Kodi runs a server and a client. Depending on the client it may request a transcode. Looks like it’s just bad software support for h.265 on the client side.

Kodi played through the browser? It’s probably transcoding to H.264, using more bandwidth for lesser quality.

I’m running Emby with 4k content from an Odroid HC-2. If you have a 4k TV it should support the H.265 codec without transcoding so the resources for sending videos is low.

Thanks I will learn LXC once I have a new 8 core Intel machine. I also want to hose this website that needs an outdated php/Apache setup so it would be nice to keep that in an isolated container.

As an owner of the HC-2, I’d say if you don’t need to transcode and you really only need qBitTorrent and Jellyfin, the HC-4 should be an awesome NAS and media host. You really only need more power when you have scope creep, and you realize you want your home server to do more and more. In any case it’s a pretty low cost of entry, should you choose to upgrade in the future.

I’m in the same boat. My poor HC-2 is struggling on memory running Omada (WAP controller) and HomeBridge, among other things. I use Emby so I don’t need transcoding - supports 4k streaming just fine.

Right now I’m looking at one of the fanless Intel four port software routers, like this one.. But for a machine like that I’m going to use ProxMox to spin up a Firewall/Router/VPN/Networking VM - not sure which OS/image. That will remain separate from my media and web serving. I will probably end up just off-loading the network tasks to the new machine, and leave my HC-2 running as a media server. That way I can restart and upgrade the systems independently. Using ProxMox, it may be possible to move the media services onto a second VM on the same machine, but I’m not sure what advantage that might give me, if any.