Already back in the 00s you could get a media player box, with a remote, that hooked to you TV and played video files from any share in your network.
Nowadays you can get an Android TV media player box with Kodi on it (or you can install it), again with a remote and hooked to your TV to do the same as that 00s media player box but looks a lot more fancy.
Or instead of an Android TV you can get a Mini PC or older laptop, ideally with Linux, wit and HDMI output which you connect to your TV, install Kodi on it and get a wireless air-mouse remote (if you get one with normal remote buttons rather than the stupid “for Google” ones, it seamlessly integrates with Kodi so you don’t really have to use the air-mouse stuff).
Alternativelly if you want to avoid Android but don’t want to spend 150 bucks on a mini PC, you can get one of those System On A Board devices like one of the Orange Pi ones, put LibreElec on it (small Linux distro built around Kodi) and do the wireless mouse thing with it.
The back end of any of this is either files on a NAS, on a share on a PC, a harddisk connected directly to the device or even something like Jellyfin running somewhere else (which can be outside your home network) or even any of the many IPTV services out there.
It has never been this easy to put together a hardware and software solution, entirely under your control to watch media in your living room with the same convenience as a purpose built devices for that, and it has never been this convenient of looked this good.
ripcord@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Instead of using a streaming or other settop device? That’d be far, far more normal for the use cade.
InternetUser2012@midwest.social 1 week ago
I find it convenient, but I’ve had pc’s hooked to tv’s since broadband became a thing. I can watch anything, download anything, play games, check banking, ect.
ripcord@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Fair enough.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I have one of those Google streaming devices but I hate giving up my privacy. Also, I saw fast food ads on the device’s home screen one day and I couldn’t disable those. That was the last straw.
So now I use a raspberry pi 5 running arch with Firefox to stream everything to my TV. I even got a remote working with it that works fairly well, moves the mouse and everything. It was a lot of work but now I own my experience and don’t have to give Google my data in that particular way anymore.
shalafi@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I’m using a wall-mounted TV as a 2nd monitor.
ripcord@lemmy.world 1 week ago
From a couch, though? That was the use case here.
I have one of those as well for one desktop system. And I will stream to TVs as a second monitor from laptops sometimes. But I don’t think that’s the setup they have.
Which of course is a good setup if it works for them! Or for you :)