6 ms·

Are there any alternatives that are independent of streaming services?

by thayne 4mo ago

nemomarx 4mo ago
Google and Apple seem like the best competition and they do have streaming services, although Google's is just their bad YouTube tv thing and very ignorable. I'm not sure Amazon is even in the running now. The Nvidia shield used to be a decent streaming box?
- timeinput 4mo ago
  They (ETA nvidia shield) added ads many years ago. Really left a bitter taste in my mouth after paying for an ad-free "premium" device to have them shoved out there.
  - tmp10423288442 4mo ago
    Who is they?
    - horsawlarway 4mo ago
      Assuming the nvidia shield. I'll also echo my general disappointment with the direction of these devices. A decade ago, they were one of the best streaming devices you could buy. then a couple years back it was "there's a new discover tab, filled with ads! Don't you love it?" then it was "not enough people are viewing the discover tab, so we're merging the discover tab with the home tab! Don't you love it?" --- They're still decent hardware for a streaming device (although somewhat dated at this point), but now you have to go out of your way to make the software not shitty. Removing the stock launcher helps a lot, but requires ADB access. (easy enough, and [insert llm of choice] can both generate a minimal replacement launcher and install it for you for about $10 worth of tokens, so technical users are fine, but I can't really recommend them to non-technical family anymore.)
      - rurp 4mo ago
        Are there solid existing launchers that can be swapped in? Changing the launcher is one of the first things I do when I get a new Pixel phone and highly recommend it, but I don't really want to have to maintain a vibe coded one.
        nemomarx 4mo ago
        I tried projectivity launcher on one of these and it seemed reasonably good.
        ja2 4mo ago
        Projectivy seems good and I use it on cheap android / Google TV devices since learning about it last month.
        toraway 4mo ago
        I've used Projectivy for years on every Google TV stick I own (Google/Onn). Works perfectly with full customization/zero ads on the free version and has a workaround to take over the Home navigation to bypass the built-in launcher without ADB or rooting. I chip in for the premium version to help out the dev since I get so much value out of it but the freemium features are mostly just cosmetic and the free version has everything you need.
      - timeinput 4mo ago
        At this point if I'm dealing with that level of hassle I'm much happier running linux on a computer. The value add of these devices was plug and play, and if it's not that why bother.
        toraway 4mo ago
        ADB is rarely actually a requirement unless you really want to do it the "right" way and fully remove the launcher. I always use a custom launcher (Projectivy) on my Google TV devices, lately typically the $20 Onn stick and intercept the Home navigation to open the launcher either using the option built into Projectivy or with a free app from the Play Store/Fdroid. Takes <5 minutes to setup everything once and then I basically forget the native Google TV launcher exists. Pretty much unbeatable value for a $20 ad-free Jellyfin/Plex/Kodi/Stremio setup. YMMV with different models but I also had no issues remapping the remote buttons from Netflix/etc to my own apps (including the "Free TV" button to launch Stremio which I always enjoy). Also (somewhat ironically) the best smart TV OS to look for on cheap/subsidized TVs is built-in Google TV. Since they can easily be configured as 100% "dumb" on startup without any ads/nags/etc (it's the first question you're asked). The TV never hits Wifi to update and the remote/menus just do normal TV stuff without any "smart" features. Otherwise, it's luck of the draw how miserable/impossible the manufacturer makes avoiding Wifi/updates. (Or you could do the same process installing the custom launcher on the TV's built-in Googe TV, but then you're at the mercy of the CPU/RAM the OEM included in BoM some # of years ago and lose the clean seperation between dumb TV/replaceable stick). $20 Onn stick + $199 "smart" Google TV in dumb mode goes really far these days for a locally hosted setup without ads/annoyances.
    - timeinput 4mo ago
      horsawlarway is correct regarding the nvidia shield. I'm not sure how much is nvidia, and how much is google in the "they". I kinda blame nvidia more than google (if I bought a google device I would expect google ads as part of the purchase), but it's hard for me to say. "they" the people who actually own the streaming device (nvidia shield) I "purchased" updated the software and added a lot of ads.
      - exmadscientist 4mo ago
        The ads showed up when the launcher got a major redesign, and the Google TV (or whatever they call it this week) launcher is a Google product. I seem to remember that nVidia delayed shipping the new enshittified version for quite a long time, so I'm pretty confident Google gets the blame here.
- jabroni_salad 4mo ago
