Are mini stick PCs practical to set up as a media player, eg with jellyfin? Some advantages are the small form factor that plugs straight into the HDMI port, and flexibility/privacy vs using a dongle from a shitty company like amazon/google/roku.

Are there any things to watch out for to ensure it has enough compute power and hardware decoding? I just want it to play HD video with a jellyfin app/browser page.

I’m assuming it’s no big deal to install Linux on (x86 hardware?), do you need to watch out for specific device support? Thanks

  • yaroto98@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    2 days ago

    I found this one on amazon

    https://a.co/d/05wDgslY

    it advertises linux compatibility. So, I’d agree with you, installing shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve heard about a project called Plasma Bigscreen, might be exactly what you’re looking for. I’ve also heard flir remotes work pretty will with linux tv boxes. Those plug pcs have usb slots, you might want to figure out if you need an extension cable so the ir can reach the dongle.

    • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pubEnglish
      9·
      2 days ago

      I have one of these, and it sucks as a portable PC. As a jellyfish client, it might do fine. One thing you should know, while the power is USBC, it only works with its own usbc, and that adapter is 24v.

      • yaroto98@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        Interesting, did you have windows on it, or did you throw a real OS on it? If so, what distro/DE?

        • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pubEnglish
          2·
          20 hours ago

          It came with windows 10, and claimed to be upgradeable to 11 (it wasn’t). I used it with lmde, though, so the upgrade lie, while was a shite thing to do, didn’t really affect me.

          • yaroto98@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            20 hours ago

            Interesting, I assume lmde would be comparable to a say fedora based plasma bigscreen install resource wise. It’s not like you were using a super lightweight distro. I’m actually surprised the plasma bigscreen devs haven’t made a super light weight install guide based off alpine or a pared down debian or arch for lowend hardware like OP is asking about.

            • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pubEnglish
              2·
              16 hours ago

              I’m hoping the BigScreen install would be better as a settopbox, but I wanted a portable PC lol

              It was smooth enough, just slow. A bit expected for how intensive lmde is, but I really wanted it to work with that. Maybe I’m judging too harshly

              • yaroto98@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                16 hours ago

                I’ve been looking into these PCs as a replacement roku box since responding to the thread. I have a shield, and its fine, but I don’t think it’s worth the price. It’s glitchy and the 3rd party launcher sometimes flips out. It also keeps wanting me to up the refresh rate, but whenever I do, it breaks. My TV doesn’t like it despite it being supported.

                • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘@infosec.pubEnglish
                  1·
                  16 hours ago

                  It might be fine for that, I’m not sure. It kind of sucked playing HD video (hadn’t tried 4k), but it was trying to do so under a full lmde environment lol

                  • yaroto98@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    1·
                    15 hours ago

                    Hmmmm good to know. I’m sure the N100 models could handle it fine. Still tempting to pick up one of the cheap ones to play with. Kind of like a raspberry pi.

    • eyesaremosaics@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
      6·
      2 days ago

      Ok, I’ve been checking out some older ones for half the price (possibly used as well), the main requirement I’ve been checking is just hardware decoding, with a light weight Linux setup I think it should be sufficient.

      The remote is worth considering, I might look into Bluetooth or RF based approaches as they are a bit more flexible than IR with positioning. Or even phone app based methods are possible

      • lemmyvore@feddit.nlEnglish
        2·
        20 hours ago

        Some extra options you might want to consider:

        • Having the device act like a DLNA renderer. You still need it to run a graphical stack and a DLNA app, but you can control it with a DLNA controller app on your phone, and tell it to fetch content from your Jellyfin server if you activate the DLNA plugin so it will act like a DLNA server. DLNA needs network broadcast so it will work if the stick/phone/server all all on local LAN but typically can’t cross VLANs.
        • Having the device run a Tailscale client alongside Kodi or connecting to Jellyfin with a browser or client. If you also put Tailscale on the server you will be able to securely connect to it even on vacations (hotel TV for example).
      • yaroto98@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        2 days ago

        Yea, with a full pc setup and OS I don’t think you’ll have a problem with watching media. Even if hardware isn’t available for your cpu (unlikely) software will be. In the jellyfin client you can change your player to vlc if you have any issues playing video.

    • yaroto98@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      2 days ago

      To also answer the transcoding issue, Jellyfin should be able to handle it. I have had issues where the client thinks it can play a media stream so the server serves it, but the client fails to play it. I usually either download a different file or manually transcode it to a different filetype that I know the client can play. I wouldn’t think a celeron processor would have issues playing media. Those issues were on like firetv or roku embedded system boxes, not full pcs.