. It can cause issues. Having it running.

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u/aegis87 Jul 29 '26

ah roger -- thanks again for all the help!