I swear shit like this is why Lemmy is so incredibly out of touch with the real world. I can’t take the community seriously anymore.
Comment on Thousands of Android TV devices come with unkillable backdoor preinstalled
itsraining@lemmy.world 11 months ago
That’s why you should build your own media center from an old machine. Much safer and more private.
mojo@lemm.ee 11 months ago
itsraining@lemmy.world 11 months ago
So my home media center is not real world enough? I only expressed an opinion; you are free to ignore it. Also, there is nothing that keeps you here. Please kindly keep in mind that most Lemmy users right now are interested in technology, you can’t take that away from them and there is nothing wrong with it. If you want to stay away from “shit like this”, then you probably should not be in a technology sub in the first place.
Copernican@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I think the difference is folks confuse the general public with the general lemmy user.
CeeBee@lemmy.world 11 months ago
People have been using old computers as media centres for decades at this point. Not sure what you’re on about.
Copernican@lemmy.world 11 months ago
but where does the media come from?
CeeBee@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Legally would be DVDs, Blurays, and DRM-free sources.
I’ve torrented movies I have physical copies of before. It’s faster than ripping and encoding it myself. And notice I didn’t say “pirated”?
You can’t pirate something you legally own a copy of. That fast was a major factor in some of the high profile lawsuits against individuals. If the person being sued owned a copy of the movie/song then they dropped it from the list.
smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 11 months ago
Because something is not popular and not available in typical electronic store doesn’t mean it’s not real.
I know having a private life may seem unreal in recent ~10 years, but it surely can be done without giving up modern life. All it takes is a little time for research and saying “no” sometimes. The hardest part are always areas where more people like that are needed to say “no”.
Copernican@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I agree. Too many comments and threads are hijacked or over represented by the pro piracy crowd. I wish more communities would just ban the shit post of “yar, time to sail the high seas” that seem to be the top comment on any media related post.
danielfgom@lemmy.world 11 months ago
The problem is that YouTube app and F1 app are Android only so having a Linux media box won’t help. It needs to run Android to run Android apps.
Plus I like to use Chromecast, we use it all the time to send YouTube videos from our phones to the big screen.
hikaru755@feddit.de 11 months ago
What’s wrong with using YouTube in a browser?
danielfgom@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Can’t control it from my phone. Would need a mouse. At least I’m tech minded. My wife isn’t and there is no way she would stand for using a mouse and browser on the TV.
CeeBee@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Get a media centre remote. Works great.
And if you have an Android phone use KDE Connect. There’s a Windows version now also, and you can do just about everything with it.
hikaru755@feddit.de 11 months ago
Ah, right, makes sense. I’m using a steam controller (or any other controller with steam, honestly) instead of a mouse, which works well enough
itsraining@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I don’t know about apps like F1 and Chromecast, but I can see that it could be a problem. But YouTube has worked fine for me with the MPV player. Maybe you could try Android-x86? (is that thing still alive? 😅)
Maximilious@kbin.social 11 months ago
You're going to build your own smart TV that can handle new HDMI and Displayport advancements too?
dustyData@lemmy.world 11 months ago
This is going to come as a shock to you, but HDMI has been a thing since 2004. You can find 15 year old dumb TVs with HDMI.
BigT54@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Or you could just use a new tv with smart features and never connect it to your network. It’s what I’ve done with all the TVs in my house and I simple use an external device I trust to stream.
lemann@lemmy.one 11 months ago
Newer “smart” sets, particularly from Vizio and a couple other brands, will not let you exit the setup or use the inputs without an internet connection
piecat@lemmy.world 11 months ago
This is going to be such a nightmare as smart devices become the majority.
Didn’t connect your TV to the Internet? Don’t worry, it’ll spy on you by connecting to the neighbor’s tv. Or the built-in WiFi in the modem. Or the power company’s smart meter via powerline-networking.
Products are going to be engineered to sell backdoor access at a hefty price, if they aren’t already.
Things are going to get scary.
agent_flounder@lemmy.one 11 months ago
Pff sure. How hard can it be? Few resistor thingies and some capaci-whatsists, and Arduino, done.
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
The correct answer is usually Raspberry pi + github.
Although I have no idea what those mean
TheGreenGolem@lemm.ee 11 months ago
You can easily configure those with block-chain based AI.
Sethayy@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Almost any ARM SBC and a dumb TV will do, install linux/a minimal wayland compositor and waydroid and youre laughing
Any time there’s a advancement you just update the board, instead of the whole TV (which its not like normal smart TV’s update their ports anyways?)
wafflez@lemmy.world 11 months ago
How?
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de 11 months ago
/partition will do), maybe have a homemade NAS ready tooSEND_NOODLES_PLS@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Cheers, I’m using this as a jump off point for a weekend project maybe. Would anything change if I was interested in casting content too?
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de 11 months ago
I think Kodi does some casting… Not 100% sure.
Make sure
TearFreeis enabled in the graphics configuration (google it).The hardest part in my project was recalibrating the colors because my TV in HDMI-RGB mode (as opposed to YCbCr) displays everything below 10% brightness as black. The rest was done very quickly. I don’t even need a sequential-chunk torrent software because I use FreeRapid Downloader and ulozto.net (can download fast enough to play while downloading at reasonable 720p/1080p bitrates, otherwise
ulozto-downloaderand a 10min wait is needed).loutr@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Kodi supports DLNA, a media library sharing/casting standard.
TwanHE@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Stremio on a old windows laptop is a good easy alternative
Mojojojo1993@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Could you use a pi ? Do you have any recommendations on ssd / hdd
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de 11 months ago
You can use a relatively cheap Pi as a NAS (network-attached storage), and possibly add Kodi media server capabilities (useful for smart TVs). Check if that model supports a sufficiently fast disk interface (USB 3.0, SATA etc.) and Ethernet (100 Mb/s or better if 4K is required). Boot from an SD card and use a 2TB+ HDD (1TB could be enough if you barely store anything).
I don’t know which Pi models can smoothly play HD video without overheating, I don’t own any. But those that can are likely a lot more expensive than old PCs you could use otherwise. I would just get a cheap one for a NAS and probably some other common network use cases (web server, Pihole etc.)
danque@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Yes just research how to install Plex or Kodi on your pi. I just did it this evening for an update. For that I used docker with Linuxserver/Plex. It takes some time to get all the settings but there are good YouTube tutorials on how to do it.
Lupara@lemmy.sdf.org 11 months ago
You’d be better off with a used office pc, something with a 4. Or 6. gen Intel CPU is usually cheaper than a RPI and way more versatile. Only thing you lose on is size and power consumption.
Limit@lemm.ee 11 months ago
OK I’ve tried in the past to make a decent streaming box from both windows media center edition and various Linux distros. But I need something that is simple, can be controlled entirely from a remote, and has the major streaming apps (Netflix, disney, etc). I haven’t really found any solution that’s easy enough for non techie people to use. I have a standalone roku box that works ok we also have a roku TV which is a giant piece of garbage, and I’m considering buying an external roku or nvidia shield as a streaming box instead, I do have a couple of raspberry pi 4s I could use one but again I’m faced with the same issues.
sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz 11 months ago
This may seem like a bit much, but it pretty much holds your hand to guide you through the install.
itsraining@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Have you tried Kodi?
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Look into Plex servers, that should keep you busy for the next six months till you get it up and running.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 11 months ago
Or Jellyfin. Because free.
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
That will keep you busy for a full year.
Mojojojo1993@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Is jellyfin a better alternative?
CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 11 months ago
It’ll only take a few minutes to setup. Once you get hooked you’ll spend a lot more time automating everything and adding more storage.