Looking for a simple mini device that I can plug into TV for streaming stuff via browser/jellyfin and similar, with hdmi and control via bluetooth keyboard/mouse. What do you guys recommend?
Would this be powerful enough for example? https://www.komplett.no/product/1323029/pc-tilbehoer/stasjonaer-pc/acer-revo-box-mini-pc
EDIT: lemmy is awesome, thanks to you I’ll save myself a ton of work and/or costly mistakes
Your old laptop & a generic bluetooth keyboard/mouse combo unit.
That is my setup. :)
Cool, using this setup now.
Thinking of ways to make it more friendly for my SO and guests coming to visit or babysit etc, who are not used to linux (gnome). Any tips there?
Top of mind is auto open browser on startup with fixed tabs for relevant streaming services. But could also be a simple wrapper of some kind, with UI similar to kodi, plex, jellyfin etc - but for accessing content on web.
The problem with a wrapper as you put it, specifically one running on Linux, is DRM. The only way I know of to achieve the desired Widevine encryption level is running the service in a tab in Chrome. Not any other browser, not even Chromium.
Of course you could just bypass all that nonsense by pirating your media, and have a nice easy interface consolidating titles from all streamers - even retaining a network badge so they can see where a given popular show is airing - like what I’ve set up in Kodi for myself as well as boomer relatives.
Other than that I’d recommend Flirc for input via remote (or LIRC if you have a supported remote already and don’t mind some extra configuration)
Of course you could just bypass all that nonsense by pirating your media
And this is precisely why piracy is on the rise. People will pay for convince/features, as we see with steam and music streaming.
The video industry has yet to figure this out.
Oh they figured it out alright, that’s how the current players were handed the keys to the industry and why they take the more insidious DRM approach to controlling the content they own. They understand it’s less likely to cause customer to revolt than the fundamental problems with the movie/tv show distribution business model that came before. And tbh they’re right - yeah I pirate, but mostly because that’s what I’ve done for 30+ years at this point. People have been saying the most recent anti-consumer decision by Netflix will finally be their downfall for like a decade - their stock is now at all time highs.
You aren’t wrong that people will prioritise convenience/features highest but make no mistake, these companies are fully aware of the impact of their shitty practices. It’s all calculated.
i use stremio, nice and easy setup. i pay for a debrid service with usenet to get a better experience though.
The Kodi add-on I’m using uses torrentio in the backend, but has way more customisation than the stremio app + trakt integration, autoplay using preset quality filters etc
Stremio app is more seamless experience when there’s no hits for the title already in debrid cache but that’s pretty rare these days even on torbox
i have torrentio, usenet, and other backups, autoplay, trakt integration etc. it has been getting even better recently. i also use torbox.
what customisation does it have? i use aiostreams to bundle my addons and it has a ton of customization for catalogues, filtering, searching etc. i can usually click on the first stream and its the best.
i didnt like kodis ui when i used it, felt like navigating folders
A custom skin with widgets on the home screen pulling from Trakt, TMDB, IMDB etc lists - here I have the “New” category set to “Trending Recent Shows” from Trakt to highlight actually new stuff, whereas “Trending” category is set to “Trending This Week” from TMDB to cover returning shows. This approach inevitably leads to duplicates but at least covers everything important without the perpetual The Office, Breaking Bad etc results. When a title is highlighted, network badge is shown where available. The categories that point to individual episodes autoplay upon selection, the ones that point to series go to the ‘folder’ type browser
Search page overriding default kodi search, categorised by movie / tv show, also includes trakt lists.
Heaps of navigation and backend customisation, too much to show or mention but some notable things being the play next dialog including display prompt being based on end of subtitles track (with time-based backup), customised context menu including option to play trailer (displayed via long press on remote, requires youtube API key for HD trailer playback), codec prioritisation/blacklist, overriding local watched/unwatched status with trakt, partial playback resume including auto resume option
FWIW these examples are on a minimally configured proof of concept instance, when I set this up for family I need to test and tune it a bunch to ensure codec compatibility with the device/display, auto resume if that’s the behaviour they want etc. Base Kodi also allows to prefer non-hearing impaired subtitle tracks, audio tracks in a specific language or original language etc. The end result being they get what they want spoonfed to their home screen the vast majority of the time, and otherwise can find it easily with the search without hassling me lol. In the worst case scenario I need to show them how to rescrape/source select from the context menu, but that’s only happened once where an older title’s only cached release had russian-only audio. The rest of their time they can just choose an episode/movie without having to understand any specifics about whether the top result is the best stream or not. It’s enough that I’m still finding more UX improvements to add, years later.
