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Ask Slashdot: What's Your Preferred Media Streaming Device?
New submitter bkr1_2k writes: Way back when, I had a PC dedicated as a media server using MythTV. That died and I didn't bother building a new one. Consumer electronics caught up and I recently bought an Apple TV (3rd Generation) to use for streaming my media library. I am, unsurprisingly, finding flaws with it. I'm looking for alternative devices that allow me to stream from my media server directly, without the need for a middleman app like iTunes for the Apple TV. I don't need a ton of streaming services (we have Netflix and Amazon Prime but don't use anything else). I primarily want to use this for streaming my own music and movie libraries over my home network, preferably with a user interface that lets me browse those in a fashion that doesn't force me to scroll through my whole library to get to the title that starts with the letter "Z" (A very poor design choice in the Apple TV). Nor do I want any voice controls since they all suck, in my experience. I would prefer an 'open' device that I can update at will with add-ons, but it's not a requirement. What are the current options out there? Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast. Anything else that might fit my needs better? Last week, we asked a similar question: "What's your preferred music streaming service?"
Done.
You can get normal ones that only magnify the sound to 10, but I use the premium ones that broadcast it at 11.
See the dial?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
For years I used Mezzmo in combination with my Samsung smart TV DLNA streaming. More recently I've started using a Plex server with the Plex app on a 4th gen Apple TV.
Microsoft Zune. Brand fucking new, state of the art technology.
Raspi with Kodi (OSMC is good) does it for me.
Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it.
The best of both worlds
I've had my Plex Media server for about a year now, converted all my DVDs and Blu-Ray to reduce cluttered shelves. Haven't looked back once.
Nothing fails like prayer.
You really should look at the NVIDIA Shield (or any decent Android TV device) and Kodi (installed from the Google app store). I replaced my "HTPC" with two of these devices in different rooms and they are fantastic.
I use a Roku 3 with the Plex app, talking to a Plex server running on my home file server. It's worked great for me.
http://openelec.tv/ which runs Kodi (http://kodi.tv)
You can install Kodi on virtually any system, openelec also provides a dedicated OS image for multiple devices.
I use my PS4 with Netflix, Amazon Prime, MLB At Bat, rented Blurays and Plex Media Server (for my local content). Works flawlessly. Only complaint is no support for 5ghz wireless.
For your movies, TV series, photos, and music try the Plex Media Server. It has clients available for many platforms, it will index your media types and fetch metadata from online sources. It's a little particular about the file naming convention in order to match the metadata, but that's manageable.
Definitely recommend the ARNU BOX Mach 10 Pure Linux for streaming a local library. It plays any file I throw at it, can pass DTS/Dolby Digital to your receiver, and has a great remote. Runs KODI, so you can install any of the available add-ons to enhance functionality as needed.
http://www.arnubox.com/product...
I've tried running KODI using various Raspberry Pi, but always seem to run into issues either with the audio or just stutter in the large video formats.
Apple TV Gen 4 meets all of your criteria. Don't forget that it supports pairing a keyboard, and you can also control it from an iPhone or iPad if you have one of those. Now with the app store, there are lots of add-ons, including MythTV and Plex, which opens up the world.
4th Gen AppleTV + Plex.
Cheap, works well enough, never had it crash.
Chromecast needs a host machine. Don't bother with no-name or generic devices unless you're really dedicated, have spare time to research or weird requirements. Fire stick or whatever Amazon TV product is current also works. Amazon uses cheap hardware, but it works well enough. I researched this very question couple months ago. Went with Roku. Apple TV is ok, Amazon Fire Whatever is ok.
That said, out in the garage, I have an ODROID C1+ running Android because I wanted to occasionally look up YouTube videos, view PDFs, follow manuals or online instructions in addition to Prime Video or Netflix. Also makes it easy to use other apps for vehicle diagnostics or whatnot. Mounted it on a monitor, mounted the monitor on a swivel arm. Kodi works very well for local media too.
