Or even better, get one of the many LibreELEC supported devices (including, as somebody mentioned, a Raspberry Pi 5) and put LibreELEC on it (which is a pared-down Linux with Kodi).

Personally after maybe a decade running successive generations of TV Media Players to play my growing video file collection on my TV, on my latest upgrade I ended up going down the Mini-PC with Linux and Kodi on autostart route (as I used it also as a home server) and am very satisfied with it, though if I wanted to just use it as a Media Player I would've gone with LibreELEC and on of the various ARM SBCs they support (maybe the Pi, maybe something cheaper).

There really is no reason to use closed commercial solutions for this.

Edit: If all you do is consume media on it via Kodi, you can use a remote like this one so it's the same usage experience as with a commercial device, just without the enshittification.

[–] Rooster326@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

The number one feature in my streaming device is that it has HDMI cec and a one handed simple remote interface. No keyboard. No mouse. Low power usage as a bonus.

How can I make both happen?

I've tried so so many couch keyboards and they are all miserable even with a track pad or track ball. I also have a unified remote on my phone and I still hate having to go find my phone and unlock it. Then it occasionally doesn't connect for reasons beyond my understanding so I have to take half an hour to debug.

Duck even if I could use my xbox controller for everything, id be happy but no it only works in games reliably.

[–] Kyle11leo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 days ago

If you're using Kodi on a PC and want your TV remote to control Kodi or your Kodi remote to control your TV, there's this little doodad that might help https://www.pulse-eight.com/p/104/usb-hdmi-cec-adapter

It's built in to RPi. I've got LibreELEC on it. My Kodi goes to sleep after 1 minute idle and sends the signal to turn off the TV. I also added a button to my home page to turn off the TV. When I push a button to wake up Kodi, it turns the TV on. There is a bug where when it sleeps during playback it shows a black screen instead of turning off, so i have to stop playback to make it turn the TV off. I opened a bug about it and they mentioned it might be fixed in the nightly release 22 builds but I never got around to trying it.

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