I’d love to have this set up for usenet but don’t have any issues using torrent cache on torbox essential so just can’t really justify the cost difference
seems effectively the same for the end user, i have stremio set up with most of those but i had to use aiostreams for most of it. i dont have autoplay after subtitles end but my autoplay works well.
my scrapers have found a stream from usenet a few times now that werent available anywhere else, and usenet caches super fucking fast. i also dont have to rescrape for anything but that seems trivial.
the ui looks way nicer than what i tried and the in app settings seem pretty nice. i just have like 20 lists that get updated every once in a while from trakt and mdblists. i like having all of the categories be custom, much better than streaming services. ai search also works a lot better than other search depending on what you type.
Are there any better options for keyboard trackpad combo than the Logitech k400 yet?
Looks at lap
Logitech K400 still kicking it! (No clue if there is a better one, but it’s going to be hard to beat the classic)
I’ve been clinging to my 10 year old Logitech diNovo Mini, but when this thing kicks the bucket dunno how I’m gonna replace it. Trackpad has been pretty good, and I like the fact that it turns off and is protected when the clamshell is closed so I don’t accidentally press stuff when it gets lost in the couch. We really need an open source mini keyboard so people can make their own and customize buttons, etc.
The K400 is everywhere. I have one; my friend has one - I can mention it to fellow geeks, and everyone knows what it is.
I use a Raspberry Pi 5 with LibreELEC
That is pretty expensive nowadays, if OP wants to go that expensive, getting a mini PC with the latest intel N150. The pi 5 doesn’t even have hardware AV1 decoding. By the time you have all of the pi accessories, it is not much of a price difference, but defi itely a performance difference.
Plus you get benefits like actual storage instead of a separately bought SD card, more RAM, 2.5G ethernet, and HDMI2.1 & USB–C displayport.
Then you slap Linux on it (and also hope that plasma bigscreen is a success in the near future) and you have a very reliable 4K HTPC that can decode anything you throw at it. It has enough horsepower to be a home server at the same time, unlike a pi while also having just a bit higher idle power usage (2W or so).
same here, with NVMe-Board
Thx for the tip!
Honestly I’ve got the kids bedroom tv on a Pi 3 running LibrElec just fine. Kodi isn’t that resource intensive so it works great. But if you’re feeling fancy setting up a db to hold all your info so you can share it on multiple end really is nice. I love being able to stop a movie in the living room because I’m getting tired and pick it up in the bedroom at the exact same spot.
The shared backend db with MariaDB was always janky for me. I switched to using Jellyfin for the backend, which tbf could be overkill if you just need the watch states synced.
If you ever want to buy raspberry pi, don’t forget to get a cooler either passive or active. Those things gets hot quickly without a cooler.
Literally anything can be a streaming target. You don’t need a full on PC. RPi works well.
I use RPi5 for this and have it hooked up to steam link.
can stream at 4k with no issue.
Been using Raspberry Pi 5 with 8GB of RAM, and swapping between Android 16 (KonstaKANG’s AOSP fork) for Grayjay and NewPipe, and some random Linux distro for Kodi and other offline stuff.
So far working nicely.
Thx for the tip!
BTW you can use Waydroid to run Android apps on Linux.
(Thinking aloud) Wonder if it works in ARM devices and with programs that require constant connection… 👀
Thanks! Will be cooking something now =D
It works on ARM and it can run in the background if you want it to.
Keep an eye on the HDMI version - 1.4 will only give you 30fps at 4k. You need 2.0 to get 60fps.
Great tip, thanks!
I use “Beelink” brand mini PCs for this purpose. (They are the same form factor as your photo.) I have three, and they’re all good. I’ve used multiple distros on them with no compatibility issues, but MX Linux is my daily driver.
They have fans built in, but the cases on the higher end ones are metal, which helps with heat dissipation. The only downside with that is that sometimes USB peripherals get super hot while plugged in, and I had a mouse dongle that would overheat and malfunction. A simple USB hub fixed this problem (the hub itself apparently didn’t mind getting hot).
I use a “Mini Keyboard with touchpad” on the ones connected to TVs. I recommend those as well. Rii brand is decent.