It sounds like you should have never dumped the MythTV setup to begin with.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
This has worked well for my needs. Netflix, Hulu, Showtime, HBO, and Google Music (which is the music service I use).
It's a rather small device, easy to set up, and very stable so far. It also has much better WiFi (2.4GHz and 5GHz) than the Chromecast had when I got one.
Anything that runs Kodi: an old computer, a Raspberry Pi, an Android device. I've run it since the XBMC days on the original Xbox. Basic stuff like video/music/pictures on attached storage or SMB/NFS shares and a wealth of add-ons for Internet streams
LG TV
XPlay app for streaming from Plex
Netflix app for streaming from Netflix
TV app for streaming from DVB-T
Set up a new MythTV box again...server loaded up with drives, etc....to serve media to the smaller satellite boxes around the house near TVs and stereo systems....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I've got an Apple TV 4 which has a native Plex client and that works really well. I've also set up (with a bit of fiddling) PlexConnect on the Plex server which allows you to replace the Apple Trailers on an ATV2 or ATV3 with Plex too without any jailbreaking. That works amazingly well too. This way I still have the benefits of iTunes for renting movies and for my iTunes collection, but also Plex which is a much more flexible media server with clients for lots of other platforms.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
or YouTube
I just run Plex on a virtual machine. I can move it to whatever machine I want, when I want. I can give it more horsepower when I intend to load it up with clients.
The best option for me is Roku 3
and their media app to access NAS files and of course Netflix Hulu and Amazon prime
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
If they hadn't scrapped DVR functionality (after selling me a tuner with the promise that it was in the works) and if they had a Golf Channel or a Playstation Vue app, it would be perfect (for me). Right now, it just falls short of everything else out there.
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
You can't beat free...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Formerly miniDLNA. Simple, no-frills.
I've been running Plex on a Synology DS1812+ for some years now and I wouldn't have it any other way. I use my various Android devices, PCs, Roku boxes (various models) and a Chromecast to watch my shows, and I just ordered a Fire tv box which I expect to arrive tomorrow. Can't say as I have a preference at the moment - we'll see how the Fire stands up against the Rokus. The Chromecast worked well for me on my last trip, but I don't expect it to see much use outside of that.
Two versions to choose from. www.team-mediaportal.com
I'v been using it for nearly 20 years now. It also records TV but I've never used it for that. Just for accessing my own stuff from my HTPCs.
Work well with a MCE Remote.
File server running Plex Media Server on the backend. On the frontend install the plex client on any of these: xbox one, xbox 360, roku, raspberry pi, HTPC, android TV, Nvidia Shield, on and on and on and on...
Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
Your objects to the Apple TV prove you're a moron.
Not much else to say, really. I can access anything from anywhere...
Does anyone have any good recommendations for a device that can mount NFS (I guess smb/cifs would be okay too) that also supports a wide range of media formats? Currently, I'm using a Boxee, and it still mostly works, but it's getting long in the tooth. I may need to build my own custom XBMC device as the eventual replacement...
- Amazon Fire in the living room with Kodi side loaded. Had a cheap Chinese android box with Kodi but random Chinese developers aren't as good as Amazon with keeping their device bug free. (Studding problem).
- The TV also has a built in DNLA app which isn't terrible. With MiniDNLA I can play all of my media files and channels from the HD Homerun.
- Projector's HTPC is a 1.8 GHz single core celeron with Nvidia card that I've had since ~2011. It runs FreeBSD and Just Works. Half the time I take the time to launch Kodi, the other half I just navigate to my NFS share and use mplayer directly.
I've been running LibreELEC/Kodi pre-alpha nightly test builds by Milhouse on an Asus Celeron Chromebox.
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthrea...
http://kodi.wiki/view/chromebo...
I'm very happy with the performance. I also have a Popcornhour C200. Kodi on the Chromebox runs circles around the Popcornhour.
I have it hooked up to a schiit dac and it is hooked up to my stereo.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Comment removed based on user account deletion
.. and my guitar.
