this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024

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Need help deciding how to stream movies (lemmynsfw.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Ahoy!

I recently got a new TV and I need some advice on how to best take advantage of my setup.

My current setup: I have an old laptop as my homeserver. I have Pihole on it. I also have setup a VPN with Gluetun that other docker containers are using. To watch movies I have a Kodi + Real Debrid setup on my actual laptop and I would use that with an HDMI cable to watch movies on my old TV.

What has changed now is that I have an Android TV, and to be perfectly honest it was a bit of a hassle to use the laptop to watch stuff especially TV shows because between each episode I would have to get up and use the laptop to play the next episode, and I have to set up my laptop each time because it's my main device and I need to take it with me everywhere. I have the Kore app on my phone but that wouldn't work if my VPN is running on either my phone or laptop, which usually is the case.

From what I read, the simples solution would be setting up stremio on the TV with RD and ditch the VPN. However I would prefer if there was a way to route the traffic through VPN. Do you guys know any better solutions?

Thanks in advance for your help. P.S. Cat pic for your troubles

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

However I would prefer if there was a way to route the traffic through VPN.

It would almost certainly depend on what VPN and what TV you have, but I believe I've heard of native VPN apps that can be installed on Android TVs.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I recommend a Plex server. People here will yell jellyfin all day long but while it is good, there is shit that will make you tear your hair out. Plex will literally "just work".

If your TV is a smart TV, you can install the Plex app and from that point on its mostly set and forget.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Jellyfin certainly has a little bit of wonk to it, but as far as basic functionality I find it just as easy as Plex.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

"basic" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I just use Stremio + RD(Torrentio) on my TV, laptop and phone as they share the same public IPv4 address and I'm definitely not crossing the limit of 32 connections per server. I recommend that setup, gets rid of running a homeserver all time.

If you want to stick with your VPN and homeserver setup, get rid of Kodi and host Plex_debrid on your server, that way you can connect as many devices you want to Plex but only your server will be the one connecting with RD servers, letting you stay within the restrictions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Stremio and real-debrid is great. I use RD to download my torrents for me, its way faster.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Jellyfin. V1.9 is a huge leap forward.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Is it? In what way if you don't mind me asking :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

No, I don’t mind you asking at all!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

This is why I love the internet.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

Use Jellyfin to stream it. The TV should have an app for it. You can also use Plex, if you want, but I find Jellyfin better in every way.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Personally, I bought a cheap tower PC and air mouse to be a full time torrent/streaming setup for my TV. I love it!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Hmm how cheap is a cheap tower pc I wonder

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Just buy an air mouse for $20 and you don't have to get up to change episodes. Doesn't help with having to unplug it from the hdmi all the time but that's less of a hassle if you can just do it once when you start watching and then control everything from the couch.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I spent up a bit on a refurbished one at $130, but the other commenter is right that they can be in the $60-$100 range

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's how much I spent on the old laptop too haha

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I respect that it's a pain getting up change it (where I recommend the air mouse) as well as the pain of having to plug it all back in, so it makes sense that you don't want to move your streaming computer constantly and you don't want to buy another one. Best of luck figuring out what works for you

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Under 60usd for a decent used one that can do that stuff

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I use a hacked fire stick but pretty sure the exact same setup is achievable on android TV.

You can use stremio + torrentio and utilise your current realdebrid subscription then just install your preferred vpn as well.

Fire up the VPN and connect so that all your traffic is going through that VPN connection and then load up stremio.

I used to use kodi and debrid and this stremio setup is night and day better and easier to use, my gf would refuse to use kodi but this operates so much like Netflix etc that she uses it all the time now as well.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Firesticks and android tv both run android, something your run on a firestick will almost definitely run on android TV.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for your comment. Yeah I hear the UX on stremio is so much better that's why I was leaning more towards doing that. I spent hours to make Kodi UX smoother but at the end of the day it's a slug for the average user.