Dell Optiplex 3050
Lenovo m720
HP whatever with a 7th gen Intel
All can be had for $50 ish
Older 10th gen Intel NUCs go for cheap on eBay, with memory and storage – close in price to a Raspberry Pi 5, but more powerful, active cooling without having to buy a kit, and may have greater longevity. An alternative to a Pi if you’re looking for one.
After getting an NUC, what would you install to make it more streaming UI friendly?
Or are you suggesting to just use the tv as a large monitor and stream via websites and browser?
Fedora and plasma run well on my nucs. One is about 7 years old and handles all the minimal things like streaming and containerized services really well.
That’s what I do. I have a bunch of .desktop files that just open Firefox in kiosk mode to whichever website I want, and a bunch of .PNG files to make them look like apps. I installed them system-wide.
I’m a pretty big KDE Stan but I decided to give Gnome a go since Plasma Bigscreen is virtually impossible to install for a normal user at the moment. Its not perfect but it gets the job done, and I love the basic parental controls it has. Still absolutely awful in terms of settings though.
I use an N95 mini pc, I have it set up with xubuntu (compositing turned off), and it’s loaded with Kodi (+Jellyfin add-ons), and used with a USB remote control. It’s a super-smooth. I cast music to Kodi from my phone with Symfonium.
Gotcha, so remove windows, install Linux, then install Kodi and other programs and it should function like an out-of-the-box streaming device?
My experience with Intel NUCs is that longevity is their greatest weakness. Usually burn themselves out in a few years. Prospects for repair being slim. I’m not sure if Pis are any better, but I haven’t been impressed.
How do they burn out? Anecdotal, but I’ve had one running 24/7 for about 6 years now I think and only needed to swap out the fan.
Bad thermal management. Too much heat for too small of space without enough cooling.
Huh. Maybe I just run mine lighter. Streaming shouldn’t take much though. Also they’re actively cooled. I’ll keep that in mind though in case mine die unexpectedly.
Yeah, luck is a factor for sure. And if you find one for cheap enough it probably doesn’t matter. Personally, I’d rather just build a SFF PC with a mini-ITX board. It’ll be slightly bigger than a NUC, but at least the parts are all off the shelf and replaceable when something inevitably goes wrong.
I use a Pi running LibreElec…basically packages OSMC.
Plug it into a smart TV with HDMI and your tv remote can control the Pi OSMC Interface…no need for a separate remote…I was pleasantly surprised at that.
Some of these words I recognize…
Look up “raspberry pi kodi”. That may or may not help depending on which words you understood
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I finally got round to buying the Beelink EQ14 I’d promised myself. Sips electricity & handles 4k content. Can’t comment re usage as I havent got round to setting it up yet. I believe it shipped with Win11 but I’ll be putting linux on it
I’ll double the Beelink recco. Using a SER5 for a few years now as dual boot windows and linux as an HTPC. Zero issues with PC at 4k and 5.1. My only issue is Dirac doesn’t support linux, but that is neither here nor there.
Does anyone have a suggestion for something that can be used with a remote? AndroidTV boxes don’t seem to be a consistent thing anymore beyond NVIDIA shields…
I use a Pi running LibreElec and it can be controlled by my LG TV down the HDMI cable. It’s the CEC protocol. Look into that.
You said my line!
Why not just use a bluetooth or 2.4g remote?
Intel NUCs typically have an IR receiver
I’ve tried Kodi on librelecr, the old Xbox launcher. It has an app called kodi remote: your phone is the remote.
Currently I’m using an old 2013 laptop with Debian and xfce. I’ve installed KDE connect on it, and it also has an app KDE connect that turns your phone into the remote.
The main advantage of the remote on your phone is you can type text, copy/paste URLs, passwords and whatnot
An Airmouse is a gamechanger.
Its a TV-remote-style device that works like a Wii remote to control the mouse, usually has a keyboard on the backside, and connects to a USB 2.4ghz or Bluetooth receiver depending on the model you get.
I got a $20 Rii and a $10 other brand one to try out. Both are fine. I like the buttons on the Rii better but it has no backlight which sucks because I’m usually watching TV in bed at 9pm. The $10 one’s keyboard also responds faster so I can actually speed type.
The Google TV boxes (onn) from Walmart are a solid option. $49 for the Pro is an excellent price for the hardware.
