i have a fire tv stick at the moment and it's really sluggish even when just going through menus. is picrel (jewgle tv streamer 4k) any good? can i play media stored on a USB drive from it?
Most of these streaming boxes are Chinese made and have c2 or other back doors built in by China https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2025/PSA250605
A laptop.
>>107552061Do normies really ?
>>107552061Xiaomi or ONN if you live in the US I've heard are good for the price. If you have money to spend I'm pretty sure the nvidia shield is still the best option. Also set up Stremio on it.
>>107552206Raspberry Pi is peak normieTerrible price:performance
bump for answers
>>107552061I got one just because I cannot trust other brands to keep their shit up to date, and apparently ONN (at least when I was looking) didn't have AndroidTV 14.It's decently fast, but not smooth like my ATV4K used to be before liquid arse.The youtube app sometimes gets slow, but nothing crazy.It's good, I use it mostly for YT, Plex and Casting.
>>107552915Also, it has the perk of having an IR blaster on the remote, so you can control TV volume or whatever if not supported thru HDMI, which was my case.
will any box give me tubi and pluto and whatever else is free?I got a sony bluray player from the thrift store and it came with Tubi and turns out I liked it but then Sony cut support maybe a year later.I don't really know anything about streaming boxes. I used to pay for Netflix over my old roommates PlayStation but that and the bluray are the only things I've ever used
>>107552511you got filtered by basic tech lel
>>107552206I actually have tried installing LineageOS and Android TV on one of those. The former was a garbage experience and the latter is no better than a normal Chromecast (because it literally is the same).Any recommendations for OS?
>>107552061Nvidia Shield TV Pro is still the king. The Chinese boxes are 100% untrustworthy (malware, stolen credentials, etc), the Apple TV is fucking annoying to use if you're not elbow deep in their ecosystem and Roku sells any data it can get about you like a fucking crackhead.
>>107552061You must have had an old firestick, the most recent 4k one is fast as hell.
>>107552061The only decent one of these is the Apple TV, everything else is increasingly infested with ads, no updates or if you build it yourself you can’t watch anything on a major streaming platform cause your device is not sufficiently cucked. If you have a Jellyfin or something, anything with Kodi should work.
stremio + onn 4k + one of the debrids. Everything will just work. Costs $3 a month. This is the only way to stream 4k Dolby vision and hdr10 instantly without buffering.Side question: has anyone tried running stremio on one of these sbcs like the rpi? Onn is the cheapest by far but I hate that the whole thing is googlfied to shit. Would rather have a computer that boots straight into stremio but I don't think this exists with a small remote, CEC support etc.
>>107553860Apple TV would be a pain to set up if you don’t have at least one other Apple device, but after that it mostly just does it’s own thing.
>>107554146You can use projectivy and adb and remove the stock launcher. That's where all the ads are. Then you get just a minimal custom UI that runs way faster without shoving slop in your face. If you have boomer parents it's good for them too. I set it up so that there's like 3 buttons on it so they can't get confused on how to use it.
>>107552061Old laptop is the standard for everyone I know IRL.When the laptop screen inevitably shits the bed, it gets a new life under the TV. We usually stick linux on it and use one of those pocket-size wireless KB/trackpad things to control it.
>>107554222This works but gives women the ick. At least get a Bluetooth remote
>>107554222Some people aren't in highschool or college anon.
>>107553860The shield is overrated at this point. The hardware is aging. There are better Google TV options (Onn, Xiamoi shit). That run as fast or faster for 1/3 of the price. You will have to debloat them both with adb.
>>107552061depends how much you give a fuck about widevine / google certification and dolby vision playback. https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=376035
>>107552061I have a desktop connected to my TV with a VGA cable and a 3.5mm audio cord
>>107552061I just use the one built into my TV.
>>107552061an old laptop in clamshell mode tucked somewhere out of sight and a pic related.
>>107553812I'd be happy to be able to install Android TV on a mini PC because there has to be something more performant than the shield that isn't some turbo sketchy Chinese bs
>>107554270Hope you have your own isolated network for that Chinese shit unless you enjoy getting *everything* keylogged.
>>107552061Apple TV, it's not even close. Even the remote is better than all the other boxes. Just sucks though that sideloading is a fucking bitch and there's no good way to get something like revanced on to block youtube ads. Everything else about it is great though.
