10mo ago

Raspberry pi as a streaming box?

I've been using Chromecasts and it's gotten so slow and buggy. I was trying to cast from VLC on my phone to it and I had a ton of trouble getting it to show up and connect and after I finished streaming from my phone I tried to switch to the YouTube app and it just kept on crashing.

It's 2024, I'm tired of dealing with shitty tv streaming experiences. I want something completely uncompromising. I want a silky smooth experience and I don't want it to randomly break on my.

I'm thinking about shelling out for a shield TV, but I'd rather have control over my device since I don't want to deal with the manufacturers fucking around with my device after the fact.

I'd love to be able to set up a raspberry pi for this, but would I be able to get a seamless experience? I don't mind doing extra up front work to get it set up, but I don't want it to be an ongoing maintenance thing, and I'd like it to work with Chromecast so it's easy to stream to from a variety of devices.

Can I actually pull that off with a raspberry pi or should I go with the shield TV?

19 comments

Dont bother with raspberrypis for most things anymore. Too expensive for that old shitty hardware they put on the boards..
Machines like the Intel N100 is much simpler to deal with. No more shitty hardware incompatability and old CPU which doesnt even have proper modern HW offloading (looking at you Pi4.. what a shitboard)
- Any idea what the power draw is for n100's compared to pi?
- And the N100 even has AV1 decoding, which is why I'll be using the mini PC, I bought as a server (which has an N100), for Kodi as well, since I try to get most stuff in AV1 and the Pi was my only device that was too slow to play it

Chromecast works well with the SHIELD, I have an og and it's great. The only issue I've run into was some fuckery with Netflix's password crackdown while trying to cast my GF's friend's account to the shield after putting in the "I'm not stealing pixels I swear" code.
For the pi if the old tutorial doesn't work I think your only chance is someone incorporating open matter casting into Kodi.

Android tv on lineage by https://konstakang.com/ might be worth looking at. Havent tried it myself but here is a review of android 10 https://youtu.be/zN3zcUpeW8U?feature=shared which is quite old and I imagine there have been a lot of improvements by now. I might be wrong so anyone feel free to correct: I dont think pi 4 has wifi on android tv only ethernet, but I think pi 5 does have wifi on android plus better graphics drivers.
- I saw that and it looks very promising. My biggest question is about being able to cast to it. I'd really like to be able to use the Chromecast standard since it's built into so many things, and I'm not sure if it's feasible to get it set up on an open source setup without it being unreliable or finicky, so I'm hoping to hear if anyone has gotten a smooth setup with it.
  As much as I'd like full control over my device out of principle, I'm just sick and tired of something as simple as being able to stream to my TV being so choppy and unreliable.
  
  Yeah, unfortunately Chromecast is not a standard in that sense. It's a locked down Google thing that you aren't allowed to Self Host. I'm not aware of any compatible implementations, and even if there was one I'd have to assume it involved "stolen" keys or something similarly "forbidden".
  
  What are you casting? if its just youtube then why not just use the app? the only way to find out is to try it out, I suggest pi 5 as its much more compatible with android but at that price you might as well just got an android device if casting is the most imbortant thing to you ie firestick, roku stick.
  Edit: or just a google chromecast device?
  there used to be rpicast but that hasnt kept up with android releases and youd be casting to a rpi os desktop which would probably be a bit more hands on than it sounds like you want it to be

I tried to look into this for a bit, but unfortunately nothing yet matches the Chromecast experience for me just yet.
I found my old Chromecast just wasn't running current versions of the streaming apps, let alone 4k. I ended up getting a new one, it does run a lot better and more independently than the one I had from 2013. I have hooked up vlc on it to a file share on my PC and the convenience is extremely nice.

I don't know what a shield TV is, but I quite like the Roku streaming sticks. They work flawlessly for me, and you can cast to them from another device.
- I really don't want a Roku because of bullshit like this https://www.pcmag.com/news/roku-bricking-tvs-unless-users-accept-dispute-resolution-terms
  
  This is a legitimate concern.
  
  Don't forget this! HDMI customized ad insertion
- Well, Roku did just admit to a giant privacy breech I could see not really wanting one right now.
  
  Looks like that was just credential stuffing, though, not an actual vulnerability. Unique passwords and 2FA are enough to stop your account being compromised. They've been good enough to refund anything spent as a result of this. There have been far worse breaches and less reasonable companies, although I understand any concern after this sort of thing is reported.

The Pi won't cast from your phone, so Im not sure how you will make things better if using your phone is must-have. I also use cast as my main way to watch stuff, and i've experienced my cast devices not being found from different phones and same apps. E.g. the pixel phones find the cast devices (chromecast, and a hi-fi system that has cast abilities), but a Realme no-name chinese android phone won't. Or that my chrome browser can't find the cast devices either, no matter which OS is used under (I have to cast the whole tab).
And even if you install emby or jellyfin on your raspberry pi, the app might not see the casting device. It'd work better if you just don't cast, and instead just direct emby/jellyfin's phone app to play the media on the raspberry pi connected to a tv.
Also, be aware, that 1 GB of ram is not enough to use emby/jellyfin. I have a raspberry pi 3b+ with 1 gb of ram and it swaps like crazy when i use these media servers (music only). Minimum is 2 gb, best if you can get it with 4 or 8 gb. If video is needed, you will need a Pi5 for best results.
- Yeah I'm just so sick of cast being unreliable. The main reason I'm asking here is to answer two questions. It's getting Chromecast set up on a raspberry pi even a thing (I'm just not really informed about what it requires), and are raspberry pis powerful enough to provide a silky smooth streaming experience. It's kinda sounding like the answer is no.
  
  You can try to make a raspberry pi as a chromecast receiver, not sure how well that still works, these articles are old https://www.maketecheasier.com/create-diy-chromecast-raspberry-pi/

19 comments