Specifically I’m wondering about the TV frontend UI. Presumably most people are going to be using an android tv box like fire tv or chromecast? Something else?
I recently picked up a new chromecast 4k that has the “Google TV” OS on it and… I’m having a hell of a time coming up with a UI that looks similar to the stock one (with movie recommendations, up next, my watchlist, etc) but that hooks into piracy streaming services.
For launchers I found projectivy, but I noticed that the “channels” feature which pulls in that sort of thing is remarkably limited. Streaming-wise I’ve got stremio and cloudstream, and only stremio lets me pull in my library into projectivy. Which is okay but I can’t get that synced with trakt or getting recommendations; it all has to be managed from stremio.
whereas cloudstream doesn’t really have any connectivity at all. There’s a few streaming services that somewhat pull things in but it’s not great. Netflix doesn’t seem to hook into it, nor plex. It ends up being better to just use the stock home and manually launching into stremio/cloudstream when I want them.
Surely there has to be a better way to do this? The stock home screen is nice with free live tv, movie recommendations that link into various paid streaming services, etc. I’d just like to hook in something like stremio, plex, etc. instead, but that seems impossible?
What exactly do y’all do for your setups? Trying to manage my google play watchlist/likes independently of trackt, and then also managing my stremio library separately from both just feels like hell. I end up having to take mental note of the stuff I see on the home screen and manually searching it up.
The live tv channels that the stock homescreen has is seemingly not replicated anywhere else which is a bit disappointing. I saw the old android tv menu get really close to what I’m after, but I can’t manage to get it working on my newer chromecast. The menu installs, but the channel feature doesn’t work, making it pointless.
They did, albeit indirectly. It seems the answer is “no one has done this” which means it’s likely not possible with the software that’s currently made lol.
Seems most people just go through plex/jellyfin/emby with their usenet *arr setup. Which is no doubt cozy, but it doesn’t quite grant the experience I’m after lol. I think most people are just used to launching into a streaming app to see what’s on there since that’s how most paid streaming stuff works too for the most part. The google tv/amazon fire tv homescreen setup is fairly new and apparently unused by basically everyone lol.
I might have to look into just coding my own launcher to get the features I want lmao. seems like a huge endeavor though. Right now I just have my remote set to be able to instantly jump into my preferred streaming apps, and single/double press home to switch between stock launcher and projectivy. It’s not great lol.
I have a roku tv and it’s kinda the reason I ended up buying a chromecast. Other than paid apps and plex it seems entirely useless for convenient piracy streaming. It also doesn’t pull anything into the home menu, and sticks to app launching. Not really great.
Plex is nice but I haven’t leaned into it entirely yet. I’m not sure it can end up replicating the streaming experience? But it’s nice as a media server.
We have a Hisense Roku TV and it’s extremely slow compared to the external Roku device, which is super snappy. What I do instead for the TV is just have it plugged into the downstairs computer. My partner uses the Roku TV as normal (mostly she uses YouTube) and for everything else I just have it set to the computer input or it’s a different device on my AVR (Steam Deck, Switch, record player). Whenever I want music or media playing I just open Plex in browser or with the Plex program with either the mouse or the Steam Controller. On the upstairs TV we have the Roku Express and the Plex UI is nice with a couple extra options that aren’t always available on other TV UI’s.
I’m curious though, what about Plex do you think wouldn’t replicate the streaming experience? Get it set up, get your hard drives pointed to the *arr services and set up a watchlist hook, something like Ombi or Overseer. I’m pretty sure you’d find it to be pretty much indistinguishable from HBO/Netflix/Amazon outside of the fact that each of those shows are now in one spot?
Once those 4-5 programs are set up, (Plex, Sonarr, Radarr, Jacket or Prowlarr, and Ombi or Overseer) your downloaded content is viewable on Plex, anything you watchlist on Plex is set to be downloaded.
If it’s the “browsing through junk until you see something interesting” that you don’t think will be replicated, there’s various ways to do exactly that. Personally I went from looking at useless title cards and frivolous 1-2 sentence descriptions about the show to looking at the cast of shows and movies I already have, then adding whatever else they are in to the watchlist. But it’s entirely possible to just point a “top viewed in last month” list via IMDB or trakt.tv and have those automatically downloaded. That should effectively solve the new/upcoming/popular media.
I find Plex to be far better than the streaming experience. I like to put together smart collections, like the Star Trek/Star Wars series, any new movies coming out would automatically be added to it - and their respective TV shows are shown in “related collections”, like the Marvel movies and shows. Or if you want TV shows of a certain era, like an 80’s specific playlist that you play in order or randomized. You can also set up other services like DizqueTV which allows you to create channels, so rather than putting your 80’s playlist on random you just “change the channel” and some show is a few minutes in - the good old TV experience. It also has far better details about the media, from the actor list to showing panels for featurettes. It’s like the better parts of Amazon Prime’s information (although Plex doesn’t have the trivia details).