  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15Wf_jy5WqOPShczFKQB28cCetBgAGcnA0mNOG-ePwDc/edit?pli=1&gid=0#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15Wf_jy5WqOPShczFKQB2... shield is still competitive. It has become a little laggy but apparently that can be fixed by swapping out the launcher.
righthand 4mo ago
You can go to Walmart and buy a streaming box that is a Raspberry pi-sized board with custom Android installed and the package claims it has 700+ channels. But it just is an overlay for pirate streaming sites.
- marssaxman 4mo ago
  > just is an overlay for pirate streaming sites Now you're making it sound even more interesting. What is the name of this device?
  - iririririr 4mo ago
    just use something that you can run a torrent client (and use tpb.party with adblocker). Those apps are malware and botnets.
  - righthand 4mo ago
    “Superbox” I believe.
- pwdisswordfishs 4mo ago
  > it just is an overlay for pirate streaming sites Not "just". You left out its role as a bot network exit node.
- tadfisher 4mo ago
  It is also a gateway for "residential proxy networks", AKA botnets for rent.
  - prepend 4mo ago
    Which is a decent trade off for unlimited content.
    - vitally3643 4mo ago
      "I'm willing to make everyone else's life worse for minor personal convenience"
literatepeople 4mo ago
Not really. Apple TV seems to be the closest ive found to not being riddled with ads though. the home screen doesn't have ads at all, the closest which exists is the "top shelf" feature when you hover over the Apple TV app, and that can be turned off in settings. But it has some other issues
- etothet 4mo ago
  I do a lot of my streaming with Apple TV, but the worst parts about the Apple TV app are in my opinion are: - Too many promos of other shows before watching a show. This is often for shows I've already watched and am watching. Apple knows which shows I watch. It shouldn't need to give me promos for shows I've watched or am actively watching. - Poor UX for "Play Next Episode" functionality. If I just finished an episode of a show and I click to watch the next episode, I don't need to see the recap of the previous episode or the intro. - Speaking of intro, when you click to skip, it usually leaves you somewhere between 5 and 10 seconds from the end of the into, not actually after it.
  - prepend 4mo ago
    I think GP was talking about the hardware AppleTV, not the streaming service AppleTV (which are stupidly named).
    - literatepeople 4mo ago
      and the apple tv app! which is different from the box and the streaming service which was formerly called Apple TV Plus
- socalgal2 4mo ago
  I'm pretty happy with AppleTV except for the walled garden. I want to run Kodi. I do run it via XCode and a dev account but because of the app restrictions it's a 2nd class experience. Looked for alternatives like Jellyfin but the only ones on the app store all appear to spy on what you view.
theturtletalks 4mo ago
Look into the TiVo Stream 4K. It’s an Android box but has been very reliable for me. Tivo does force some quirks so I used ADB to disable core services and the default launcher has ads so I switched to Projectivy launcher.
glenstein 4mo ago
Recently got a Google Smart TV for the first time, instead of Roku, and I hate it so much. Roku interestingly I think folded in ads in the most non-obtrusive way (except for the full screen ads which I think were quickly abandoned). But Google Smart TV is a completely intentional bid for sticky integration that fosters Google dependence (google login, google telemetry tracking what you watch inside of other apps, other streamers are google apps), which is not how I want to experience my streaming. It's also slow and sometimes glitchy. I had never had a TV capable of crashing before. Roku at least felt non-evil or non-evil adjacent in its notional neutrality.
- strbean 4mo ago
  Interesting, I've got a Sony Google TV and it's been the best smart TV experience I've had in a long time. Prior to that was Samsung TVs and a Roku TV (forget which manufacturer) and they all had massive decay in performance over time. There is a setting on my Google TV (I think it is 'Disable Personalization' or similar) that gets rid of most of the ad-space and turns the home screen into just a list of apps that I actually have installed. It is easy to sideload apps like SmartTubeNext, and the Plex client works well, so that covers 100% of my needs.
- phantomathkg 4mo ago
  Genuine ask. Roku do Automatic Content Recognition, why do you feel they are non-evil?
kelvinjps10 4mo ago
An android tv you can buy them for 20$, and put any apps
cgh 4mo ago
We use a PlayStation 5. It has all the streaming service apps you’d expect, including YouTube, and the UX is great.
phantomathkg 4mo ago
The only decent device out there will be Nvidia Shield. As a Google certified Android TV, this means it will do Widevine L1 DRM decoding, give you the 4K streaming quality. For TV I used to recommend Sony, but now they sold the whole business to China TCL. Will have to wait and see if TCL will enshittify it.