No, I'm serious. We use a PS 3 (several years old and 1 drive replaced; otherwise works fine). The Netflix and Amazon TV apps work fine. We tend to search for new shows on the laptop to put it in the recently watched list. We have a Chromecast too, mostly for playing Youtube clips.
My mind works like lightning. One brilliant flash and it is gone.
You can use pyTivo to watch your external library on a Tivo.
DuneHD Solo 4K for streaming my Bluray collection that I've ripped to ISO. Full menu support, HD Audio Codec support, and 3D support.
Roku for it's wide variety of Streaming services, if only Mubi were available.
Plex for Streaming compressed versions of my ISO's outside my house, and for watching my friends film collections on.
An Intel Compute Stick + Windows 10 + a Logitech K400R.
It's not about the H/W or OS, could be a Gigabyte Brix + GNU/Linux + a Rapoo E2700.
The point is, the web is the best and most reliable platform, so using a computer of some description is still the best IMHO.
L8rs.
My TV already has a Plex client built in so I just have Plex running on an old computer + my TV.
I use amazon fire stick. It's really good and keeps getting better. the learning curve is zero so whole family and guests can use it instantly. I was supplementing this with PLEX with it to stream DVDs to it. But Plex sucks! ( I keep having to restart the client or the server cause they fail to find each other, and even when it works it transcodes in ways that make gliches, and really sluggish. fairly confusing interface that phones home too. by default it lards of your hard disk with cover art and crap you don't want). Emby was slightly better on the server side but the client side was clunkier. But I found both pretty intolerable. So I just bought a 45 foot HDMI cable and when I want to stream something I just plug it into my computer. Now that is super reliable, no glitches and takes less time to set up than plex or emby. So I use the Fire stick most of the time and just plug in the cable as needed.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
It doesn't have all the apps but does a good majority. Plus I hook my antennae up and can record live tv (sports FTW)
I use a WD TV live downstairs and a fire tv stick with kodi sideloaded upstairs. Both connect to my 24/7 raspberry pi smb share on an external 1tb hard drive.
Not the most elegant, efficient or cost effective set up but it works for me, especially as they're things i've accumulated over the years and it wasn't a planned setup.
For Netflix, Amazon Prime, and streaming your own media, I recommend the Amazone FireTV stick + Plex. It's what I use for exactly that use case, and it works well. The FireTV stick is usually cheap and every so often Amazon runs a sale.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Currently running Emby and Plex (on the same machine) with a 15TB NAS on the backside. Chromecast for the TV and Laptops/Tablets for the kids. Best of all worlds.
Subsonic fulfils all my needs (mostly audio), and has a fine Android app (also iOS but I've never seen that one), a nice-looking, built-in web app, and is supported by other third-party music players (I use Clementine).
http://www.subsonic.org/
I know you asked for a "device", but if you have a net-enabled device that can run Java, this is a pretty solid option. It was easy to set up (unlike Ampache, which I tried which was pretty useless). YMMV
I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein
Stream most video and Netflix on my Atari 2600. Things look a little blocky and there's alot of frame drops, but it looks okay. Movies look kind of like Frogger or Pac-Man.
On the main TV I have a new Apple TV, problems abound at first but as seems to be the custom with Apple sh*t a few updates later and it's pretty smooth. The trick I found is to embrace the Siri interface. Pretty quick and easy to get around once you get used to it. On other TVs or while traveling I use chromecast, it's pretty slick but of course I can't stream amazon prime to it. I'm really resisting getting yet another device to stream Amazon, I'm hoping at some point they let it stream on either Apple or chrome. I can stream my laptop browser to chromecast while watching amazon prime, but sheesh.