Compared to self hosting other services, Plex is trivially easy to set up and to run on older hardware (sub $100 used). It is a little bit of overhead to get it set up, but from there it is only as much tinkering as you want it to be - I’ve personally had my server running for over 3 months now without restarting it just because I haven’t felt like “maintaining it” (keeping it updated, tinkering by adding other services etc.). And when I used it with the Raspberry Pi it never went down until I took it offline.
Overall I think the most unreliable aspects of Plex are user error, subtitles, and then the online authentication.
User error is easy to avoid because Plex itself is so simple. For subtitles, as long as you provide your own you’re probably golden. If you don’t, Plex does have a very good way of adding subtitles easily however for niche content it can be hit or miss, also you need the “version” of the media it’s subtitled for. So if you happened to get a movie with a movie production company cip that wasn’t cut out suddenly your subtitles are a good 5 seconds off and * likely all of the ones you download will be like this because you have a different movie file*. Luckily this is also pretty easily avoided by using movie files you own cough getting a different edition cough. In reality this doesn’t happen often, but it can be annoying when it presents itself and is just a byproduct of non-official sources.
And finally, Plex’s online authentication. I’ve actually had Plex pass since 2013, I got it on one of those $79 deals in college and I can honestly say in all the years of reading about people’s issues with online authentication I’ve personally never had it happen to me even during times where it’s genuinely down for everyone.
I don’t know if I changed the setting that’s supposed to fix it and I don’t remember, or if it’s because I’ve always had my Plex server running over my local network or what. But whether my internet is up or down and Plex servers are working or not, I’ve pretty much always had Plex able to access and play my media locally (I rarely use remote streaming, which may be a factor). That’s not to say I don’t understand the frustration, I’m just very thankful for not having to deal with this particular one.
Also, much of the positives are true for Jellyfin as well, though I don’t think there’s smart collections to the same extent and it’s a little more manual to get the networking aspect. Other than that though it’s a serviceable program, I just don’t use it actively.
If it’s something else about Plex that you think won’t scratch the streaming itch I’d be curious to hear about what it is.
I have a shit spyware android box with Emby installed, use Emby server (lifetime sub) i use it on my phone too. Have been usingn Emby for about 5 years with 0 issues. Have even brought my server across 3 or 4 installs
My Emby server is also my main PC so to preserve my SSD’s i use a ram disk to store the transcoding data
Emby has lots of plugins for statistics so I dont bother with Trackt but does have a telrackt tv pkugin for auto syncing
Jellyfinn is the same base software as Emby but ive never used it
Ah, this is what my brother is doing I think. I used to be into kodi but it’s so clunky. The plex+*arr stack seems cozy for delayed streaming (mark what to watch, watch it later) but does it end up working for streaming? I was also under the impression it’s not that great if you lack usenet?
Does it do recommendations? Every time I’ve tried getting into kodi it was pretty clunky/slow/etc. Hence my desire to get my setup on home screen then launch directly into a stream. Kinda sounds like everyone just launches into an app first.
For recommendations I use Overseerr. It provides a great web front end for requesting to Radarr and Sonarr as well as provides links to what’s trending on the major streaming platforms and TV networks.
Someone is gonna bust my balls but whatever. We have an Alienware R8 hooked up to a 20 year old Sony flatscreen tv and an LG sound bar. No fucking about at all.
I’ve been using Intel NUCs, even though they have a lot of issues and start failing after about 3 years of heavy use. Previously used Kodi on Arch, but with the latest NUC I decided to go with Xubuntu and for some reason video playback doesn’t work in Kodi now. So instead I just use VLC media player for TV/movies and a web browser for everything else. Got a Logitech K400 Plus wireless keyboard which makes it easy to control the computer from the couch.
I went on a deployment, got a nice gaming laptop for that. When I got home back to my desktop, I basically had no need for it so I hooked it up to my living room TV. At first I just played some controller friendly games on it, but now I use it as the entire media center with Stremio and qbittorrent and the likes. I use unified remote to have my phone as the remote.
Server side is UnRaid hosting various arr Docker containers, with a dedicated Intel QuickSync box for Plex and Jellyfin Servers. On the client side 2 Roku Ultras and a couple of Chromecasts.
For my daily driver tv, it’s an android TV with the projektivity launcher (maybe spelled that wrong, but I’m pretty sure there’s a k in there). It is a huge improvement over the stock launcher.
I’m also working on a media TV for my wife that’s actually a NUC running mint. Suboptimal distro choice but I want her to be able to use it as a desktop if she needs. On top of that is flex launcher to launch Jellyfin, YouTube, steam link, etc.