Are there any alternatives that are independent of streaming services?

by thayne 4mo ago

Are there any alternatives that are independent of streaming services?

Google and Apple seem like the best competition and they do have streaming services, although Google's is just their bad YouTube tv thing and very ignorable. I'm not sure Amazon is even in the running now. The Nvidia shield used to be a decent streaming box?

timeinput 4mo ago
They (ETA nvidia shield) added ads many years ago. Really left a bitter taste in my mouth after paying for an ad-free "premium" device to have them shoved out there.
- tmp10423288442 4mo ago
  Who is they?
  - horsawlarway 4mo ago
    Assuming the nvidia shield. I'll also echo my general disappointment with the direction of these devices. A decade ago, they were one of the best streaming devices you could buy. then a couple years back it was "there's a new discover tab, filled with ads! Don't you love it?" then it was "not enough people are viewing the discover tab, so we're merging the discover tab with the home tab! Don't you love it?" --- They're still decent hardware for a streaming device (although somewhat dated at this point), but now you have to go out of your way to make the software not shitty. Removing the stock launcher helps a lot, but requires ADB access. (easy enough, and [insert llm of choice] can both generate a minimal replacement launcher and install it for you for about $10 worth of tokens, so technical users are fine, but I can't really recommend them to non-technical family anymore.)
    - rurp 4mo ago
      Are there solid existing launchers that can be swapped in? Changing the launcher is one of the first things I do when I get a new Pixel phone and highly recommend it, but I don't really want to have to maintain a vibe coded one.
      - nemomarx 4mo ago
        I tried projectivity launcher on one of these and it seemed reasonably good.
      - ja2 4mo ago
        Projectivy seems good and I use it on cheap android / Google TV devices since learning about it last month.
      - toraway 4mo ago
        I've used Projectivy for years on every Google TV stick I own (Google/Onn). Works perfectly with full customization/zero ads on the free version and has a workaround to take over the Home navigation to bypass the built-in launcher without ADB or rooting. I chip in for the premium version to help out the dev since I get so much value out of it but the freemium features are mostly just cosmetic and the free version has everything you need.
    - timeinput 4mo ago
      At this point if I'm dealing with that level of hassle I'm much happier running linux on a computer. The value add of these devices was plug and play, and if it's not that why bother.
      - toraway 4mo ago
        ADB is rarely actually a requirement unless you really want to do it the "right" way and fully remove the launcher. I always use a custom launcher (Projectivy) on my Google TV devices, lately typically the $20 Onn stick and intercept the Home navigation to open the launcher either using the option built into Projectivy or with a free app from the Play Store/Fdroid. Takes <5 minutes to setup everything once and then I basically forget the native Google TV launcher exists. Pretty much unbeatable value for a $20 ad-free Jellyfin/Plex/Kodi/Stremio setup. YMMV with different models but I also had no issues remapping the remote buttons from Netflix/etc to my own apps (including the "Free TV" button to launch Stremio which I always enjoy). Also (somewhat ironically) the best smart TV OS to look for on cheap/subsidized TVs is built-in Google TV. Since they can easily be configured as 100% "dumb" on startup without any ads/nags/etc (it's the first question you're asked). The TV never hits Wifi to update and the remote/menus just do normal TV stuff without any "smart" features. Otherwise, it's luck of the draw how miserable/impossible the manufacturer makes avoiding Wifi/updates. (Or you could do the same process installing the custom launcher on the TV's built-in Googe TV, but then you're at the mercy of the CPU/RAM the OEM included in BoM some # of years ago and lose the clean seperation between dumb TV/replaceable stick). $20 Onn stick + $199 "smart" Google TV in dumb mode goes really far these days for a locally hosted setup without ads/annoyances.
  - timeinput 4mo ago
    horsawlarway is correct regarding the nvidia shield. I'm not sure how much is nvidia, and how much is google in the "they". I kinda blame nvidia more than google (if I bought a google device I would expect google ads as part of the purchase), but it's hard for me to say. "they" the people who actually own the streaming device (nvidia shield) I "purchased" updated the software and added a lot of ads.
    - exmadscientist 4mo ago
      The ads showed up when the launcher got a major redesign, and the Google TV (or whatever they call it this week) launcher is a Google product. I seem to remember that nVidia delayed shipping the new enshittified version for quite a long time, so I'm pretty confident Google gets the blame here.
jabroni_salad 4mo ago
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15Wf_jy5WqOPShczFKQB28cCetBgAGcnA0mNOG-ePwDc/edit?pli=1&gid=0#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15Wf_jy5WqOPShczFKQB2... shield is still competitive. It has become a little laggy but apparently that can be fixed by swapping out the launcher.