Would love to cut the chord, the only thing keeping it is the fact that my father in-law wouldn't know what to do with himself if he couldn't watch sports when he's here.
while [ 1 ]; do echo -n -e "\xe2\x95\xb$((($RANDOM&1)+1))"; done
I am using 2 WDTV boxes to access 1 NAS box in my basement so anybody can watch whatever they want from the same share. As I don't do any online streaming or watch anything through the Internet, I've never seen the need to invest in any of the newer technologies. The WDTV works beautifully via network (as my MXQ Android box is so cumbersome via network, I abandoned it). I'd like something newer and more flexible, however, I don't have capital to really invest in any technology when I won't really benefit from it beyond my day-to-day usage.
Hockey-puck sized Android desktop (optimised for keyboard+mouse) device. Works a treat. Couple it with a PLEX server running on some other computer+storage on your home LAN and you're golden. I use an Iotech bluetooth keyboard with mouse pad - any good BT keyboard should work fine.
No way either Apple or Amazon, each favor selling you their own content over letting you find it elsewhere. Roku isn't perfect but may be the best choice you have if you want an off-the-shelf commercial product.
Kodi is interesting, and you have more content available with a PC option than a media appliance option, but convenience fails when you need to use a mouse and keyboard, so look for options that help you get past this. Also, expect the usual Linux BS when using a Linux based Kodi appliance (such as errors that just say "something went wrong, check the logs" even though you appliance configuration gives you no access to logs).
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I was looking for a Squeezebox replacement since my device died and they stopped making it. I really didn't want to build out a dedicated PC or Raspberry solution just for audio, so was making do with Roku for audio (it acutally has a surprisingly large number of audio streaming services - it even covers my local FM radio channels).
Tried the first Chromecast - and it was largely a "meh" experience. Video was grainy and choppy and audio sounded quite substandard. For example the same youtube audio or internet audio would sound much better when streamed from the Roku channel than when casted from Chromecast.
Took another gamble at the new Chromecast Audio - and it is a phenomenal device. It actually plays as well as my Squeezebox. For $35, you get really high quality audio, and it has digital out so you can connect it to a DAC, or optionally use its inbuilt DAC which is not bad at all. Some people are even using it to drive moderately hard to drive headphones. It also supports high res audio up to 24/96. The really neat thing is that if you cast Spotify or Pandora from your phone to the CCA device, it will stream directly from Spotify after the initial handshake and will not stream through your phone. All in all, I can't imagine how they pulled off this quality of audio output and features for $35.
I saw another person mention this setup. I've run WDTV, mythtv, several windows media boxes, xbmc, and other I can't remember how many others since the late 90s.
FireTV + Kodi blows them all out of the water. I also have the Logitech Harmony Hub + the cheap remote and they work great together. By far the snappiest UI, and easiest to use of any media box I've had previously. Very flexible because it's kodi (I typically either use a streaming service (prime/netflix) or play media off a SMB share on my network), and it's super easy to setup. We cancelled Directv a couple months ago and haven't looked back.
Raspi + Rasplex
Easy. Does the job really well, rarely have to edit covers or make a change due to it pulling the wrong movie, but it does happen. Since I keep a separate section with movies have more than one in their series, a lot of those end up out of order. Doesn't take too long to organize it all, though.
Been considering getting the nvidia shield though, as that's something I wouldn't mind keeping powered on all the time to use as the primary plex server. Right now I just WoL my PC if I want to watch something when I'm not at home.
Slick functional interface, high performance, transcode available on -play models. Synology ftw.
Granted, it's old fashion DLNA, but the devices work well on my network and with my Linux/Twonky Server set up I've had for years.
Roku has been mentioned many times, but one thing I like in particular with the Roku (and that is unique, as far as I know) is that you can do a media search for something like a video rental and then compare prices from several different providers - Amazon Prime vs Google Play vs others. Overall it's been a very solid experience.
Spiffy little remote, integrated retail streaming services, cheap as dirt and runs Kodi to stream from your personal server. Wife friendly and android based.
My only bitch is a roundabout way I am forced to sideload apps and the way I have to drill way down into the settings to even launch my sideloaded apps.
