I have a dumb TV, and a spare computer. I want a nice easy way to interface with several services. (Jellyfin, disney+ etc)
I know of Kodi, but really dislike the interface. I know I could get a USB keyboard/mouse remote thing, but that isn’t very elegent. Is there a simpler solution to this?
To add to everyone else, I moved from Kodi to Jellyfin and it was a game changer for my home server solution. (I run the server off of my gaming PC)
The fact that my video collection will mostly not play in browser just breaks the entire navigation environment of Jellyfin.
I’m not sure which client device you’re using, but on desktop there is the desktop player as well as
jellyfin-mpv-shim
which don’t rely on the browser for playback, but do use it for management, show selection etc
My go to is Roku.
Cheap, always works, compatible with everything
The best solution at the moment is using an nvidia shield (2019) instead of a PC:
- it’s tiny
- it’s fanless
- it’s got low power draw (5-10w)
- it can do 4k, hdr, and dolby vision (most importantly, it has the best support for these among services. good luck getting 4k video from netflix, disney+, and amazon on a PC)
- it has usb ports for dacs, controllers, external drives, and keyboard + mouse
- you can sideload android apps including ad-free home screens, remote button remappers, SmartTubeNext as a youtube replacement frontend, and moonlight for game streaming
- you’ll have the most up-to-date and best supported versions of apps like jellyfin and plex
- it has pretty much the best selection of audio/video codecs, so you shouldn’t need to transcode anything
- you can set up the nvidia shield remote to control tv power and volume on the tv or on a separate av receiver
This is the correct answer.
Run an *arr stack somewhere on your network, install Jellyfin on the server and the Jellyfin app on the Shield and you’re golden, no need for subscriptions.
“*arr stack”?
@thanevim Sonarr/Radarr, to my understanding one is for “obtaining” shows/movies and the other is for users to request things for the other program to obtain.
Yeah, that’s about right. Sonarr is for linking services for TV shows, Radarr is for linking services for movies, there are others for media types, and Overseerr is for users to request media. Servarr wiki
it has pretty much the best selection of audio/video codecs, so you shouldn’t need to transcode anything
No AV1 hardware decoding at least, not that it’s all that common yet.
I would recommend trying different skins for Kodi, was a game changer for me.
You could try a Google stick?
Pi with Kodi on it is pretty good.