Basically title. How does one go about pairing third party services like streaming services to a mini PC so that you can stream it on your dumb / degoogled TV? I don’t really know how TVs work, much less mini PCs, so if anybody could dumb it down for me I’d appreciate it. What does your setup look like, if you have a dumb TV (e.g running kodiTV without network connection)?
Take a TV, strap a mini PC like one of those BeeLink ones to the back (it comes with mounting hardware), plug an HDMI cable between them. Connect a wireless keyboard with trackpad, and congrats! You’ve got a big screen computer.
The next bits really depend on your technical know-how. What I did was wiped Windows from the PC and installed Linux, then installed Jellyfin and Firefox.
Jellyfin works as a media server so I can stream my own collection of videos/images anywhere im my home, and Firefox with uBlock Origin means I can log in to any streaming service I want, without the ads. And I can log into my (on-device) Jellyfin server the same way.
I’ve tried all the interfaces like XBMC/Kodi and Plesk etc. and find it’s more of a headache than just having a keyboard handy.
Cool, cool. Do mini PCs come with an OS preinstalled? And what are some good wireless keyboard brands?
Logitech makes a nice tv keyboard with integrated trackpad (logi k600), I have one for use with my iPad. There are cheaper options though. Just search for tv keyboard. (I for one love having an integrated trackpad but you could just as easily get a cheap wireless mouse and keyboard.
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/5911320
Docker
AdguardHome - Adblocker for all your devices
Jellyfin - For watching the content you download
Qbittorrent - Torrent downloader
Jackett - Torrent indexers provider
Flaresolverr - For auto solving captcha in some of the indexers
Sonarr - *arr service for automatically downloading TV shows
Radarr - *arr service for movies
Readarr - *arr service for (audio)books
lidarr - *arr service for music
Bazarr - Automatically downloads subtitles for Sonarr and Radarr
Ombi/Overseer - For requesting movies and tv shows through Sonarr and Radarr
Heimdall - Dashboard for all the services so you don’t need to remember all the ports
Your tv is a monitor. Treat it as such.
Assuming you’re using a modern TV, it functions just like a monitor for a computer. A mini PC is the same as a desktop/laptop, just in a little box. So basically you just plug the mini PC in with an HDMI to the TV, install the apps you need on the mini PC and you’re good to go
Oh sweet! So, let’s say I install MAX on the mini PC; will it show up as a clickable app on the TV or will I always have to use the PC to click on things/start shows/etc?
With a HDMI-CEC Adapter it could be, that you can even use your TV remote to control your PC/Kodi
Not sure if your TV supports it - as I’m not much of a TV guy and don’t know, if you need any higher standard for that
But I’m quite happy with an old laptop + Kodi, linked up to my TV. Works quite well.
Only have to go through some audio settings for modern movies, where the sound mixing is usually not nice for dialogues…