Might be worth looking into FLIRC USB
Random fun fact: back in college, my girlfriend’s best friend (and my best friend’s girlfriend) was named Elisa. This being the early 2000s, I used an old school flip phone that had T9 for text entry. But “Elisa” wasn’t in the T9 dictionary, so I would hit 3-5-4-7 and it would prompt “Elis”—presumably expecting an “e” after—but once I hit that last 2, it would change to “flirc.”
It’s interesting that that’s actually become a thing now.
I bought one of these a while back but could never get it working. Skill issue probably 😅 I’ll try it out again!
I used one for a work project. They are pretty nice for a spite project lol
Formuler Z11 Pro Max
Bazzite + gamepad
I use one of these which I got from AliExpress along with one of these, though of course it will work fine with mouse and keyboard.
(Please note that I haven’t tested it specifically with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse).
I installed Lubuntu on it because it’s a lighter distro (it will work fine with the full desktop Linux distros, but why waste computing power on fancy window managers for something that’s just a TV Box that’s always showing Kodi) and have it always turned on (the TDP of this is pretty low) with Kodi as interface and its runs perfectly.
It’s sitting on my living room under the TV.
It’s probably a little overpowered, but that means its fan almost never turns on (it’s pretty quiet when it does, but silence is better), so I’m also running a bittorrent server on it with an always on VPN, plus it’s my NAS. There’s room for more if I wanted.
I don’t really understand people advising the more powerful Mini-PCs: they’re way overpowered for the job hence needlessly expensive plus the TDP of their processors is way more than the N100 in this one hence it both consumes more and is a lot less quiet because the fan has to be bigger and running a lot more often to cool that hotter processor down.
PS: Also the downside of using old PCs for this as some recommend is their higher power consumption, even for notebooks, plus they generally don’t really look like a nice TV-Box to have in your living room, which this one does. If you’re going to run it all the time, a low TDP mini-pc will probably quickly pay itself over using an old desktop, longer if versus an old notebook.
I share the general sentiment but lower TDP does not equal lower consumption, any “mobile” ryzen since the series 4000 on Zen 2 (7nm) is more efficient at most tasks than an N100 (10nm TSMC node), and barring specific mobo issues all have in general very low idle consumptions. But their iGPUs are a lot more capable, faster at anything, no need to limit yourself to a lightweight Desktop manager. Shop used and you might get more bang for your buck with an older ryzen mini pc than a newer N100 one.
If the thing is not meant to use as a Desktop, why load it with heavier applications that aren’t delivering anything useful?
No matter how efficient a core is at most tasks, it can’t beat the power savings of not actually running needless code.
My homemade TV Box isn’t running a lightweight desktop because I had to “limit myself”, it’s running one because I’m not losing anything by not having that which I don’t use and if that even just saves a few Watts a week, it still means I’m better off, which is satisfying as I like to design my systems to be efficient.
For fancy Linux Desktop things I have an actual Desktop PC with Linux - the homemade TV Box on my living room is only supposed to let me watch stuff on TV whilst I sit on my sofa.
Further, there are more than one form of efficiency - stuff like the N100 (and even more, the ARM stuff) are designed for power consumption efficiency, whilst desktop CPUs are designed for ops-per-cycle efficiency, which are not at all the same thing: being capable of doing more operations per cycle doesn’t mean something will consume less power in doing so (in fact, generally in Engineering if you optimize in one axis you lose in another) it just means it can reach the end of the task in fewer cycles.
For a device that during peak use still runs at around 10% CPU usage, having the ability to do things a little faster doesn’t really add any value.
Even the series 4000 Zen2 being more optimized for power consumption is only in the context of desktop computers, a whole different world from what the N100 (and even more things like ARM7) were designed to operate in, which is why the former has a TDP of 140W and the latter of 15W (and the ARMs are around 6W). Sure the TDP is a maximum and hence not a precise metric for a specific use case such as using something as a TV Box, but it’s a pretty good indication of how much a core was optimized for power consumption, and 15W vs 140W is a pretty massive distance to expect that any error in using TDP to estimate how the power consumption of those two in everyday use as a TV Box compares would mean that the CPU with 140W TDP consumes less than the one with 15W.
PS: All that said, if the use case was “selfhosting” rather than “TV Box (with a handful of lightweight services on the side)”, you suggestion makes more sense, IMHO.
