My jellyfin collection has finally become large enough that I have been able to cancel all my streaming services. My issue now is that I want to get rid of my Roku’s that are hooked up to each TV.
Is there a good alternative? It MUST be family approved, meaning:
- It is not visible (no desktop/laptop hooked up)
- It is low power
- It has a simple remote control
- It supports Jellyfin
- It is relatively cheap (< $150)
I am sure I could build something out of a raspberry pi, but:
- I don’t need another project I have to fiddle with
- It MUST support new codecs (h.265/AC1/aac/…) as I want direct play from my server
- If it stutters/buffers once, it goes into the trash!
I’ve generally been mostly happy with my Roku, and my pi.hole blocks most of their analytics, but last week, I pressed the home button on my Roku and it started play a video add with audio. Completely unacceptable (That has happened twice in the last week). And in general, the more of this crap I can get out of my life the better!
You must log in or # to comment.
I use Chromecast with android TV, it’s about perfect with jellyfin, and if I were to domit again I’d probably spend the little extra for the 4k model even though my TV is 1080p (more horsepower). You can run a different homescreen to somewhat degoogle it.
Probably not what you’re looking for given what you’ve lined up here, but I live and breathe with it every day and it’s great, and as an added benefit you can cast from a lot of services or websites as well.
- If you do not want stuttering, use a graphics card. Higher energy consumption but you can play everything
If they have a 5th gen or newer Intel CPU, Quicksync will work excellently for transcoding. No discrete GPU needed.
For how many devices?
As many as most GPUs without all the extra cost and power draw. Nvidia sets a transcode limit of 2 sessions unless you disable it. You really shouldn’t ever be transcoding 4k content. Most people will duplicate 1080p and 4k content and not share the 4k library for remote streaming/external users to avoid transcoding, and 1080p transcodes are no sweat. Furthermore, the goal should be to avoid transcoding wherever possible, so it’s unlikely that you’d have multiple people doing intensive transcoding simultaneously if you follow the above advice. You’ll want everyone to direct play as much as possible.
how many 4k streams?
As many as your hard drives or upload bandwidth can handle since they would be playing directly and not transcoding.
Thanks, it’s good advice that you do not need a gpu if you watch movies in 1080. It’s sufficient for 99% setups anyway
It seems like the most obvious answer is to build your own with a Pi. Run Linux and then install any player you want. You could even use the Pi as the head then network your storage.
Also, FWIW, the latest Apple TV hasn’t seen an upgrade in about 3-4 years, so if you do go that route, bear that in mind. A new model is coming sooner than later (hopefully this year).
Did you read far enough to see that didn’t want another project? Or did you just decide that needed to hear a suggestion they already rejected again because if YOU tell them they might listen to you?
Nothing to add, but also interested in this same scenario. I could only think of the Nvidia Shield.
Nvidia shield is less user friendly than Roku I think
And it runs Google services, and it costs a fortune, and it hasn’t seen a refresh in 6 years.
And has reliability issues, I got one for my mom so she could use my Plex server, it died just outside of warranty. She didn’t use it often so it wasn’t used and abused, just stopped outputting video one day.
Sorry… I meant from the perspective that you could/should install LOS on it. I think that’s about the only device allowing it, these days.
Idk what your usecase is but isn’t LineageOS the opposite of user-friendliness esp for older people? Isn’t it meant for tablets, not tv stresm boxes with remote controls? Or am I missing something
LOS?
LineageOS.
For my parents, I got a $150 N100 mini PC (tiny little thing), installed Bazzite, installed Jellyfin, and got the Pepper Jobs W10 Gyro remote. You have to configure Jellyfin to know it’s running on a TV and to accept keyboard input (the remote acts like a keyboard), but then everything works great. It’s a little over your budget, with the added remote.
I did similar https://github.com/zombiehoffa/hyprjellynix
Excellent - thanks for the remote recommendation, it’s one thing I’ve been struggling to find.
Not sure I like the gyro idea - I had a gyro presentation mouse in the past. Worked well, but how do your parents like the gyro element?
They don’t use it unless my dad is watching a perfectly legal sports stream in the browser. It works really well though. I have 3 of those remotes, cause I love them.
But Bazzite is a gaming OS, isn’t that very user unfriendly? Or do you auto start Jellyfin on startup? Or are your parents just… not boomers?
Bazzite runs the SteamOS interface. It’s extremely user friendly. It’s designed to look like a console.
You have no idea what ‘user friendly’ can mean for boomers. A button that says “Next” is already something that need to be talked about explicitly
I use Kodi with the jellyfin plugin, but I can’t recommend that for ‘normies’ because the interface is not simple, and I still have glitches with it.
I’m also looking for a solution like yours, but wanted you to have that feedback.
I don’t know how Kodi still goes on for this long. I messed around with it over a decade ago and had all the same issues back then.
Some people want local serverless playback.
I mean, it’s free and it does work, so I won’t complain, but I wouldn’t push this on any but my most technical friends.
Technical friends are the best friends.
I’m kinda of lost with this. I run 3 librelec units on RaspberryPis velcroed to the back of TVs in my house and once I set them up they run easy as. I set them by setting what my network folders are ( I’m a bit of a data hoarder so I’ve got each tv series in their own folders and each movie and their filled in its own folders) and then hitting scan. Is it because of Jellyfin that you’re having problems? I tried setting it up but gave up when I realised I’d have to let it be a server and frankly I don’t trust my in-laws not to fuck up and post all my details on their Facebook to show off their new personalise steaming services.
