I have a couple of TVs that I use HTPC appliances with. One’s a shield TV and the other’s a roku. I’m not super happy with either of them. The shield lags like crazy and apps crash constantly. The Roku is stable, but can’t decode h265 or av1. Both at riddled with ads. Does anyone have a solution they’re happy with? I mostly watch content from major streaming services and stream media from my NAS. I have a raspberry pi 4 that’s not in use right now, I tried to get it working as a set top box, but couldn’t get DRM content to work so I went back to the shield.
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2x previous gen of these.
Man, I love them!
Looks very nice. Also looks very pricey.
NGL, that’s true. But they are quite small, support HDMI-CEC, and run cold.
Edit: new ones hardware decode AV1, too
Intel NUC running Linux. Not the cheapest solution but can play anything and I have full control over it. At first I tried to find some kind of programmable remote but now we have a wireless keyboard with built-in touchpad.
Biggest downside is that the hardware quality is kind of questionable and the first two broke after 3 years + a few months, so we’re on our third now.
Raspberry Pi 2 or 3 (can’t remember which) controlled through the TV with the remote. It’s running LibreElec (Kodi) with the Jellyfin plugin. Discoverability isn’t great through Kodi, but I can always use a computer or phone to find the media and cast if I need to.
I’ve been using the Jellyfin WebOS app, it works well but sometimes will transcode instead of direct playing the first time something is played. Restarting a few times fixes it though. I also have jellyfin on my steam deck, but I don’t think it does drm apps.
An old Dell workstation that I stole from a corporate job I used to work. I stole a few of them, actually, and used the parts from the others to upgrade one of them. For a computer that would probably not be able to run Minecraft, I now have a headless home server that uses the Servarr suite to fetch and stream media from Usenet to all the devices on my network. It works so well, I have it running an Audiobookshelf server as well, loaded up with books I get from MAM.
Apple TV is rad, because you can pair it with a controller, and use the Steam link app to play on your computer from another room.
No need to have the computer near the tv for couch gaming. No need to listen to the pc fans screaming.
Beelink Mini PCs or ones like that, plus a wireless keyboard/trackpad combo.
I’m using a Shield TV Pro with the default launcher disabled, replaced with FLauncher, and the netflix and voice search buttons disabled via button mapper.
I’m 1000% happy with it and absolutely would not go back to an actual HTPC.
Oh, I also uninstalled youtube and replaced it with SmartTube Beta
i just use repurposed PCs. cost (or lack of, rather) is the prime factor.
the main playback ‘device’ is currently a 6th gen laptop that runs lid down (doesn’t support turbo boost, so heat isn’t an issue at all), and an old wireless kb/trackpad for a ‘remote’.
storage is a hodgepodge of usb hdd, 2.5in hdd, and desktop systems. usually only one of which is being used (powered on) at a time.
i just use a text dump out of ‘everything’ for my ‘catalog’ and have numerous vlc playlists saved. i looked into things like jellyfin but the work involved in normalizing directory structures and filenames would be nightmarish.
Jellyfin hosted on my primary PC with access to my GPU (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060) for transcoding. The Jellyfin libraries instance SMB shares on my NAS. Stream everything with Jellyfin for Chromecast right from the TV.
Works amazingly well. Great transcoding times. No lag despite only having 10/100/1000 NIC on NAS and streaming WiFi with Chromecast.
I manage the media library with TMM (tinymediamanager).
Super happy with it, particularly considering the only thing it cost me was the NAS (because I game on my PC anyways) which I was also going to get, anyways.
I don’t do drm’d content, its all coming from JF so ive got random assortments in various parts of my home. An apple TV, a roku, a regular chromecast, a Chromecast with google TV dongle, and a lenovo m90q with a launcher running arch/KDE.
I sue an appletv. I have the version with a Ethernet port. It plays wverything I’ve thrown at it so far and down have to endure commercials. The downside is you have to create an Apple account to install apps in it and not all apps are available. It’s also expensive.
Not the answer you are waiting but there is something wrong with your shield, I have a 2015 and 2019 Shield and both are just very good even if the first one has nearly 10 years
Some 2nd gen Intel Acer Aspire (?) SFF with an older gen NVIDIA card. Last Windows machine in the household due to WAF.
What is WAF?
I guess Wife Acceptance Factor, the number one parameter in home self host.
I just use a Chromecast and use my phone to cast from Jellyfin on my home server right to the Chromecast. No fiddly bits.
