With Chromecasts being discontinued, increase in ads, telemetry, etc I’m wondering if anyone else is going back to old school HTPCs or if they have some other solution to do this in house.

I think the options here are likely:

  1. Rooted streamer (ie Chromecast, firestick)
  2. Android Box
  3. Mini PC

I’m actually most interested in experimenting with #3, a mini PC running KDE Plasma Bigscreen. Most of my self hosted apps can be run in browser windows, and a full desktop (while harder to navigate) is better than the browsers you can get on Android.

What is everyone esle, especially the privacy / de-googled self hosters doing for their media front end?

    • foggenbooty@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      9·
      2 months ago

      All my current self-hosting is running off an N100 mini-PC. OPNsense, NginX, Home Assistant, Unifi Controller, Docker host, etc. They are fantastic, it just seems a bit overkill for sitting behind the TV and playing Plex/Jellyfin and the occasional web stream in a browser. There’s really not much competition though as all the products below it offer a lot older processors that don’t have very up to date HW decode.

      • Album@lemmy.caEnglish
        3·
        2 months ago

        Same. Seems like overkill when you can see what it can do. But also at that price you can velcro it to the back of your tv and it can literally do anything so have at. I don’t see a lot of better options. I use full computers personally.

    • hempster@lemm.eeEnglish
      4·
      2 months ago

      What optimized application do you run for the big screen and easy navigation? What about remote control?

      • Album@lemmy.caEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        Stremio/Plex with a Microsoft keyboard that has a touchpad built in. It’s big but you can get small ones off Amazon for $20

      • hperrin@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        2 months ago

        I’d recommend the Pepper Jobs windows 10 gyro remote. I’ve got two of them because they’re so great.

          • hperrin@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 months ago

            No. They emulate a keyboard, and use the keyboard shortcuts to do things in Windows. So they won’t work out of the box in Linux, but you can add each of the keys as a keyboard shortcut, then they’ll work.

    • MeatsOfRage@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      Anyway to do this without a keyboard. I used to have a PC connected to my TV for this but eventually just bought an apple tv for simplicity.

      • Album@lemmy.caEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        Remote control over your phone or using a Xbox controller like if it were a console. Back in the day I had an htpc remote but ability to control apps is inconsistent.

        For me nothing is more simple then a PC interface. I hate having to scroll using a TV remote it takes so long to do anything and it’s quite limiting in other ways.

        • MeatsOfRage@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          Phone wouldn’t work for me, I’ve got a strict no phone around the TV rule for myself because I’m way too tempted to just use it instead of enjoying the thing I’m watching. Also wouldn’t really want to put an Xbox controller onto my wife or step mother.

          I wish there was some kind of application you could run that would abstract all the mouse and keyboard interactions into a remote control friendly interface.

    • Mountain_Mike_420@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      Htpc for YouTube and gaming and native tv app plex streaming content from my plex/nas media server (pi4). Works great. Power is crazy high in California right now at over 49c /kwh so I need to boot up the htpc as little as possible.

    • hperrin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      Exactly. N100 mini PCs are like the Swiss Army Knife of computers. Almost as compact as a Raspberry Pi, and compatible with a lot more things.