• itsraining@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    That’s why you should build your own media center from an old machine. Much safer and more private.

    • danielfgom@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The problem is that YouTube app and F1 app are Android only so having a Linux media box won’t help. It needs to run Android to run Android apps.

      Plus I like to use Chromecast, we use it all the time to send YouTube videos from our phones to the big screen.

        • danielfgom@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Can’t control it from my phone. Would need a mouse. At least I’m tech minded. My wife isn’t and there is no way she would stand for using a mouse and browser on the TV.

          • CeeBee@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Get a media centre remote. Works great.

            And if you have an Android phone use KDE Connect. There’s a Windows version now also, and you can do just about everything with it.

          • hikaru755@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            Ah, right, makes sense. I’m using a steam controller (or any other controller with steam, honestly) instead of a mouse, which works well enough

      • itsraining@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I don’t know about apps like F1 and Chromecast, but I can see that it could be a problem. But YouTube has worked fine for me with the MPV player. Maybe you could try Android-x86? (is that thing still alive? 😅)

      • ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de
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        1 year ago
        1. Connect old PC to TV. Both can be 15 years old.
        2. (optional) For better performance, get a small SSD alongside the big HDD (a 64GB / partition will do), maybe have a homemade NAS ready too
        3. Install Lubuntu, Mint XFCE, Puppy Linux or any other distro of choice
        4. Set up KDE Connect, qBittorrent and VLC
        5. Enjoy
        • Limit@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          OK I’ve tried in the past to make a decent streaming box from both windows media center edition and various Linux distros. But I need something that is simple, can be controlled entirely from a remote, and has the major streaming apps (Netflix, disney, etc). I haven’t really found any solution that’s easy enough for non techie people to use. I have a standalone roku box that works ok we also have a roku TV which is a giant piece of garbage, and I’m considering buying an external roku or nvidia shield as a streaming box instead, I do have a couple of raspberry pi 4s I could use one but again I’m faced with the same issues.

    • 👁️👄👁️@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I swear shit like this is why Lemmy is so incredibly out of touch with the real world. I can’t take the community seriously anymore.

      • itsraining@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        So my home media center is not real world enough? I only expressed an opinion; you are free to ignore it. Also, there is nothing that keeps you here. Please kindly keep in mind that most Lemmy users right now are interested in technology, you can’t take that away from them and there is nothing wrong with it. If you want to stay away from “shit like this”, then, with all respect, you probably should not be in a technology sub in the first place.

        • Copernican@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I think the difference is folks confuse the general public with the general lemmy user. And I can’t tell if the fediverse and lemmy are supposed to be attempting to be a front page for general folks or lemmy early adopter folks.

      • smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        Because something is not popular and not available in typical electronic store doesn’t mean it’s not real.

        I know having a private life may seem unreal in recent ~10 years, but it surely can be done without giving up modern life. All it takes is a little time for research and saying “no” sometimes. The hardest part are always areas where more people like that are needed to say “no”.

      • CeeBee@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        People have been using old computers as media centres for decades at this point. Not sure what you’re on about.

          • CeeBee@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Legally would be DVDs, Blurays, and DRM-free sources.

            I’ve torrented movies I have physical copies of before. It’s faster than ripping and encoding it myself. And notice I didn’t say “pirated”?

            You can’t pirate something you legally own a copy of. That fast was a major factor in some of the high profile lawsuits against individuals. If the person being sued owned a copy of the movie/song then they dropped it from the list.

      • Copernican@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I agree. Too many comments and threads are hijacked or over represented by the pro piracy crowd. I wish more communities would just ban the shit post of “yar, time to sail the high seas” that seem to be the top comment on any media related post.

    • Maximilious@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      You’re going to build your own smart TV that can handle new HDMI and Displayport advancements too?

      • dustyData@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This is going to come as a shock to you, but HDMI has been a thing since 2004. You can find 15 year old dumb TVs with HDMI. If the TV had HDMI, it can handle any format that the screen can physically show and newer versions are backwards compatible.

        • BigT54@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Or you could just use a new tv with smart features and never connect it to your network. It’s what I’ve done with all the TVs in my house and I simply use an external device I trust to stream.

          • piecat@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            This is going to be such a nightmare as smart devices become the majority.

            Didn’t connect your TV to the Internet? Don’t worry, it’ll spy on you by connecting to the neighbor’s tv. Or the built-in WiFi in the modem. Or the power company’s smart meter via powerline-networking.

            Products are going to be engineered to sell backdoor access at a hefty price, if they aren’t already.

            Things are going to get scary.

            • aphonefriend@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Just like anything with technology though, there will be people in the other side too. Does that magic TV with a mind of it’s own have a USB port? If they take away the USB , they will have to add some way to maintenance it. There will always be a way to get at the kernel if you know what you’re doing.

              • piecat@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                It’s going to become this horrible game of cat and mouse, for anyone who actually values privacy.

                Sure, you could open the device up, remove any antennas. You could add powerline filtering. You could find the jtag or debug ports. You could find a way to hack it. Jam a signal. Make an ultrasonic white noise machine. Wrap the thing in foil. Cover the cameras.

                The individual has to block every channel of “attack”. The data miners only need to get lucky once.

          • 𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒏@lemmy.one
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            1 year ago

            Newer “smart” sets, particularly from Vizio and a couple other brands, will not let you exit the setup or use the inputs without an internet connection

            • BigT54@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Wow, I would immediately return any TV that pulled that bs. I have used Sony TV’s for a very long time and have never encountered this issue, I even bought a new one in summer 2022 and it did not require Internet connection to function.

            • planish@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              LTT reviewed a Roku one like that recently and for some reason didn’t recommend immediately binning it.

      • agent_flounder@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Pff sure. How hard can it be? Few resistor thingies and some capaci-whatsists, and Arduino, done.

      • Sethayy@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Almost any ARM SBC and a dumb TV will do, install linux/a minimal wayland compositor and waydroid and youre laughing

        Any time there’s a advancement you just update the board, instead of the whole TV (which its not like normal smart TV’s update their ports anyways?)