I had tried to make KDE bigscreen work but just could not get installed for the life of me.
Dedicated i5 desktop running unRAID, Plex and the Arr’s and I stream using my Chromecast with the Netflix button reprogrammed to launch Plex. No TV, No Streaming services and it’s pure joy.
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I like how nobody bothered to read the post and actually answer OP’s question…
They did, albeit indirectly. It seems the answer is “no one has done this” which means it’s likely not possible with the software that’s currently made lol.
Seems most people just go through plex/jellyfin/emby with their usenet *arr setup. Which is no doubt cozy, but it doesn’t quite grant the experience I’m after lol. I think most people are just used to launching into a streaming app to see what’s on there since that’s how most paid streaming stuff works too for the most part. The google tv/amazon fire tv homescreen setup is fairly new and apparently unused by basically everyone lol.
I might have to look into just coding my own launcher to get the features I want lmao. seems like a huge endeavor though. Right now I just have my remote set to be able to instantly jump into my preferred streaming apps, and single/double press home to switch between stock launcher and projectivy. It’s not great lol.
100% Roku. Best Plex interface.
Android Plex interface sucks, and don’t even get started on the abortion that the IOS Plex interface is.
I have a roku tv and it’s kinda the reason I ended up buying a chromecast. Other than paid apps and plex it seems entirely useless for convenient piracy streaming. It also doesn’t pull anything into the home menu, and sticks to app launching. Not really great.
Plex is nice but I haven’t leaned into it entirely yet. I’m not sure it can end up replicating the streaming experience? But it’s nice as a media server.
We have a Hisense Roku TV and it’s extremely slow compared to the external Roku device, which is super snappy. What I do instead for the TV is just have it plugged into the downstairs computer. My partner uses the Roku TV as normal (mostly she uses YouTube) and for everything else I just have it set to the computer input or it’s a different device on my AVR (Steam Deck, Switch, record player). Whenever I want music or media playing I just open Plex in browser or with the Plex program with either the mouse or the Steam Controller. On the upstairs TV we have the Roku Express and the Plex UI is nice with a couple extra options that aren’t always available on other TV UI’s.
I’m curious though, what about Plex do you think wouldn’t replicate the streaming experience? Get it set up, get your hard drives pointed to the *arr services and set up a watchlist hook, something like Ombi or Overseer. I’m pretty sure you’d find it to be pretty much indistinguishable from HBO/Netflix/Amazon outside of the fact that each of those shows are now in one spot?
Once those 4-5 programs are set up, (Plex, Sonarr, Radarr, Jacket or Prowlarr, and Ombi or Overseer) your downloaded content is viewable on Plex, anything you watchlist on Plex is set to be downloaded.
If it’s the “browsing through junk until you see something interesting” that you don’t think will be replicated, there’s various ways to do exactly that. Personally I went from looking at useless title cards and frivolous 1-2 sentence descriptions about the show to looking at the cast of shows and movies I already have, then adding whatever else they are in to the watchlist. But it’s entirely possible to just point a “top viewed in last month” list via IMDB or trakt.tv and have those automatically downloaded. That should effectively solve the new/upcoming/popular media.
I find Plex to be far better than the streaming experience. I like to put together smart collections, like the Star Trek/Star Wars series, any new movies coming out would automatically be added to it - and their respective TV shows are shown in “related collections”, like the Marvel movies and shows. Or if you want TV shows of a certain era, like an 80’s specific playlist that you play in order or randomized. You can also set up other services like DizqueTV which allows you to create channels, so rather than putting your 80’s playlist on random you just “change the channel” and some show is a few minutes in - the good old TV experience. It also has far better details about the media, from the actor list to showing panels for featurettes. It’s like the better parts of Amazon Prime’s information (although Plex doesn’t have the trivia details).
Compared to self hosting other services, Plex is trivially easy to set up and to run on older hardware (sub $100 used). It is a little bit of overhead to get it set up, but from there it is only as much tinkering as you want it to be - I’ve personally had my server running for over 3 months now without restarting it just because I haven’t felt like “maintaining it” (keeping it updated, tinkering by adding other services etc.). And when I used it with the Raspberry Pi it never went down until I took it offline.
Overall I think the most unreliable aspects of Plex are user error, subtitles, and then the online authentication.
User error is easy to avoid because Plex itself is so simple. For subtitles, as long as you provide your own you’re probably golden. If you don’t, Plex does have a very good way of adding subtitles easily however for niche content it can be hit or miss, also you need the “version” of the media it’s subtitled for. So if you happened to get a movie with a movie production company cip that wasn’t cut out suddenly your subtitles are a good 5 seconds off and * likely all of the ones you download will be like this because you have a different movie file*. Luckily this is also pretty easily avoided by using movie files you own cough getting a different edition cough. In reality this doesn’t happen often, but it can be annoying when it presents itself and is just a byproduct of non-official sources.
