Are mini stick PCs practical to set up as a media player, eg with jellyfin? Some advantages are the small form factor that plugs straight into the HDMI port, and flexibility/privacy vs using a dongle from a shitty company like amazon/google/roku.

Are there any things to watch out for to ensure it has enough compute power and hardware decoding? I just want it to play HD video with a jellyfin app/browser page.

I’m assuming it’s no big deal to install Linux on (x86 hardware?), do you need to watch out for specific device support? Thanks

  • eyesaremosaics@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
    6·
    1 day ago

    Ok, I’ve been checking out some older ones for half the price (possibly used as well), the main requirement I’ve been checking is just hardware decoding, with a light weight Linux setup I think it should be sufficient.

    The remote is worth considering, I might look into Bluetooth or RF based approaches as they are a bit more flexible than IR with positioning. Or even phone app based methods are possible

    • lemmyvore@feddit.nlEnglish
      2·
      8 hours ago

      Some extra options you might want to consider:

      • Having the device act like a DLNA renderer. You still need it to run a graphical stack and a DLNA app, but you can control it with a DLNA controller app on your phone, and tell it to fetch content from your Jellyfin server if you activate the DLNA plugin so it will act like a DLNA server. DLNA needs network broadcast so it will work if the stick/phone/server all all on local LAN but typically can’t cross VLANs.
      • Having the device run a Tailscale client alongside Kodi or connecting to Jellyfin with a browser or client. If you also put Tailscale on the server you will be able to securely connect to it even on vacations (hotel TV for example).
    • yaroto98@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      1 day ago

      Yea, with a full pc setup and OS I don’t think you’ll have a problem with watching media. Even if hardware isn’t available for your cpu (unlikely) software will be. In the jellyfin client you can change your player to vlc if you have any issues playing video.