Computer for the Living Room (Media Playback, TV Hookup)

I have a Mac Mini and an Apple TV hooked up to my TV. The ATV is used for hours every day, mainly for Plex, Youtube and Netflix. The Mini is mostly a Plex server these days which is a huge waste of hardware.

The only time I actually use the Mini as a playback device is when I want to watch content only available through a web browser. Even that isn't mission critical since it takes two mouse clicks to clone the display from any of my other Macs to the ATV. That's what I would do if I didn't already own the Mini.

And yeah, I also do Skype meetings on the TV from time to time. Cheap webcam on top of the TV plugged into the Mini. My surround system makes an awesome speakerphone. :D My guess is you won't be doing that though.
 
I agree with others here that the NUC is the way to go. You'll want a new one (NUC7xxx) as the built in GPU can decode 4k 264/265 natively. I would run the Plex server on the NUC as things like subtitles require transcoding on the server.
 
do you trust any of the providers to keep coming up with security patches for those?
if phoneproducers hardly come out with security updates (and only for 2 years), i'm not placing much trust in them
 
For a cheap 1080p setup nothing beats an RPi with Kodi. And when 4K becomes mainstream there will be an updated version of the RPi that can handle 4K.
 
In the meantime, I have purchased a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. So far, I'm very happy with it.
 
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