And finally, Plex’s online authentication. I’ve actually had Plex pass since 2013, I got it on one of those $79 deals in college and I can honestly say in all the years of reading about people’s issues with online authentication I’ve personally never had it happen to me even during times where it’s genuinely down for everyone.
I don’t know if I changed the setting that’s supposed to fix it and I don’t remember, or if it’s because I’ve always had my Plex server running over my local network or what. But whether my internet is up or down and Plex servers are working or not, I’ve pretty much always had Plex able to access and play my media locally (I rarely use remote streaming, which may be a factor). That’s not to say I don’t understand the frustration, I’m just very thankful for not having to deal with this particular one.
Also, much of the positives are true for Jellyfin as well, though I don’t think there’s smart collections to the same extent and it’s a little more manual to get the networking aspect. Other than that though it’s a serviceable program, I just don’t use it actively.
If it’s something else about Plex that you think won’t scratch the streaming itch I’d be curious to hear about what it is.
I have a shit spyware android box with Emby installed, use Emby server (lifetime sub) i use it on my phone too. Have been usingn Emby for about 5 years with 0 issues. Have even brought my server across 3 or 4 installs
My Emby server is also my main PC so to preserve my SSD’s i use a ram disk to store the transcoding data
Emby has lots of plugins for statistics so I dont bother with Trackt but does have a telrackt tv pkugin for auto syncing
Jellyfinn is the same base software as Emby but ive never used it
I have an Nvidia shield on the TV. The main media app is Kodi.
Backend I have Plex (also used for remote and and phone access)
For getting content I use the *arr stack
Ah, this is what my brother is doing I think. I used to be into kodi but it’s so clunky. The plex+*arr stack seems cozy for delayed streaming (mark what to watch, watch it later) but does it end up working for streaming? I was also under the impression it’s not that great if you lack usenet?
Does it do recommendations? Every time I’ve tried getting into kodi it was pretty clunky/slow/etc. Hence my desire to get my setup on home screen then launch directly into a stream. Kinda sounds like everyone just launches into an app first.
For recommendations I use Overseerr. It provides a great web front end for requesting to Radarr and Sonarr as well as provides links to what’s trending on the major streaming platforms and TV networks.
Kodi is fine for speed on LAN, I just use the Plex app to stream my content out side of the network.
I have Usenet but also augment with torrents. The setup works great.
Someone is gonna bust my balls but whatever. We have an Alienware R8 hooked up to a 20 year old Sony flatscreen tv and an LG sound bar. No fucking about at all.
deleted by creator
I’ve been using Intel NUCs, even though they have a lot of issues and start failing after about 3 years of heavy use. Previously used Kodi on Arch, but with the latest NUC I decided to go with Xubuntu and for some reason video playback doesn’t work in Kodi now. So instead I just use VLC media player for TV/movies and a web browser for everything else. Got a Logitech K400 Plus wireless keyboard which makes it easy to control the computer from the couch.
I’m old school. Qbittorrent on the computer, hdmi lead running to the TV
Python for the search function on Qbittorrent
Though, reading this thread, I do pay for realdebrid and I clearly don’t have a clue how to use it
raspi with vlc, mulvad and qbittorrent installed.
I went on a deployment, got a nice gaming laptop for that. When I got home back to my desktop, I basically had no need for it so I hooked it up to my living room TV. At first I just played some controller friendly games on it, but now I use it as the entire media center with Stremio and qbittorrent and the likes. I use unified remote to have my phone as the remote.
Jellyfin + arrs
Server side is UnRaid hosting various arr Docker containers, with a dedicated Intel QuickSync box for Plex and Jellyfin Servers. On the client side 2 Roku Ultras and a couple of Chromecasts.
*arrs / Jellyfin on a custom NAS running unRAID
For my daily driver tv, it’s an android TV with the projektivity launcher (maybe spelled that wrong, but I’m pretty sure there’s a k in there). It is a huge improvement over the stock launcher.
I’m also working on a media TV for my wife that’s actually a NUC running mint. Suboptimal distro choice but I want her to be able to use it as a desktop if she needs. On top of that is flex launcher to launch Jellyfin, YouTube, steam link, etc.
I had tried to make KDE bigscreen work but just could not get installed for the life of me.
Jellyfin running in Firefox on ArchLinux ARM on a Radxa Rock5b SBC.
Dedicated i5 desktop running unRAID, Plex and the Arr’s and I stream using my Chromecast with the Netflix button reprogrammed to launch Plex. No TV, No Streaming services and it’s pure joy.