Selfhosted @lemmy.world state_electrician @discuss.tchncs.de 8 mo. ago

Looking for MiTV box replacement

I have a MiTV box with Android that runs apps for Jellyfin, Prime Video and Disney Plus. I would like to replace it with a mini PC, like some N100 box, to have more control over what runs on it. I tried a Pi with Kodi once, but I hate the UI so much. It's just not my thing.

What other options do I have with self-hosted alternatives? I want a central UI like AndroidTV offers, I need Jellyfin, Disney Plus, Prime Video and some local TV station's streaming offerings and some remote control.

I don't think that's possible, as you can only run Disney and Prime in a browser or their apps. And using a browser on the TV is not nice UX. But maybe some of the great people here have cracked that nut and can help me.

12 comments

I'm in a similar boat, switched from Android TV clients to a couple little beelink N100 boxes (which are great). I use Kodi as my Jellyfin client which works great especially with a remote/from the couch, and a cursory search would imply that Kodi has plugins for Prime Video and Disney Plus, but I don't use those, so I have no first-hand experience.

The big one that annoys me right now is the lack of a TV interface for Spotify outside of the walled gardens of Android, Apple, and Roku. The desktop app does not play well with anything but mouse and keyboard.

Another thing to note is that Jellyfin Media Player plays really nicely on a TV/Remote control setup.
I am reasonably pleased with my TV UI approximation. It’s an old Skylake-era CPU running Windows 10 Enterprise IoT LTSC which lasts until 2032.

I chose windows because Linux is often limited to 720p browser streaming. And I got tired of overcoming hurdles to make the thing work well, forget what they were but damn they sucked and took a lot of time. Burned through a ton of my self-allotted time fixing stuff till I just ripcorded Win 10 Ent IoT LTSC; Linux might go better for you!

Anyway, it’s at 150% desktop scale and I have the task bar auto hide. I have icons for all streaming sites, Freetube, and Jellyfin on the desktop arranged in a grid. It looks reasonably good, they open in Firefox or in their apps. I close the whole window when I’m done (I don’t use the browser’s tabs), which helps with the “TV box” feel of usage.

I have a remote that has some IR functions to turn the TV on and off and change inputs along with gyro mouse control. It’s hella China, just buy one on your relevant China source (Amazon, alibaba, etc.) - there are tons of clones. The light up feature on it makes an audible hum, so that sucks, but I don’t use it and don’t seem to miss it.

Best bonus is it blocks ads on all the streaming services I have (uBlock origin mostly, also AdGuard but I think uBlock Origin does the heavy lifting). And can turn on WireGuard for modern account sharing, going to automate it soon for certain streaming services.
AppleTV

Roku

Firestick

Édit: Downvoted for a legitimate answer? This is why people don’t want to post/help when people ask questions.
- The firestick is what I chose as my TV's, a 10yo LG, jellyfin client. Works as intended, better really. One day I'll block the stick's internet connection, and it'll be the almost perfect device, in that it plays almost anything natively. My server is a rpi4 so anything I can do to stop transcoding, I do.
  
  Block it sooner than later; the older they get the more they run like crap.
- But that's just the Mi box with a different name...
  
  So what box do you think exists that will play protected and non-protected content with a 10ft interface?
  
  Only thing left I can think of is the Nvidia shield.
  
  Edit: Downvotes but no responses. Very telling.
- If the AppleTV allowed side loading, it would be my dream device. The UX and the speed of Apple devices are just so damn pleasing. But the artificial limits they impose on what you can run on them is damn frustrating.
  
  UI is garbage and remote sucks. I like the spec but my god is typing on the remote cumbersome. Intentionally so but it makes me hate them more.
I know it's not the most popular answer but: AppleTV.

I used to try out everything from self made Raspi Kodi box to no name Android stick to FireTV. With the AppleTV there's finally all quiet on the TV front. It's so easy to use and you get just about every app out there. The remote is great. And for me the UI is among the best for TV there is because it is so calm (with FireTV being the absolut worst).

So that's my recommendation.
I use a browser on a desktop OS (Linux). I get what you mean that a browser on the tv is not nice UX, but there are some things you can do to improve the experience such as

bumping up the default zoom level (I prefer to do that at the OS level rather than in the browser settings so it also makes menus, buttons and other UI elements bigger)

getting one of those small wireless keyboards with integrated touchpad. The one I use is from Logitech and the batteries last for months.

Not everything is in the browser, I have downloaded a few desktop apps from Flathub (Freetube for watching Youtube, unofficial Spotify client etc).

The level of freedom you get from a desktop OS is so great that I would never go back to a “tv box” like Apple TV and similar things (I tried those and concluded they weren’t for me).

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