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I don't understand Netflix's decision, but I'm long past caring about things like this. I've had PCs hooked up to all of my televisions for the past 15+ years b
by lunias 11mo ago
I don't understand Netflix's decision, but I'm long past caring about things like this. I've had PCs hooked up to all of my televisions for the past 15+ years because of how limiting and frustrating using any other device to play media from can be.
- Razengan 11mo agoBitTorrent → Local Media Player App Still the best way to watch movies and shows. Even if we pay $100 dollars every month to streaming services they will never not be too dumb to know how to make a convenient player that isn't hostile to its users.
- NickC25 11mo agoIt's not about paying them $100. They aren't dumb. They've realized that a large section of people will not bother, and aren't capable of sailing the high seas. Hostile behaviors won't change until it hits their bottom line, and because they are an extremely profitable company, it won't happen for a very long time.
- Razengan 11mo agoMaybe the buccaneers need to up their marketing. Whatever happened to the media players that had built-in torrent searching and streaming?
- sphars 11mo agoYou mean like PopcornTime? I think it's still around in various capacities and different forks
- throwawaygmbno 11mo agoThere is nothing at all to be gained by advertising piracy, especially to the streaming companies. Let them enshittify their apps and just tell your friends and family offline how to have a sane video viewing experience.
- SoKamil 11mo agoWhat is your local app of choice? Do you sync between devices?
- Razengan 11mo agoIINA on Mac, free & open source, has been perfect for everything for years: https://github.com/iina/iina https://github.com/iina/iina While traveling I was so pissed with the Apple TV player's performance on less-than-lightspeed internet connections, I ragecancelled my subscription and just yo ho ho'ed the last couple episodes of Severance
- emeril 11mo agoomg - just use ultra.cc + kodi with https connection on a fire stick - so simple
- qwerpy 11mo agoI have a server that runs a bunch of containers (bittorrent client on a VPN, Home Assistant, etc.) and hosts SMB shares. I acquire content that goes on the shares which then get consumed by various devices. - Kodi on a TV that has been stripped of as much of Google as I could find, streams from the shares - VLC on my PC, streams from the shares - VLC on my phone which is always VPN'd to my local network and streams from the shares - VLC on iPads on which I usually drag and drop some shows/movies ahead of time so I am not wifi-dependent
- fireflash38 11mo agoThat's also rather shit, unless you're using a prescribed browser and operating system. We've rebuilt cable boxes, but somehow they're even shittier than before.
- mingus88 11mo agoI’ve run homebrew DVRs since the MythTV/Hauppauge era and it’s true My family won’t adapt to anything in the living room with a keyboard and mouse, and getting a reliable remote on any PC based solution is often problematic.
- lesuorac 11mo agoI just have a remote control an esp8266 and it posts to the PC's webserver. A bit convoluted I guess but it's still under 1k loc so w/e.
- mrguyorama 11mo agoNot even those dirt cheap bluetooth devices with a trackpad and mini keyboard? Those are great and it just works. Or what about the Steam Controller? It's UX is similar to some nicer smart TV interfaces. The real solution is you build an app that is nice for your family to use and just tells the boxes what to play. Sure hope your family doesn't use iPhones!
- fireflash38 11mo agoIf you're using Firefox or run Linux, you won't be getting the stream quality you have paid for.
- devilbunny 11mo agoThe hands-down best DVR experience I had was a TiVo Slide remote (the top slid back to reveal a small but fully functional keyboard) paired to a PC running Windows 7 Media Center with a four-tuner InfiniTV Cablecard adapter. Obviously it's been a few years, but that was just smooth all around once I got it set up. Very high WAF. But Windows 7 is gone, and so is the TiVo Slide remote.
- oooyay 11mo agoWhat OS do you run? I was thinking of doing this with SteamOS.