We like it, and I may buy another.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Server: -2.5TB server in the basement - Plex Media Server Living Room: -Samsung Smart Blu-Ray player w/Plex client Bedroom: -WDTV Live (DLNA to Plex Server) Roaming: -Chromecast with Plex app on phone
With a Plex Server
Big Screen + Roku3 + Plex APP does not work with 2,4 and 5 GHz networks at same time - Roku Fault
Big Screen + PC - works great
Vizio SmartTV with Plex APP - not so good does not understand networking - can NOT handle multi-home server (one for Entertainment, one for external access) Plex Cloud Fault (your IP are not your own) with not way to id which is the preferred IP or even client using the IP in the same subnet as the device.
Hasier+RokuTV + Plex APPr - not so good does not understand networking - can NOT handle multi-home server (one for Entertainment, one for external access) Plex Cloud Fault (your IP are not your own) with not way to id which is the preferred IP or even client using the IP in the same subnet as the device.
Also Roku APP cannot turn on the TV, must use weak IR base (looks like Roku remote.
Big Screen + ChromeCast + Plex APP + ChromeCast APP on smart phone + Plex - not so good all must on *SAME* wireless network - ChromeCast & APP / Browser Fault
Big Screen + Amazon FireTV Stick + Plex APP - Okish, but will crash from time to time (~ once per week) and you have unplug and plug back-in FireTV power to reboot.
Roku has thousands of channels available, and over 100 are not focused on shoving someone's religion down your throat.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Yet another vote for Plex. I have a server running on an old Mac Mini, I stream it to my phone, or my laptop, or my Vizio TVs, or Rokus, or whatever the heck. Very easy.
Interface still has issues, but is continually changing and occasionally improving.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Roku3 in the bedroom and a HTPC in livingroom. Roku3 is going away as soon as I can build a 2nd HTPC. Roku is great no problems with the hardware. The BIG issue for me is on PBS, Youtube and Twitch apps. The ads are 100% unacceptable. Pre roll ads work ok. But mid vid ads lockup and crash the ROKU. The ads bother me so much that I am willing to spend $600 on a new HTPC JUST to get an Ad blocker.
I've been more than happy with my Nvidia Shield after my Roku 2 started becoming a crash box. That, combined with my Plex server, has done quite well for me. Now, the Shield can be it's own media server for Plex, and they baked in a great CIFS client that allowed me to mount my FreeNAS share, and has worked seamlessly.
Device? Depends where I am and what I'm doing I suppose. A Mac mini is the cat's meow IMHO. It is my main device for watching "TV". It also makes it trivial to stream anything any way I want to my other devices.
Other devices would be something iOS. iPad's, touches, and iPhone's depending on location / use there. VLC usually going back to my library directly (or live TV).
I've used Plex for management, but really don't anymore. Too much database corruption problems with it. Easy to do though as it's just another avenue to scan libraries.
Connected to the Mac via bluetooth I primarily use a numeric keypad with most of the keys re-programmed / re-purposed -- depending on the APP [BetterTouchTool].
One key is space (play / pause pretty much across the board). 0-9 tunes the TV for EyeTV, whereas I decided "6" changes the aspect ratio for VLC.
Across the top where function keys -- now APP keys: .... BetterTouchTool.
EyeTV Netflix Sling VLC iTunes
Other keys programmed differently, but universal for function, ie: one key is "G" (guide), another now says "F/S" (FullScreen on/off), etc. +/- channel up/down in EyeTV, but will play next/previous song for iTunes. No function in Sling. So on and so forth
That's the primary remote -- the secondary is a old iPhone pretty much running BetterTouchTool -- which allows you create custom menus on the display along with acting as primarily a mouse pad...
Running a full blown Mac gives you WAY more options than just a AppleTV (tried it upstairs, meh), Roku, Chromecast, etc... The Mac wins in this case -- hands down IMHO. It helps that ssh / bash / unix is the under-pinning for remote access whether locally in the same room or from work... Of course my desktop there and at home are other Mac's. :)
A little boat in the stream along a sushi bar with a DVD or USB stick on it. Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of disks.
No one has mentioned serviio yet.
