this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2025
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Alternatives to Roku/AppleTV for Jellyfin Client (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 week ago by nix98@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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My jellyfin collection has finally become large enough that I have been able to cancel all my streaming services. My issue now is that I want to get rid of my Roku's that are hooked up to each TV.

Is there a good alternative? It MUST be family approved, meaning:

  1. It is not visible (no desktop/laptop hooked up)
  2. It is low power
  3. It has a simple remote control
  4. It supports Jellyfin
  5. It is relatively cheap (< $150)

I am sure I could build something out of a raspberry pi, but:

  1. I don't need another project I have to fiddle with
  2. It MUST support new codecs (h.265/AC1/aac/...) as I want direct play from my server
  3. If it stutters/buffers once, it goes into the trash!

I've generally been mostly happy with my Roku, and my pi.hole blocks most of their analytics, but last week, I pressed the home button on my Roku and it started play a video add with audio. Completely unacceptable (That has happened twice in the last week). And in general, the more of this crap I can get out of my life the better!

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[–] SpatchyIsOnline@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm currently using a raspberry pi 5 flashed with Konstakang's Android TV image, it works pretty flawlessly and takes less than an hour to set up, assuming you have the APKs of everything you want to install. You don't need to mess around with Google play services because most TV android apps are also designed to run on firesticks which don't have it.

The one issue I have encountered is that the Jellyfin client very occasionally won't play some 4k HDR media in the default player (all my 1080p stuff works fine) so I also installed MPV and I turn on alternative player in the Jellyfin settings in the rare case something doesn't work.

[–] haque@lemm.ee 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I did not like the Rpi5 with Android TV as a jellyfin client. There is no support for Dolby Vision HDR content and playback of other 4k media was stuttering. With DV content I got the purple/green tinted picture. Sometimes the pi would only display a quarter of the picture.

I used Konstakangs AndroidTV image with a flirc USB Dongle for use with a tv remote. F-Droid store apk for all necessary apps.

If you have any recommendations how to fix stuttery 4k playback I would be interested. For now I just stick with the built in Android TV of my sony television.

[–] SpatchyIsOnline@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I remember trying the Android TV 14 image a while ago and it was basically unusable as you describe, the new Android TV 15 image has fixed virtually all those issues for me. YMMV but IMO it's worth experimenting and seeing if it works for you, there's a chance I just got lucky though

[–] haque@lemm.ee 1 points 6 days ago

Thank you for taking the time to respond! I guess I'll pop in another sd card and give the android 15 image a chance!