Selfhosted

Porcoolpine from SimplyNuc. That product line is fanless which is key for me in the HTPC environment with a flat screen. In the "home theatre" I have a projector with a fan so it doesn't matter.

Do have a pi but havent bothered setting that up to be the media server yet. at the moment have a ps4 for playback on the tv and jellyfin running on the pc with the *arr stack for gathering. Im glad I changed over to jellyfin a couple months ago moving away from plex, since plex doesn't work if PSN is down. Plex used to be decent, like 10+ years ago, jellyfin is exactly the same except theres no native app for the PS4 so I have to use the web browser but thats fine. Also have tailscale configured so I can easily reach the media server when im out and about.

I have an SFF PC currently running Mint, with Bello and steam as well as xemu and a few other goodies. The flexibility is great, if something is a bit borked I can usually just play it in VLC, and the compute allows me to run pretty much any emulator besides Xenia or that PS3 one. Once I plug a GPU into it, those should be fine too. Not bad for a cheap i5 system.

I've tried libreelec on a raspberry pi 4, but it just doesn't pass the wife test.

We have a thomson streaming stick 140G (EU branding for ONN). We just use jellyfin, smarttube and our national public service streaming apps. It's in apps-only mode, but Google still injects one ad on the home screen. I didn't bother with a custom launcher just yet.

I run a i3 14100 for my media server with Plex, a pihole on my network and a Roku box on one TV and just the app on the others I never get any ads or have issues but I don't use any streaming services I just use the arr's and my own content

Laptop hooked up to the TV. Always felt more reliable than any other device to me. I also use rustdesk for a remote connection solution

I'm using a Ryzen Mini PC running Debian and Flex Launcher.

Works well as both a media consumption machine and light gaming rig.

The Shield can supposedly be updated with LineageOS instead of stock, but I haven’t tried it. I also have a couple Onn 4K streamers that I debloated and swapped in FLauncher, and it’s on my TODO list to do the same with the Shield. My concern with stock OSes is of course any telemetry I’m not aware of or can’t disable. I usually setup Netguard, although I still get ads on my Shield, so its effectiveness is fairly limited.

Edit:

I found this Reddit post helpful for the Onn 4K devices:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidTV/comments/12rya0t/change_launcher_debloat_the_new_onn_4k_streaming/

Regarding DRM, Netflix (and probably others) require the Widewine library to play back DRM content. This works perfectly fine on a normal Ubuntu PC, but does not work on the Pi because the library does not support ARM, only x86.

So Id just get any normal PC. Used enterprise mini PCs can be had for quite cheap, and they are small and efficient, and high quality. Search for HP, Dell or Lenovo mini PCs , or 1 litre PCs.

Shield, mine is very stable, never crashes, doesn't lag

Apple TV. No ads. Works great.

Ryzen 1200/GTX 960 small build running Linux Mint. There's a UHD blu-ray drive in it as well with the custom firmware to rip disks. Media is stored on my NAS that handles Plex and transcoding. The parts were mostly old extras I had lying around, just needed the case, blu-ray drive and boot SSD. Oh and the like $20 wireless Logitech keyboard/track pad combo for control.

My old desktop, a Ryzen 3600/GTX-1080 mini-ITX build. After using a Pi 4 with Kodi for awhile it's nice to have a media machine that can run Crysis.

Two Shield TVs because there's not really anything else.

I use a Radxa Rock 5B running an Android TV ROM. Sits in a 3D printed case and has a silent little Noctua fan keeping it cool. Could be better - the ROM has a little jank to it - but it has taken everything I've thrown at it so far.

I use a Radxa Rock 5B running an Android TV ROM. Sits in a 3D printed case and has a silent little Noctua fan keeping it cool. Could be better - the ROM has a little jank to it - but it has taken everything I've thrown at it so far.

I use a Beelink with an N100. Runs PopOs. I use Plex HTPC on it. Hardware decoding isnt working at the moment but it plays everything fine except HDR content so I'm avoiding that at the moment. Pass through audio work perfectly. I also stream sports on it, play mini games and roms with my kids using Lutris, and Moonlight for the more demanding games.

I used to use Kodi/LibreElec on it but that was such a miserable experience. Constant crashing and (3 or 4 times per day) inconsistent glitchy audio passthrough. The plex integration does mostly work but would also occasionally crash resulting in my stuff not syncing back to the server for days. Playback worked perfectly though.

just a normal PC? Streaming should work in a browser.

The biggest question is, are you looking for Dolby Vision support?

There is no open source implementation for Dolby Vision or HDR10+ so if you want to use those formats you are limited to Android/Apple/Amazon streaming boxes.

If you want to avoid the ads from those devices apart from side loading apks to replace home screens or something the only way to get Dolby Vision with Kodi/standard Linux is to buy a CoreELEC supported streaming device and flashing it with CoreELEC.

List of supported devices here

CoreELEC is Kodi based so it limits your player choice, but there are plugins for Plex/Jellyfin if you want to pull from those as back ends.

Personally it is a lot easier to just grab the latest gen Onn 4k Pro from Walmart for $50 and deal with the Google TV ads (never leave my streaming app anyways). Only downside with the Onn is lack of Dolby TrueHD/DTS Master audio output, but it handles AV1, and more Dolby Vision profiles than the Shield does at a much cheaper price. It also handles HDR10+ which the Shield doesn't but that for at isn't nearly as common and many of the big TV brands don't support it anyways.