Free, works great. Ships with many transcoder profiles for many of the most common dlna renderers--and you can create your own if necessary.
Giant catalog of plugins--for both video and audio stream sources of all kinds.
Web-based UI you can control from anywhere.
I use mediahouse app, my onkyo receiver app, and/or my sony bd player remote app on my phone to control what plays where. They all have their pros/cons featurewise. But it's all just dlna so they interoperate just fine.
We use a Amazon Fire TV on one television and a Fire Stick on the other. Can't beat the price. We spend probably half of our time in the native Amazon Prime Video library, and half using the Plex app to stream from a Plex server running on one of our Macs. This setup has worked flawlessly for us.
Since we have no cable or satellite service, we record OTA programming with a TiVo Bolt. It's a great device and has its own Plex, Amazon Prime, and Netflix apps, though I prefer the apps on the Amazon devices for streaming.
We don't have Netflix, but both the Amazon devices and TiVo have an app for Netflix.
If you want to retain the usual Raspbian (Debian derived) command line interface and use the box just like any other Debian/Ubuntu box, there is no need to install a media specific distro like OSMC or OpenELEC.
Just install regular Raspbian, then install Kodi as you would any debian package:
$ sudo apt-get install kodi
If you want kodi to start automatically and take over the HDMI port, then add this to crontab:
@reboot sleep 45; /usr/lib/kodi/kodi.bin --standalone -fs
The delay is to give you some time to kill the process if you want to start the GUI desktop.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
I modded the circuit board to boost the CPU to 200mhz, installed UnSlung firmware and TwonkyVision to serve A/V files to anyone on my Lan which includes Rokus and smart TVs. Not sure if you can get a license for TwonkyVision/TwonkyServer anymore, but there may be alternatives. I can use either HDDs and/or flashdrives which works fine with some USB hubs. Not bad for a $30 investment.
I have been using Roku 3s for Plex but switched to the 4k fire TV box and like it. It doesn't need a fan like the 4k Roku box.
Yep, works well if you have a handful of videos you watch. Try thousands of TV episodes, movies, documentaries, home movies in a directory structure. That's why you have media servers.
Amazon Fire TV with Kodi - works great
Kinda expensive, but understandably everything Just Works.
10 years ago I would've messed around with Myth and STBs and the like but these days I just can't be bothered. We just use a wireless mouse to control it. If we need to type anything, we use a standard wireless keyboard, but we hardly ever need it.
It's small, silent and unobtrusive, sits nicely in the unit under the TV and is compatible with pretty much every website and server there is. It's even wireless so I didn't have to bother cabling it.
Sound waves moving from the live band to my ears.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
I have just finished my setup. I have an Odroid C1+ with Openelec.. runs Kodi. For live tv, I have an Xbox One TV tuner (hauppauge 955q) plugged into a Pi3 running tvheadend I compiled from source on top of Raspian.
The general purpose PC is still the best media appliance available. I also use Windows with a wireless mouse and keyboard. It's just way less hassle than anything else. I can set up the library the way I want it, using *GASP* a folder tree. Zero time wasted scrolling through brain-dead UIs. No ads or posters in my face. No mangling of song orders, etc. due to bad or missing metadata. There is a wide variety of media players from which to choose. Updates and codecs are easy to install. And also kind of important: my files are files, period, and the space they consume is a known value. There is no database other than the folder tree. PLEX, for one, eats positively criminal amounts of disk space for its library database.
I was surprisingly happy with how well and easily it works. Streaming from my PC over LAN, as well as support for the well-known services like amazon, as well as many obscure ones . Not expensive. I used my Raspberry Pi with XBMC prior to getting it, but missing out on Netflix etc. is a big deal once you drop cable TV. :)
My Pi is still happy as an emulator platform though
I have an RPi2 running OSMC in one room and a Vero2 (I bought to support the project) in another room.
They read the media stored on a NAS.
I have tried several other streaming solutions and always return to a MythTV frontend nothing else has the same level of function and usability.