There are plenty of mobile ryzens with a TDP of 15W, I’m not suggesting a Threadripper for a tv box, that’d be crazy :)
The -U (“ultrabook”) Ryzens are found not only in laptops but also in mini pcs, very efficient (yes even at idle, I have a power meter) are also the -GE and -G APUs despite the higher TDP (35W and 65W) because of their monolithic design. And in mini pcs the system consumes less power compared to putting the same cpus on a beefy ATX motherboard with a hungry chipset and inefficient VRMs.
Intel+TSMC mobile/embedded cpus are also great choices, same concepts apply.
I should have written desktop environment (DE) and not manager (I mixed it up with WM, window managers), btw they’re not just for actual desk-top computers, some are even optimised for the TV (and input with a remote). I misunderstood that you felt a need for a lighter software setup instead of simply preferring it, my bad, and kudos for making sensible choices, bloat is bad. Happy linuxing.
I see, with your clarification that does make more sense.
Frankly I would’ve rather have avoided Intel because, well, they’re Intel, but from what I saw when I looked around, the N100 was an x86 designed for that kind of use, had far more computing power than the dissapointing cheap ARM based Android TV boxes I had tried before (I’ve been using TV Boxes for since well before they were common and the last one was so old that it couldn’t handle newer media anymore, so I started looking around and first tried replacing with with a cheap Android TV box) and I could get a Mini-PC for roughly the same price as a good Android TV box for making my own thing fully under my control (i.e. Linux with my chosen media player and services, rather than a closed Android riddled with bloatware), so I went for it and am happy with the result.
As for desktop environment, in practice the thing just runs Kodi all the time as the frontend, hence is perfect for controlling with a remote, like the one I linked in my original post. Any linux style kind of management I do remotelly from another computers, either from the command line via SSH or via web interfaces. In practice whilst I do have a keyboard and mouse connected to it, they’re very rarelly used.
I later found out that using LibreELEC (a whole Linux distro meant specifically for use as a TV box were Kodi is the frontend) would probably have been an optimal choice for a TV box rather than starting from a light ubuntu variant and customizing it myself, plus LibreELEC would’ve worked just as well on an ARM based SBC (something like an Orange Pi 3) which would’ve been cheaper and would’ve used even less power. That said, I had intended from he start to hang more services from that box (for example, I wanted to replace the NAS “solution” I had in place using my router, which only supported SMBv1) so starting from a more generic Linux distro probably made more sense that using a TV Box specific light distro.
The thing is a bit of a Frankenstein monster on the inside but doesn’t at all look like it when used in my living room to play media on the TV.
I use a Beelink SER5, but that’s because I also plan to set it up to be a retro game console, in addition to streaming.
I was in a similar boat. I’ve been using a Ryzen 5000-based mini PC for about two years now. It’s running:
Debian for stability
Flex Launcher for the 10ft TV UI
Flex Launcher has shortcuts for Plex HTPC, Netflix in a full screen Chrome page, etc.
An AirMouse Remote with a keyboard on the back and basic controls up front. It has 5 programmable IR buttons that I have bound to TV Power, TV Input, TV Select, and Sound Bar Vol-/+
My kids also use it for Steam and Retro gaming, so I have it launch ES-DE and Steam Big Picture Mode from Flex Launcher.
Other than the occasional tweaking, it has needed very little and been rock solid for about 2 years now. I have a cheap Android TV set top box still attached for when Grandma goes to use the TV. I can switch inputs and hand them the Google TV remote, but my wife, my kids, and I use the HTPC almost exclusively.
I use a raspberry pi 3 A+. The only thing that sucks is no h265 support.
I tried this with zeroPi and jellyfin, bit the Pi seemed constantly overwhelmed with displaying videos, so I got about a frame every 2 seconds (might have been a pi3b). Have you got any clue what the issue might be? It depended a lot on the particular file I wanted to play as well though, but I wasn’t able to find a pattern. Of two matroska/mp4 files one worked well, the other stuttered as hell.
The only thing I have experience with is that the pi’s struggle with newer codecs, like h264 runs perfectly but any video that is h265 is a slide show, if you get an image at all. So I have to be really careful which version of a video I download. It sucks because h264 files are significantly larger due to its inferior compression.
That’s my experience with a 3B+ as well, running LibreELEC. H264 it is, all the way. Older codecs work too.