Do you know how I should route the TV traffic (Stremio) through the VPN on my old laptop tho? Or should I just give up on that part

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It absolutely is, I even set up stremio on a fire stick for my sister and she is absolutely technologically illiterate and would never have understood kodi but with stremio she is doing just fine!

I'm not really sure what you are asking in the second part though. If I'm running stremio on my laptop then I have my airvpn connection running in the background so everything is going via that connection.

On the fire stick I use the proton VPN app and open that up, connect there then all the traffic on the fire stick is forced to go through there.

Using either method the stremio traffic has to go via the respective VPN. Maybe I'm missing something with the question though so if I'm being stupid please say and I'll try and help further :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for elaborating! Not at all, my bad for not explaining! So what is happening is that I'm using Mullvad, and there is a limit on number of connections I can have. I'm already using them all so I can't just connect my TV to it as well. However my homeserver (a.k.a. my old laptop) is using one of the connections so I thought maybe it would be a good idea to make the TV traffic go through that too.

I gotta mention I'm new to all this so if I'm talking outta my butt feel free to laugh at my comment and correct me :D

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Ah OK, im with you now. If there is a way to do that then I don't know how I am afraid. I would personally just change up the connections so you could use the TV as one of them purely for the ease of it as I like to make my life as easy as possible xD

Sorry I can't help any further with that but good luck with your endeavours, if you choose to go stremio I think you'll be impressed compared to kodi :D

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Thank youuu :D

I'll definitely try it out

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You're already familiar with Kodi, so install that on your Android TV. I have an Nvidia Shield with Kodi, and it just plays movies straight from my server. You should be able to use the TV's remote to control Kodi without worrying about the VPN.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah you're right. Although I'm not against learning new stuff, and hearing how stremio is more streamlined to interact with, I thought it would be a good choice but I wanna hear different opinions from the community so thanks for your comment :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

A lot will also depend on your personal usage. Whilst I agree wholeheartedly that Stremio UX is much better that Kodi, out of the box, the one thing that keeps me with Kodi is the fact that it has far superior Trakt integration.

I will admit that Stremio is getting better it's still a far cry from Kodi with Trakt integration and it's something I rely heavily on.

That said if Trakt is not your thing then Stremio is probably a better option.

Also, if you're using RD either with Kodi or Stremio there's no real need to use a VPN as well as traffic is passed over HTTPS so the ISP only sees that you're connecting to RD not what you're doing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

True. Guess I'll have to give it a shot to get a feel for myself. What do you use Trakt for that you feel so dependent on it?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sorry for the late reploy, but this is what my KODI with trakt looks like on opening the app and the movie section is the same. All widgets are driven by my Trakt account

alt text

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That actually looks nice.. my Kodi is a mess 😅

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I use Fentastic skin with Umbrella add-on.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Damn you. You had me with that beautiful tuxedo. Where are the mods? This isn't even fair.

I'm an old school plex user and think it would serve your purposes well, but I know jellyfin is the more popular option around these parts. Being comfortable with plex and reading about jellyfin, I've felt that jellyfin seemed a bit more fussy to implement but I assume that comes with greater customizability.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Hehehehe >:3

Hmm I heard plex and jellyfin both suffer from file duplication and storage management issues that's why I was leaning more towards stremio. That and how easy it is to set up. Do you have to download movies first to watch them with Plex?

Follow-up question: Do you use that with RD?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Isn't stremio just an aggreagator for streaming services you pay for?

I use plex for streaming downloaded media yes, but it does have a free streaming service with incredibly bad movies, like almost watchable because they are comically Bad. No issues with storage or file duplication that I've ever experienced.

I don't know what Rd is

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

So to my understanding, the Stremio + RD (Real-Debrid) + Torrentio is working in such a way that, Torrentio is the aggregator, then Real-Debrid will work as direct download for the torrent, and finally Stremio will play the content from the link. So technically speaking you don't need to deal with downloading stuff.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Sounds like a lot of potential points of failure but would probably be real nice when it's working!

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