Front-end is Kodi on OpenElec running on a CuBox-i. Back-ends are several VMs. One VM is running a MythTV Back-end server recording from a roof antenna connected to a couple of HDHomeRun boxes saving to a mounted NFS QNAP 12 TB array. Other VMs run Sonarr, Sabnzbd and Sickbeard. Sorarr is also using a Transmission back-end, while Sabnzbd is using a Usenet subscription. Occasionally I also use Netflix and Vudu on a Roku stick which I turn on only when I need it. I white list every device and every port individually, and all things that could be considered borderline legal go through a permanent VPN link on my pfSense VM. Rock solid setup.
Recently got an Odroid-C2 (4k capable), and put LibreElec on it. Works like a charm.
You say you don't want a middle-man app, but presumably you need some sort of remote control - either an app or a physical remote? One solution that works for me is the using the BubbleUpnp app (Android only) to control streaming from my server to chromecast. It has the advantage that I can just as easily choose to stream directly to the android device itself and listen in on headphones. (Scrolling, by the way, is very fast if you use the scrollbar.)
Personally with Plex, served from my Synology NAS.
But it also supports Kodi, Netflix 4k & HDR.
Its game streaming from a PC works well enough too.
----- I refuse to have an argument with an unarmed person
I have this same solution and it works great!
There are a few people suggesting Kodi and such. That's all great and fine, but Netflix and Amazon Prime won't work on that Raspi Linux. Roku with Plex/Serviio. As far as proprietary platforms go, it is the most open one.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
I still have a Mythtv backend running on Arch linux that we use to record TV with. I store all of our movies on my home server. I did finally replace all of my frontend Pc's with the AMazon FireTV stick. We have 4 of them now and when you side load KODI , the thing goes into beastmode. FIreTV is right now the best device for this type of work and considering you can a stick for 30$ or so it just makes even more sense.
So, the primary piece for me is Serviio (serviio.org). I have this running on a Linux box and this serves all of my media (video, music, pictures).
Then, it depends on where I am. If I'm at home, I use a PS3 or PS4 for playing content. On the road, I (or my daughter, really) use the Servii-Go Android app for streaming content.
For music, I prefer Logitech Media Server's web interface to Serviio. At work, I run SoftSqueeze (software squeezebox emulator) to listen to music from home. I used to have a SqueezeBox, but after Logitech bought them, it went downhill quickly.
The above setup has worked fine for me for the past few years.
Gentoo box running Kodi and Chromium, both compiled from source with phone-home, tracking, and other anti-privacy features stripped out.
I have 26TB of music and video on my media server at home, which streams out to Kodi/Linux running on thin HTPCs attached to my TVs.
I don't do Internet streaming since I don't have fast enough Internet where I live. It's rent and rip for me.
A PC so I can use whatever I want. XBMC, MPlayer; mp3, Firefox (for e.g. YouTube) or what not.
I have 4 screens connected to it. 3 screens on Display Port and those are standard terminals and 1 on HDMI. That is connected to a splitter that divides the single HDMI to 3 screens. 1 a 'normal' terminal, 1 a 24" TV and one a 52" TV.
2 standard keyboards and mice and one keyboard/mouse.
For now no need to have a seprate output for that one screen./ two tv output. I use it mainly to watch videos, but I can still use it for something else as well.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I prefer to download or rip. My Amazon stick is nice, but both Amazon and Netflix have a habit of changing what is available. How many times have you begun watching a TV series only to have it pulled when you are partway through? In addition, local rips can be played with basically anything. A 32gb microsd in a pi with libreelec/osmc and usb keyboard is a fave. I like something which, when it comes to watching, I can just switch on and have work. I have toyed with a cut down openelec system which autoplays local media (stuck it on using your pc, store, then just plug into your pi and switch on at play time). Streaming is too complex compared to sit down, switch on, press play.
John_Chalisque
My media server started many years ago as an extended XBOX with XMP and has evolved into a headless FreeBSD box with 32GB of RAM, an i7 6700 and 8x2TB HDDs in RAIDz for storage.
