I've been very happy with my Nvidia Shield. It's powerful enough for all 4k HDR media and runs Android so it's customizable but I don't have to think about it.
this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2023
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Privacy
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NVIDIA Shield is generally considered the best.
It can also side load other apps like ad free YouTube or custom launchers that won't display ads on your home screen.
The non-tube version though.
What do you mean?
There is a bigger model that lays flat which has great hardware and then there is a "tube" model similar to the Amazon Fire stick size which is 32 bit only and has hardware issues also.
I have the tube for years now and can't imagine why would I need the Pro version. 32-bit only? It has the same chip.
Lots of people have issues with it. Besides what I mentioned before it's only another $50 for another gig of ram.
I see, thanks.
I like my Shield but it was a real bummer that I couldn't just plug in a USB drive and play movies on it. It's annoying that I have to setup Plex or Jellyfin or whatever to serve movies to the Shield
You can use VLC if you want a simple video player. And XPlore if you want a better file browser
Why?
I'm also happy with it, but when selecting a media player today, I'd get one with hw AV1 decoding.
Maybe a next-gen chromecast, if there will be a version with an ethernet port.
There are definitely more economic options, but I lucked out with a cheap i7 Intel NUC a few years ago that's had no problem running any of my Plex streams. Might be worth checking out
Verso 4K+ is good, there is a new one as well that supports av1, but it’s not that cheap.
Verso 4K+ is good...
Well Walmart sells TV boxes for like $20. I'm just waiting for custom ROMs
I have a few of them. Not bad with projectivy launcher. I added wired Ethernet, storage, and audio out with otg cables.
Not great for privacy though
For remuxes, from all cheap tv boxes i have tested all of them have some issues. only shield pro 2019 give me peace of mind. The only bad thing is it can't with av1.
For privacy, you can bypass google account and debloat all google spyware, for apps aurora store and sideload are your friends.
Pi4 with Kodi
I'm currently looking into Plasma Bigscreen as a desktop environment for an open source smart TV, it looks promising.
Thanks, this looks really interesting
If price is no option get a NAS install jellyfin, jellyseerr, radarr, sonarr. Hell you could even use an old laptop and upgrade the storage if you want a cheap start option.
Shouldn't there be two devices? One NAS in the closet and a box at every TV to connect to it? What's the simple box to connect to the NAS streaming service?
I was looking at the $20 onn from walmart but it doesnt have a fucking usb port
Maybe. The newest Rpi can I believe.
Raspberry pi's are never worth it compared to most other things.
Agreed. But, my old 3B is still kickin so I won't be too harsh.
The 3B was like peak RPi though. Nowadays unless you need the GPIO or the low power or form factor, it’s not worth it at all. You can get low-spec 3-5 year old off-lease office desktops for roughly the same price point as a top end RPi now, and they are commonplace and easily found in the secondary market.
Hell I just bought a really clean Ryzen 5 3500 laptop for $200. Only had 8GB mem and a paltry NVMe but these are cheap upgrades if needed.
And those mini desktops generally idle within a few watts of the later RPi.
The Pi's aren't very powerful, mini PCs are very cheap these days, I do just that with Jellyfin for years and it's been great.