- mort96 11mo agoIf it's going to be primarily a gaming device then that makes sense, but if not, what do you gain from SteamOS? And why do you want Steam to start on boot? I use Fedora for this purpose, used to use Debian. You really just need a system with a web browser, file browser, media player and torrent client, and some way to remote control the computer from the couch (ideally from a phone). Sadly, I don't know of any nice off the shelf solution for that last part. KDE Connect is an option but it kinda sucks. I've always had my own Remote Desktop web interface service type thing running on the machine (though Wayland has kinda thrown a wrench into that for now...)
- lunias 11mo ago> some way to remote control the computer from the couch (ideally from a phone) If you use Kodi then you could try Kore (their remote app). I tried it once a long time ago and it was alright, but it's hard to beat a keyboard. I think similar apps exist for VLC and other media players, but I haven't looked into a solution that allows controlling the entire computer via a phone.
- mort96 11mo agoThe huge problem with Kodi is that it requires playing media from within Kodi. The advantage of using a PC for this is that it works with anything you can play from a PC, regardless of whether someone has made an app for it for Apple TV or Samsung's smart TV stuff or Kodi. You need to be able to provide keyboard and mouse input from a phone. Not just control Kodi or VLC.
- threetonesun 11mo agoYou can add any applications to Steam's Big Picture mode and the UI is relatively couch friendly. Yes, you could install Steam on any distro and do this but SteamOS is pretty nice out of the box if you want a TV friendly solution.
- nzach 11mo ago> The change was first spotted by users on Reddit and confirmed in an updated Netflix support page (via Android Authority), which now states that the streaming service no longer supports casting from mobile devices to most TVs and TV-streaming devices. Users are instead directed to use the remote that came with their TV hardware and use its native Netflix app. My guess is that adblock became too easy on smartphones, so by forcing people use the app on the TV it makes harder for people to bypass the ads. That's pure speculation, as I don't have any subscription from netflix. But I've used this method with the HBO app and it works 90% of the time, so I'm assuming netflix has the same issue.
- internetter 11mo ago> My guess is that adblock became too easy on smartphones Not within native apps. Your only option is essentially dns/hosts based on both platforms however this can also be done on the router. On Android there is ReVanced I guess. But these are almost as technical as a pihole. What is the percent of people who know of DNS based adblock but not pihole? Edit: And DNS adblocking can be done on android tv.
- nzach 11mo agoSure, but I've never had a 'standard router' with support dns blocking. I know you can do this with something like pfsense, but that's not that common. You also have the option to put a piehole in your network. It is pretty easy if you have some technical knowledge but I would say that it is generally out of reach for the general population(non-tech folks). But on android you just open the settings, search for 'private vpn' and paste an url. This is way easier to do for someone with no technical background. Even chatgpt should be able to correctly guide you through these steps.
- lunias 11mo agoSounds probable to me... This is a great example of why I am by default anti-app unless there's a demonstrable benefit to the user (e.g. Offline mode or something). If the web version of Netflix goes away then I will never access it again. I will also never buy a "smart" TV. I leave the ball in Netflix's court.
- chihuahua 11mo agoSame - I've been using an Intel NUC with Windows 10 for many years. It does everything I want: - Netflix - Youtube without ads via Firefox+uBlock Origin - Ripping DVDs and converting to .mp4 Those Small Form Factor PCs have only gotten cheaper over time - the most powerful PC I've ever owned in 30+ years is a $300 Minisforum (16 Cores, 16GB RAM) that's doing similar duty in the garage.
- donkeylazy456 11mo agoproblem is Netflix deprecated perfect UWP app and made it bloody PWA.
- m463 11mo ago> I don't understand Netflix's decision seems pretty obvious to me: netflix wants to charge separately for mobile device vs television. if you "cast" you don't need two subscriptions/account options.
- segmondy 11mo agocollege students sign into their friend's phone, then their friends can cast on the TV. this is about stopping sharing of accounts
- sharts 11mo agoThat’s gotta be just as painful to use from a sofa.