I use watch-lists in Sonarr, Couchpotato and Headphones to browse NewzNab, send updates to NZBGet and feed updates to the Plex library. Sonarr also provides a TV guide to let me know what is coming, what is downloaded and what was missed.
Teamed gigabit connections to an ASUS RT-AC88U more than handle as many wireless devices as I have to test: 7 independently rendered streams of a single BluRay rip.
My favorite medium streams from a keg, bottle or a can.
Generic x86 machine, with nvidia graphics card (proprietary drivers), running Xubuntu. The main UI consists of Thunar and mpv. It "streams" from the server using NFS.
I have never seen any dedicated media box be nearly as convenient or nice. It's not even close. A lot of people (though not everyone, I'm happily surprised to see) posting here look like self-loathing masochists to me. Rokus?! Holy shit. Why punish yourself like that? Why do you make things so hard?
I've got a Macmini running OSX, Kodi, and a 4TB WD Cloud Duo something something NAS using DNLA. It works perfectly with a mouse, sometimes the remote works, sometimes it doesn't, and I blame that on the lousy IR support in recent versions of OSX. No such worries, just use the mouse from the couch. Bonus, all TV providers "flash" and HTML5 video works from their websites, I can torrent from the Macmini directly, and it sleeps/wakes quickly without any HDMI oddities. Our LG Tv (Circa 2012ish) has Netflix/Youtube/Pandora and can stream things "thrown" to it from the phone/iPad.
I know what you're thinking. Did I forward 65,535 packets or 65,536 packets?
I made fixed up some of the crap code and now use it to steam all of my media. The project and code are dead and crap though.
I have the exact same wants and needs in terms of media consumption as what you have described. I love my setup of Fire TV and KODI. I do not know how you serve your files, but for me I use a Synology NAS, and that works really well to serve all my movies to the KODI scraper and provide a good interface that my wife can easily use herself. You can also have an external HD connected to your Fire TV instead. Fire TV in itself is the perfect device for your Netflix and Amazon streaming experience, and has great support for voice search (do not write it off until you try Alexa on Fire TV). For your local media, you use KODI (and other less mainstream streaming needs, research on KODI add-ons). Ever since I set it up 3 years ago, I never needed to change anything about it and I can throw any kind of HD file (biggest was a 36 GB movie, 7.1 DTS) and it played without any issue. Sometimes you might need to shutdown the KODI app if any of the other apps are acting funny but that is the only nuisance I found. Overall it has really become our everyday media resource.
I am now in the process of upgrading though, I got a 4K HDR TV and looking into either Fire TV with 4K or NVidia Shield (with HDR and 4K). That's for another time I suppose.
How would you 'stream' a book, magazine or newspaper?
I find the Apple TV 4 ideal. There are clients for everything except Amazon Prime. I've written several apps of my own for it. Siri rocks for getting to content. The iPad and iPhone apps to control it are slick. It's pretty much perfect.
DongleberryTV is an Android computer that uses a very easy to use Kodi software build to stream just about anything without paying subscriptions. TV Shows, movies, music, news, sports, etc. It's got the new S905 processor in a small computer dongle and they provide full support. Very good. Google search their website.
I use MP v1 because there is a rich ecosystem of plug-ins, including e.g. skipping TV commercials automagically (v2 doesn't support this yet). It's a mature product that pretty much just works. I've set up the Kodi client but find that the majority of the time the MP client does the job just fine. If you want to watch/record free-to-air or cable TV MP supports most cards out there. There is a good plug-in for movies (Moving Pictures) that will categorise your movies and pull in all the artwork and data from moviedb or IMDB for you with minimal intervention. TV series are well catered for with another plug-in (TV Series) that does a similar job. I use the out-of-the-box functionality for music and it's fine. There are lots of skins around to suit every taste. It is a Windows-specific setup though so if you aren't into Windows it's probably not for you.
Plex's FU about not understanding networking