righthand 4mo ago

You can go to Walmart and buy a streaming box that is a Raspberry pi-sized board with custom Android installed and the package claims it has 700+ channels. But it just is an overlay for pirate streaming sites.

marssaxman 4mo ago
> just is an overlay for pirate streaming sites Now you're making it sound even more interesting. What is the name of this device?
- iririririr 4mo ago
  just use something that you can run a torrent client (and use tpb.party with adblocker). Those apps are malware and botnets.
- righthand 4mo ago
  “Superbox” I believe.
pwdisswordfishs 4mo ago
> it just is an overlay for pirate streaming sites Not "just". You left out its role as a bot network exit node.
tadfisher 4mo ago
It is also a gateway for "residential proxy networks", AKA botnets for rent.
- prepend 4mo ago
  Which is a decent trade off for unlimited content.
  - vitally3643 4mo ago
    "I'm willing to make everyone else's life worse for minor personal convenience"

literatepeople 4mo ago

Not really. Apple TV seems to be the closest ive found to not being riddled with ads though. the home screen doesn't have ads at all, the closest which exists is the "top shelf" feature when you hover over the Apple TV app, and that can be turned off in settings. But it has some other issues

etothet 4mo ago
I do a lot of my streaming with Apple TV, but the worst parts about the Apple TV app are in my opinion are: - Too many promos of other shows before watching a show. This is often for shows I've already watched and am watching. Apple knows which shows I watch. It shouldn't need to give me promos for shows I've watched or am actively watching. - Poor UX for "Play Next Episode" functionality. If I just finished an episode of a show and I click to watch the next episode, I don't need to see the recap of the previous episode or the intro. - Speaking of intro, when you click to skip, it usually leaves you somewhere between 5 and 10 seconds from the end of the into, not actually after it.
- prepend 4mo ago
  I think GP was talking about the hardware AppleTV, not the streaming service AppleTV (which are stupidly named).
  - literatepeople 4mo ago
    and the apple tv app! which is different from the box and the streaming service which was formerly called Apple TV Plus
socalgal2 4mo ago
I'm pretty happy with AppleTV except for the walled garden. I want to run Kodi. I do run it via XCode and a dev account but because of the app restrictions it's a 2nd class experience. Looked for alternatives like Jellyfin but the only ones on the app store all appear to spy on what you view.

theturtletalks 4mo ago

Look into the TiVo Stream 4K. It’s an Android box but has been very reliable for me. Tivo does force some quirks so I used ADB to disable core services and the default launcher has ads so I switched to Projectivy launcher.

glenstein 4mo ago

Recently got a Google Smart TV for the first time, instead of Roku, and I hate it so much. Roku interestingly I think folded in ads in the most non-obtrusive way (except for the full screen ads which I think were quickly abandoned). But Google Smart TV is a completely intentional bid for sticky integration that fosters Google dependence (google login, google telemetry tracking what you watch inside of other apps, other streamers are google apps), which is not how I want to experience my streaming. It's also slow and sometimes glitchy. I had never had a TV capable of crashing before. Roku at least felt non-evil or non-evil adjacent in its notional neutrality.

strbean 4mo ago
Interesting, I've got a Sony Google TV and it's been the best smart TV experience I've had in a long time. Prior to that was Samsung TVs and a Roku TV (forget which manufacturer) and they all had massive decay in performance over time. There is a setting on my Google TV (I think it is 'Disable Personalization' or similar) that gets rid of most of the ad-space and turns the home screen into just a list of apps that I actually have installed. It is easy to sideload apps like SmartTubeNext, and the Plex client works well, so that covers 100% of my needs.
phantomathkg 4mo ago
Genuine ask. Roku do Automatic Content Recognition, why do you feel they are non-evil?

kelvinjps10 4mo ago

An android tv you can buy them for 20$, and put any apps

cgh 4mo ago

We use a PlayStation 5. It has all the streaming service apps you’d expect, including YouTube, and the UX is great.

phantomathkg 4mo ago

The only decent device out there will be Nvidia Shield. As a Google certified Android TV, this means it will do Widevine L1 DRM decoding, give you the 4K streaming quality. For TV I used to recommend Sony, but now they sold the whole business to China TCL. Will have to wait and see if TCL will enshittify it.