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:

  1. It is not visible (no desktop/laptop hooked up)
  2. It is low power
  3. It has a simple remote control
  4. It supports Jellyfin
  5. It is relatively cheap (< $150)

I am sure I could build something out of a raspberry pi, but:

  1. I don’t need another project I have to fiddle with
  2. It MUST support new codecs (h.265/AC1/aac/…) as I want direct play from my server
  3. 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!

  • merthyr1831@lemmy.mlEnglish
    41·
    3 days ago

    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.

      • nix98@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        1·
        1 day ago

        This is very interesting. Do you know anyone who has actually tried these?

        • keyez@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          1 day ago

          I don’t but searching online there’s a couple of YouTube videos. Also there’s a couple recent threads on AV forums talking about the device. Seems like it gets plenty of updates and attention but no I haven’t gotten a solid recommendation yet. I’ll probably give it a shot here in a few months assuming that US store price doesnt go up further

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      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.