Title says it all, I’m looking for something as user-friendly as a chromecast but not made by a company like google. I’m familiar with linux and if some open source software exists that can do this I would love it.
Ideally it would be able to stream things like Netflix and Disney+ using a smartphone. Would be great if it can also play local files from an external hard drive, but I have a raspberry pi with Kodi for that so that’s not a hard requirement by any means.
Price range: preferably under €/$/£100 but for something truly excellent it can be a bit more than that.
I bought the rii remote/controller/keyboard/mouse, a raspberry pi 4 8gb, a 4k micro HDMI, a rpi4 power cord, a 64gb micro SD card, rpi4 case with fan. I then attached it to my TV with some zip ties and a L brace
I installed rasbian 64bit.
I installed steam link (have to go to tty command line to have it work though because bullseye doesn’t have previous buster driver support yet
I installed kodi > Plex addon
I installed kodi > YouTube addon
I installed kodi > jellyfin add-on with repository
I didn’t trust the sketchy “add my repository to download and install”. Disney plus on kodi, so I made a shortcut to the browser with that site
I made a shortcut to Netflix browser.
It isn’t the same as " any phone controls sound and playback" like a chromcast, but it is private and it is better than Chromecast (higher resolution and framerate, and streams/remotelycontrols local beefy gaming computers) in some ways.
Do you know of a RPI app with a fdroid counterpart that allows clicks from a LAN smartphone?
Wouldn’t we all. If you mean stream based on app on android by hitting the built-in cast button I think your out of luck.
What you can do is just connect a Linux box to your TV and use the web browser. Works great for most things. You can control from phone using VNC which seems to just work or KDE Connect if you can get it to work. You can also just get a wireless keyboard/mouse too. Xmouse on Fdroid also works great.
Actual screen casting, there are a number of methods but none work well for movies. Miracast is nice but Google phones do not support though my LG does. ScreenStream app is kind of cool just for the screen, allows steaming to any browser.
I recently made a comment going over the best options currently here, I’d recommend reading that for more detail.
In short:
If you want a TV box with great performance that just works out of the box with no tinkering, and is reasonably private, at the cost of freedom and control, get an Apple TV.
If you want an all-around great streaming box for the best of all worlds, including great codec and format support, plus great performance, etc, then I recommend getting an NVIDIA Shield TV, and either debloating it and removing Google apps + other garbage with ADB on Stock, or installing LineageOS if you’re fine with the downsides it brings (You lose Dolby Vision, AI Upscaling, + the App Switcher (Can no longer double press to switch apps). This device is my recommendation for most people and what I personally use. I leave mine on Stock debloated through ADB.
If you want a more affordable option than the Shield, you can get a Dynalink TV Box and install LineageOS on it, at the cost of the device being nowhere near as strong or overall compatible as the Shield is, plus losing out on features compared to the Shield like Dolby Vision & AI Upscaling.
If you want the most control possible, you can get a Linux PC or something like a Raspberry Pi. Requires the most tinkering and time to set-up and configure, and has some downsides like no Dolby Vision for instance, but may be preferable for some people.
I wouldn’t bother with any other box or option outside of these, all the other options are pretty much privacy nightmares and generally not worth using.
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I’ve tried setting up a pi for a Chromecast replacement but I soon realized it was never going to “just work” like my Chromecast did
What would be cool personally is some way to root a Chromecast and strip out all the telemetry
I’m also interested in this for using stremio from phones and PCs. Chromecast in particular also kinda sucks due to limited codec support.
You can use Stremio on most devices. I have it on my Android TV.
I bought the rii remote/controller/keyboard/mouse, a raspberry pi 4 8gb, a 4k micro HDMI, a rpi4 power cord, a 64gb micro SD card, rpi4 case with fan. I then attached it to my TV with some zip ties and a L brace
It isn’t the same as " any phone controls sound and playback" like a chromcast, but it is private and it is better than Chromecast (higher resolution and framerate, and streams/remotelycontrols local beefy gaming computers) in some ways.
Do you know of a RPI app with a fdroid counterpart that allows clicks from a LAN smartphone?
Sounds like a nice setup. I have an old laptop I could potentially use for this.
Wouldn’t we all. If you mean stream based on app on android by hitting the built-in cast button I think your out of luck.
What you can do is just connect a Linux box to your TV and use the web browser. Works great for most things. You can control from phone using VNC which seems to just work or KDE Connect if you can get it to work. You can also just get a wireless keyboard/mouse too. Xmouse on Fdroid also works great.
Actual screen casting, there are a number of methods but none work well for movies. Miracast is nice but Google phones do not support though my LG does. ScreenStream app is kind of cool just for the screen, allows steaming to any browser.
Miracast is pretty good, but I don’t think it supports DRM-content. Also it seems to be getting phased out in favor of chromecast.
https://github.com/MayaPosch/NymphCast
I recently made a comment going over the best options currently here, I’d recommend reading that for more detail.
In short:
If you want a TV box with great performance that just works out of the box with no tinkering, and is reasonably private, at the cost of freedom and control, get an Apple TV.
If you want an all-around great streaming box for the best of all worlds, including great codec and format support, plus great performance, etc, then I recommend getting an NVIDIA Shield TV, and either debloating it and removing Google apps + other garbage with ADB on Stock, or installing LineageOS if you’re fine with the downsides it brings (You lose Dolby Vision, AI Upscaling, + the App Switcher (Can no longer double press to switch apps). This device is my recommendation for most people and what I personally use. I leave mine on Stock debloated through ADB.
If you want a more affordable option than the Shield, you can get a Dynalink TV Box and install LineageOS on it, at the cost of the device being nowhere near as strong or overall compatible as the Shield is, plus losing out on features compared to the Shield like Dolby Vision & AI Upscaling.
If you want the most control possible, you can get a Linux PC or something like a Raspberry Pi. Requires the most tinkering and time to set-up and configure, and has some downsides like no Dolby Vision for instance, but may be preferable for some people.
I wouldn’t bother with any other box or option outside of these, all the other options are pretty much privacy nightmares and generally not worth using.
I asked a similar question at !privacyguides@lemmy.one, some of the suggestions there might be appropriate for your use case
Thanks, will check it out!