It looks like the only option these days is to connect your HTPC (doesn’t have to be super fancy, a Raspberry Pi based solution works just fine) and never connect the TV to the internet (and keep PiHole running on your local network just in case).
Absolutely. Tell your friends and family members too: Don’t connect your TV to the internet. They are slow, buggy, insecure, and a privacy nightmare.
HTPCs are ideal, but unfortunately they are can be a little cumbersome for people who just want to maximize convenience.
Streaming sticks are equally bad on privacy, but they generally perform better (than TVs), are supported longer, and most importantly: they can be easily swapped out if they stop meeting your needs.
That being said, what kind of HTPC distros do y’all recommend? I’ve been using an NVIDIA Shield Pro for a while and I’ll probably go Linux HTPC when this thing finally dies.
I use a spin of Debian for ARM called DietPi. It’s not HTPC focused, but it makes it easy to install and manage all sorts of applications (including HTPC solutions).
Has a solid community as well and they’ve been around for a long time (a decade or so).
and most importantly: they can be easily swapped out if they stop meeting your needs.
Important enough to repeat.
I have gone thru 3 different streaming devices over the lige of my current TV.
Each suffered, after several years, from needing to have an updated app to continue supporting one or another streaming service that no longer had an app available for that hardware.
That fault is mostly on the streaming services for updating something in their stream but only providing an updated app for a small list of hardware vendors/models.
If I was relying on built-in streaming hardware in my TV, it would have become e-waste many years ago.
It looks like the only option these days is to connect your HTPC (doesn’t have to be super fancy, a Raspberry Pi based solution works just fine) and never connect the TV to the internet (and keep PiHole running on your local network just in case).
Absolutely. Tell your friends and family members too: Don’t connect your TV to the internet. They are slow, buggy, insecure, and a privacy nightmare.
HTPCs are ideal, but unfortunately they are can be a little cumbersome for people who just want to maximize convenience.
Streaming sticks are equally bad on privacy, but they generally perform better (than TVs), are supported longer, and most importantly: they can be easily swapped out if they stop meeting your needs.
That being said, what kind of HTPC distros do y’all recommend? I’ve been using an NVIDIA Shield Pro for a while and I’ll probably go Linux HTPC when this thing finally dies.
Saw plasma-bigscreen in another thread for htpc’ don’t know how good it is.
Looks promising, but it hasn’t been released yet. I hope they make arm64 builds.
Was anyone able to compile and get to work on Arch? Mine kept failing
I use a spin of Debian for ARM called DietPi. It’s not HTPC focused, but it makes it easy to install and manage all sorts of applications (including HTPC solutions).
Has a solid community as well and they’ve been around for a long time (a decade or so).
Important enough to repeat.
I have gone thru 3 different streaming devices over the lige of my current TV.
Each suffered, after several years, from needing to have an updated app to continue supporting one or another streaming service that no longer had an app available for that hardware.
That fault is mostly on the streaming services for updating something in their stream but only providing an updated app for a small list of hardware vendors/models.
If I was relying on built-in streaming hardware in my TV, it would have become e-waste many years ago.
Are there good remote options for these yet? Imo this is a solution that will never see wide adoption until it’s as convenient as smart tvs or sticks
If you use Kodi for HTPC you can use the Kodi app. We use it on our living room tablet, but you can install it on a smartphone too.
You should be able to set up a universal remote as well, but you’ll need to do some research on how best to implement it.