3 ms·

There are so many options for very small and quiet desktops. I don't understand the appeal of any of the various streaming devices from the major corps, AppleTV

by owly 9y ago

There are so many options for very small and quiet desktops. I don't understand the appeal of any of the various streaming devices from the major corps, AppleTV, Chromecast, FireTV, etc. With a small htpc you have total freedom. You can install your preferred OS, ad blocking, media player and more. You can play your own content or photo albums without uploading to a cloud service. You are not restricted to the main streaming services and can watch anything on the web. I suppose people are just lazy and would rather be frustrated. :)

lostcolony 9y ago
Are you kidding me? I own a roku; it was so, so worth it. < $50, and suddenly I can easily search and stream from Amazon, Netflix, Youtube, Sling, Hulu, HBO, etc. It runs off USB power from the TV; no additional plug, nothing even visible. I can control it with my phone or the provided remote. I can stream audio privately through my phone, even as I watch on the TV, so as not to bother my wife in the same room. I can play my own content via Plex, streamed remotely from my own media server. All with zero effort. The only configuration it took was selecting what apps, and putting in my credentials. Sure, I could have bought a raspberry pi...but just the unit and a case would have put me in the same price range. I'd still need cords and an SD card. And then spent the time to setup and install everything, finding the right third party libs, troubleshooting any issues, etc. And then I'd get to make sure I updated all of them periodically, or set up an autoupdater that I'd get to troubleshoot any time it updated and caused something to break, rather than have actual QA people testing before updates get pushed. Why would I do that? Why pay the same, and go through all that pain? I can see avoiding the companies that are also content delivery companies, but there is an obvious third party that exists -solely- to fill this niche.
cmiles74 9y ago
My parents want to watch Amazon Prime on their TV and are not hugely technical. Plugging the little Fire TV dongle is _way_ easier than hacking something together with an HTPC box. The Nvidia Shield might be a valid alternative, but it's hard not to just recommend they use the Fire TV dongle and be done with it.

by owly 9y ago

lostcolony 9y ago

Are you kidding me? I own a roku; it was so, so worth it. < $50, and suddenly I can easily search and stream from Amazon, Netflix, Youtube, Sling, Hulu, HBO, etc. It runs off USB power from the TV; no additional plug, nothing even visible. I can control it with my phone or the provided remote. I can stream audio privately through my phone, even as I watch on the TV, so as not to bother my wife in the same room. I can play my own content via Plex, streamed remotely from my own media server. All with zero effort. The only configuration it took was selecting what apps, and putting in my credentials. Sure, I could have bought a raspberry pi...but just the unit and a case would have put me in the same price range. I'd still need cords and an SD card. And then spent the time to setup and install everything, finding the right third party libs, troubleshooting any issues, etc. And then I'd get to make sure I updated all of them periodically, or set up an autoupdater that I'd get to troubleshoot any time it updated and caused something to break, rather than have actual QA people testing before updates get pushed. Why would I do that? Why pay the same, and go through all that pain? I can see avoiding the companies that are also content delivery companies, but there is an obvious third party that exists -solely- to fill this niche.

cmiles74 9y ago

My parents want to watch Amazon Prime on their TV and are not hugely technical. Plugging the little Fire TV dongle is _way_ easier than hacking something together with an HTPC box. The Nvidia Shield might be a valid alternative, but it's hard not to just recommend they use the Fire TV dongle and be done with it.