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!
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Nvidia Shield. The regular version is $150 US and from what I understand it gives flawless playback. I have the pro version which is more powerful, but that’s specifically for running games.
It’s Android TV OS, so app selection is great. You can load Smart Tube Next on there to get YouTube without ads, and there’s a very solid Jellyfin app. You can also use Kodi for local direct playback. Remote is perfectly functional, and you can use an app to rebind most of the keys.
If you are in the USA. The Walmart onn 4k (20$) 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.
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.
Its AppleTV.
There is a working app there now? Infuse etc. do not support HW transcoding…
If you don’t want ads creeping in everywhere, the only prebuilt option is appletv. otherwise you have to build it yourself :/
The aTV will give you the best experience when it comes to dark patterns. But just note, a new model is on the horizon, so hold out a little longer.
AppleTV connected via Ethernet.
You’re chasing a unicorn with your requirements.
This ^
Simple, no ads, and handles HDR super well
And the Ethernet port is actually gigabit.
We have a couple Apple TVs. As much as I dislike the walled garden, they are very good for what they are.
I use the ONN 4K Pro and the ProjectIvy launcher. You can completely hide the standard Android TV OS launcher and its ads. Button Mapper is another good app to have on Android boxes. The remote is full of app-specific buttons that I’ve either disabled or remapped to alternative apps
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spocky.projengmenu
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=flar2.homebutton
I have no idea which codecs are supported.
I have a Shield Pro and several Rokus, but my next will be the ONN 4K Pro. Hopefully it is $30 at black friday again, I’ll buy a few.
I am about to switch over to this setup from a Roku myself. I had seen recommendations for Flauncher, but I’m glad to see another launcher recommendation. I will have to try out Project Ivy. Thanks!
Flauncher is a great pick too
Im on flauncher, works for my needs
I second this setup.
I have 3 ONN sticks and they do the job. Great for the price. Just sideload Kodi, new launcher, remap buttons.
I even paid for button mapper. Totally worth it.
This is my exact setup. The upgrade from the smart TV was night and day. Apps load instantly and Jellyfin works great. Most importantly the remote is easy to use and can control the TV.
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
Oh, that’s absolutely horrible that they designed it that way. 🤮
I’ve taken this approach, sometimes these boxes will act up when they can’t phone home. Definitely worth trying though.
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.
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.
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.
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 second the AppleTV recommendation based on your disgust with the Roku UI ads, I am completely on your side there, but my similar search has bought me to AppleTV.
I currently run Amazon Fire Sticks which also have UI ads but my pihole is catching most of them and it’s dirt cheap with h.265 support. Plus it runs various hacked apps like TVMob, Cinema, and Cyberflix. That’s what keeps me from moving to an AppleTV or an n100 box already.
What filters are you using in pihole to filter the fire stick ads?
Hagezi’s pro and above blocks the sponsored video ones which I found most intrusive: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hagezi/dns-blocklists/main/domains/native.amazon.txt
These usually break the UI but you can still access apps so it’s functional.
I’m using the hagezi list for now
Thanks!
How good is Jellyfin on AppleTV? My understanding was the app was a bit lacking…
The Swiftfin app is awesome
Swiftfin is the official Apple TV jellyfin app. Swiftfin is great on iOS, but hasn’t been updated on Apple TV for a while. It also lacks a lot of polish and features but it is being worked on. There should be an update soon.
I’ve been using infuse on Apple TV. Infuse isn’t open source and needs a subscription to watch most 4k hdr content. I think it’s worth it if Swiftfin gets an update soon.
Apple TV is definitely a better experience compared to Samsung and Android. Apps are nicer and there isn’t any ads, privacy controls and privacy statements are much better. Recommended content can also be disabled and only shows when your hovering over the relevant app.
Use SwiftFin app instead on Apple TV, but better than the Jellyfin app.
Oh I haven’t made the leap yet due to the jailbreak apps but I’ve seen read that Jellyfin is decent on AppleTV, about as good as anywhere else. Probably not as polished as you’d expect on AppleTV but serviceable. I’ll update if I end up buying one!
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Any guide you recommend for tvmob, cinema, and cyberflix?
This worked best for me for Linux ISOs on my fire stick: https://www.firesticktricks.com/jailbreak-fire-stick.html
Edited to un-embed, thanks u/lka1988
Why did you embed the link? Just paste the link directly into your comment.
Oh shoot, didn’t realize it just worked. Thanks!
LibreELEC on an old chromebook!
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 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’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.
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.
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.
Some people want local serverless playback.
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.
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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.
No worries, it is just my internal frustration with Nvidia coming out in my comment. It could be a good device if it weren’t abandoned by them years ago while that fact seems to be lost in their current pricing. There isn’t really anything comparable on the market, but I don’t think it’s worth the price in it’s current form.
LOS?
LineageOS.
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
Without having tried it, I know it has an Android TV version. I’m not sure what part isn’t user-friendly, as usually that part comes from deciding to go away without most of google oriented services. I installed FLauncher before, and it did its job quite nicely, but haven’t tried LOS, or how it would perform in a TV. For my very specific use case, I need Flauncher to open either Jellyfin or Smarttube. For these purposes the Nvidia could work. But I havent gottent into it yet, and I’m still waiting for better options.
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?
