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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The biggest question is, are you looking for Dolby Vision support?
There is no open source implementation for Dolby Vision or HDR10+ so if you want to use those formats you are limited to Android/Apple/Amazon streaming boxes.
If you want to avoid the ads from those devices apart from side loading apks to replace home screens or something the only way to get Dolby Vision with Kodi/standard Linux is to buy a CoreELEC supported streaming device and flashing it with CoreELEC.
List of supported devices here
CoreELEC is Kodi based so it limits your player choice, but there are plugins for Plex/Jellyfin if you want to pull from those as back ends.
Personally it is a lot easier to just grab the latest gen Onn 4k Pro from Walmart for $50 and deal with the Google TV ads (never leave my streaming app anyways). Only downside with the Onn is lack of Dolby TrueHD/DTS Master audio output, but it handles AV1, and more Dolby Vision profiles than the Shield does at a much cheaper price. It also handles HDR10+ which the Shield doesn’t but that for at isn’t nearly as common and many of the big TV brands don’t support it anyways.
I’m not a home theater power user, but this is good info to make sure my setup is future proof for when I finally get a new TV. All these different standards get really confusing.
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.
I was tempted by these n100 mini PCs, but worried about the no-name components. I saw many people on reddit/lemmy recommending Dell, Lenovo, HP micro form factor PCs. You can pick them up used from eBay as companies clear out “old” computers. The advantage of the known brands is ongoing firmware support.
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.
Android devices can do that too. I use steam link on my shield.
Laptop hooked up to the TV. Always felt more reliable than any other device to me. I also use rustdesk for a remote connection solution
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
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 use a Beelink with an N100. Runs PopOs. I use Plex HTPC on it. Hardware decoding isnt working at the moment but it plays everything fine except HDR content so I’m avoiding that at the moment. Pass through audio work perfectly. I also stream sports on it, play mini games and roms with my kids using Lutris, and Moonlight for the more demanding games.
I used to use Kodi/LibreElec on it but that was such a miserable experience. Constant crashing and (3 or 4 times per day) inconsistent glitchy audio passthrough. The plex integration does mostly work but would also occasionally crash resulting in my stuff not syncing back to the server for days. Playback worked perfectly though.
I use PopOS too. Switched to Bazzite though for htpc. HDR works out of the box, and added Plex htpc as a “game” that I launch from steam.
What’s your hardware for your HTPC? Does hardware decoding work in Plex HTPC flatpak for you?
I honestly don’t know if it’s working… I’ll have to see. It’s worked flawlessly for me, HDR and 4k haven’t needed transcoding and I store the raw format. I went all out on that machine, 5000 series AMD cpu and a 6900XTX for hardware. It drives my TV, I wanted the experience to be better than a desktop. (To family, frame drops on a computer are normal, but consoles give “perfect” 60fps even though we all know it’s just tricks, so I had to drop big for it)
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 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.
Regarding DRM, Netflix (and probably others) require the Widewine library to play back DRM content. This works perfectly fine on a normal Ubuntu PC, but does not work on the Pi because the library does not support ARM, only x86.
So Id just get any normal PC. Used enterprise mini PCs can be had for quite cheap, and they are small and efficient, and high quality. Search for HP, Dell or Lenovo mini PCs , or 1 litre PCs.
I haven’t used Netflix on my Pi for a few years, but at least in the past it worked fine by pulling the DRM lib from Android. I used Netflix and Disney Plus on Kodi (with a plugin) for a couple years until we stopped watching on that TV (in the bedroom).
Oh cool, didn’t know you could do that
Apple TV. No ads. Works great.
None at all? If so how? My friends with Apple TV get an obnoxious amount of ads in their YouTube app for example.
I think they mean no ads in the UI. There are still ads in the YouTube app since Google needs that revenue. Ads don’t take up approximately 50% of the home screen though like they do on a Roku TV.
Bingo. And if you don’t use apps with ads, like only using jellyfin, you get none at all.
Ah, I didn’t even consider ads in the UI would be a thing. How disgusting
Roku TV has been unbearable lately. There’s a whole row of ads before I even get to the physical inputs on the TV. Plus there is a full height ad on the right and a half height ad on the left.
Confirm. Never seen something chatter on the network so much as well (remote control setting on maybe?). I don’t know the model but i threw it on a physically separate wlan with no Internet and a pihole and holy jebus it’s almost as bad as the Google nest hubs.
What I don’t like about ATV and the Apple ecosystem in general is the lack of ease with sideloading. Ha, I’ve created throwaway accounts with fake emails in the past and then lost access to the email account followed by the Apple device basically being bricked a result. If it’s so “private” then why not let me install free apps from the App Store without an account?
Shield, mine is very stable, never crashes, doesn’t lag
just a normal PC? Streaming should work in a browser.
Actually some browsers also have issues with 4k and certain codecs. IIRC Edge is (or was) the most compatible surprisingly.
I’ve been using the Jellyfin WebOS app, it works well but sometimes will transcode instead of direct streaming 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.
I just use a Chromecast and use my phone to cast from Jellyfin on my home server right to the Chromecast. No fiddly bits.
