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?

  • Nothingwise@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    The mini pc is the most flexible. Batocera works really well and includes:

    • Kodi to stream local media and can act as an Airplay receiver
    • the ability to run Flatpaks
    • a nice 10 ft UI
    • emulation backends and moonlight game streaming
    • the ability to pair Xbox and PlayStation controllers

    Get a usb IR receiver like FLIRC or something similar with HDMI CEC to control everything via standard remote.

    • kalpol@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      The learning curve for Kodi is pretty steep. Most folks aren’t going to bother.

      • Nothingwise@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        This is the first time I’ve heard anyone say Kodi has a learning curve. I’m curious what you found difficult?