I guess you are saying you only run Kodi? Yes it is Kodi with the jellyfin plugin talking to a jellyfin server that is the source of the few woes I have with it. Honestly it works really well, but when something is wrong I would say due to the UI it’s beyond most non-technical people to sort it out easily.
Ah yeah. I gave up on jellyfin pretty quickly as I do everything on my local network and jelly isn’t for that I guess.
If you’re happy with the Roku hardware and you’re going to cancel all your other streaming services, why not just firewall block the Roku from reaching out of your local network?
If you do that, Jellyfin will still work fine, and you won’t have the ability to get posted ads or anything else from the Roku, so it’ll just become a Jellyfin box.
I have a Rocku streaming stick and it won’t work without an internet connection
I’ve taken this approach, sometimes these boxes will act up when they can’t phone home. Definitely worth trying though.
Have you tried it with a Roku? My pi.hole blocks most things, but I haven’t yet tried to completely block it from the Internet. In the past, I’ve had to allow some domains through my pi.hole or things would be completely broken, but that hasn’t happened in a while…
I suppose I’d have to occasionally unblock it to get updates to the jellyfin app, which is doable.
Worth that at least before you start looking at different hardware.
Otherwise, it’s the same thing if you have a smart TV, download the Jellyfin app, and then just completely stop it from being able to connect anywhere else.
Get one of those miniPCs with the Intel N95 or Intel N100 chips. Install Kodi on Ubuntu or libreelec Install the jellyfin plugin and you’re good to go.
You can control it via one of those remotes on amazon with a USB dongle and it powers on the TV and the device.
You’ll have to install the artic theme on jellyfin and mess with the view options a bit for something more polished but once done it just works I’ve been using mine for 3 years and it’s been pretty solid.
It’s surprising how slow open source is on replicating Roku. So many manufacturers could be using Linux to bypass androidTV and RokuOS bullshit. I suppose AndroidTV is good enough even despite that.
I think it’s a chicken and egg problem. A FOSS Roku-replacement needs apps to make get popular, and manufacturers won’t port their apps until it’s popular. Basically, manufacturers need someone with a big marketing budget to help them feel comfortable investing in a platform, but that’s not going to happen with a nice FOSS platform.
Maybe if we collectively raise like $100M or something, we could put together a big enough marketing budget to convince some of the bigger names (Netflix, HBO, etc) to take the risk, and the rest will follow if it’s popular enough. Maybe.
Both use Linux under the hood. You can even install LineageOS on some TVs.
The only reason AndroidTV is bullshit is the manufacturers because casual users want shit like Netflix and Prime preinstalled. Google TV in particular comes with a lot of crap and the ads, which believe it or not some users take as a feature.
But that’s not inherent to Android TV as an OS, it’s exactly like Android phones and manufacturers preloading a bunch of crap to make an extra buck. If your run AOSP you get none of that crap, and it’s fully open-source.
There are a couple of devices, a few months ago during a similar discussion on Lemmy I saved this but doesn’t seem to be many videos or reviews out in the wild
This is very interesting. Do you know anyone who has actually tried these?
Nvidia Shield. The regular version is $150 US and from what I understand it gives flawless playback. I have the pro version which is more powerful, but that’s specifically for running games.
It’s Android TV OS, so app selection is great. You can load Smart Tube Next on there to get YouTube without ads, and there’s a very solid Jellyfin app. You can also use Kodi for local direct playback. Remote is perfectly functional, and you can use an app to rebind most of the keys.
Its AppleTV.
There is a working app there now? Infuse etc. do not support HW transcoding…
If you are in the USA. The Walmart onn 4k (20$) and 4k pro (50$) are amazing for the price. The remotes are really good too.
It’s just a matter of time before those are enshittified as well.
Edit: ok my bad… apparently you can side load different launchers. I may check one of those out then.
I’m currently using a raspberry pi 5 flashed with Konstakang’s Android TV image, it works pretty flawlessly and takes less than an hour to set up, assuming you have the APKs of everything you want to install. You don’t need to mess around with Google play services because most TV android apps are also designed to run on firesticks which don’t have it.
The one issue I have encountered is that the Jellyfin client very occasionally won’t play some 4k HDR media in the default player (all my 1080p stuff works fine) so I also installed MPV and I turn on alternative player in the Jellyfin settings in the rare case something doesn’t work.
I did not like the Rpi5 with Android TV as a jellyfin client. There is no support for Dolby Vision HDR content and playback of other 4k media was stuttering. With DV content I got the purple/green tinted picture. Sometimes the pi would only display a quarter of the picture.
I used Konstakangs AndroidTV image with a flirc USB Dongle for use with a tv remote. F-Droid store apk for all necessary apps.
If you have any recommendations how to fix stuttery 4k playback I would be interested. For now I just stick with the built in Android TV of my sony television.
I remember trying the Android TV 14 image a while ago and it was basically unusable as you describe, the new Android TV 15 image has fixed virtually all those issues for me. YMMV but IMO it’s worth experimenting and seeing if it works for you, there’s a chance I just got lucky though
I’ve personally been using a raspberry pi with a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard. I just run jellyfin in Firefox and navigate with the mouse - the keyboard rarely ever being necessary. I was able to increase the icon size so it’s acceptable on a tv and bookmark any streaming websites I use. It’s certainly not as clean as using something like an apple tv, but it’s serviceable and I don’t have to fiddle with plugins like when I tried Kodi. Honestly though, apple tv probably fulfills what you’re looking for like others have said.
AppleTV connected via Ethernet.
You’re chasing a unicorn with your requirements.
We have a couple Apple TVs. As much as I dislike the walled garden, they are very good for what they are.
This ^
Simple, no ads, and handles HDR super well
And the Ethernet port is actually gigabit.
