Hey gang,
I’m looking for a cheap SBC for 4k HDR local content streaming on my TV. I’m moving away from streaming “services” and towards the Caribbean seas.
What I already have
- a LG 55B9 OLED tv. It has a serviceable media player, but due to ongoing enshittification (every update is slower than the previous one, ads everywhere, basically becoming useless) it’s been airgapped for the past couple of years, forcing me to transfer content on a USB drive
- an Apple TV 4K. It’s amazing for streaming but absolutely useless for local HDR content. VLC is years away from HDR playback and the leading media players are stupidly expensive, I hate the subscription model and I’m not buying a 150€+ lifetime licence.
What I’m looking for
- a cheap/affordable SBC
- running Linux (obviously)
- guaranteed to play 4k HDR content from my local network.
- bonus points if it can do all this while running a general enough purpose distro for light emulation.
What are your ideas? Thanks!
Unfortunately with AI induced RAM pricing prices are up across the board so cheap is out if you want extra functionality.
You can get as someone suggested the OSMC device. As well as various other third party streamer devices that support OSMC or CoreElec though the Vero does hit near the top for features for video watching as per the spreadsheet linked here: https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=385600
But if you want general purpose distros that allow emulation you probably want an N150 or similar mini-PC. The tricky part there is that while you can get lets of cheaper older used mini-PCs for emulation if you want to do hardware 4K HDR video content decoding then you need something more recently made for efficiency sake so you’re not pushing the processor to the max just watching videos.
If it has to be under $250 then your options are things like the Vero V or other streaming focused devices but you give up general purpose distro and emulation (I think, Kodi does technically offer a games feature but I’ve never used it and am not familiar) OR else you’re going with a used mini-PC that will okay for general purpose distro and light emulation may struggle with your 4K HDR content depending on video codec used and bitrate.
If you can afford a bit more >$250 but <$350 you can get an N150 or similar intel system that should handle all of the above.
A caveat on the N150 route though is currently there is no support for Dolby Vision, HDR+, etc. You only get plain old HDR and that’s not likely to change anytime soon as it’s a driver issue and no one makes one.
If streaming your own video content is your most important goal and you may need things like DV and other HDR+ formats then go with the Vero V or another item listed near the top of the Kodi list like the Ugoos or Homatics.