Open Source TV Interface (Roku / Google TV alternative)?

[Thomas A. Fine]

Is there any decent open source alternative to using the crappy Google TV that comes with the television, or the crappier non-Google TV proprietary interface from utterly clueless TV companies, or buying a Roku?

As open source things do, this seems like a relatively easy project that should exist.  You need to show the apps that you want to use on your TV.  And accessing the API for each app to list out "Continue Watching"  across all apps would be useful. A cross-app content search that works better than what's out there seems doable.  And it would be nice to have a wish list of things you want to see, so that you get notified when something becomes available on one of the services you use.  It should talk to your local media servers too, but there's probably already an app for that that people are using so that's a simple matter of supporting the apps (which is zero work, since I'm assuming an android-based solution that would be able to run all the same android apps that Google TV does).  It would also be great to integrate your retro games into it.

 

In other words, it seems like it should be pretty easy to do a better job than existing services, without ads, without personal data collection, and in an android skin that should run on a very cheap generic device.

[jaslion]

A cheap mini pc with linux on it. Hp mini desktops with like a 8500t are 100€ ish and will do nicely. Then slap kodi on it.

 

1 hour ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

android apps that Google TV does).  It would also be great to integrate your retro games into it.

No! You need google services support for most of that and guess what open soirce android projects dont get? That!

You can patch it in but well extra step and not always everything works. Netflix and all those streamers will downgrade you to lowest quality because of beinf a unverified device so well might as well just pc box it.

 

[brukar]

That really just sounds like a small pc to me. I use one of those really small office computers I got cheap second hand, stuffed it behind the AV receiver with a small wireless keyboard/touchpad receiver on a USB extension cable. I set it to wake-on-power and hooked the entire setup up to a power strip with a cabled switch. One click and the whole setup is on and ready in a few seconds. Zero power draw when off. For software, some flavor of Linux that suits your tastes, with whatever suite of players and services you desire. Retro gaming should work fine on even very basic office machines. If you want to play newer and/or more demanding games, you can get a new machine with a newer iGPU/APU. According to what I've read online, they are comparable to mid/high end cards from ~2010 or so. Which in theory should set you up to play a pretty big catalogue of games, including such bangers as Skyrim, the Mass Effect series, the earlier Assassin's Creed games, and Pong.

[ChrisLoudon]

3 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

Is there any decent open source alternative to using the crappy Google TV that comes with the television, or the crappier non-Google TV proprietary interface from utterly clueless TV companies, or buying a Roku?

As other have suggested, a mini-pc would do the job but its not optimal in terms of quality / fidelity.

 

Dolby Vision support would be the thing you'd likely lose or have trouble with.

 

No issues with the established set-top boxes like the Shield or a Roku but DV support on PC limited. Its been a while since I've used a PC for streaming media playback from these sources but I think Edge is the only browser that supports in and even then I couldn't get it working or wasn't convinced it was when its said it was. As I said, its been a while since I've looked into this so feedback would be welcome!

 

I'm like you and hate adds and a million different things to sign up to BUT the Roku boxes are neat little packages that feel snappy and kinda just work. I use them in secondary viewing areas like bedrooms and have an Nvidia Shield for my main movie room.

 

The Shield is rather expensive given the competition BUT its one of the only devices that can playback DV from MKV stored on a NAS / Plex / Jellyfin Server.

[Donut417]

6 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

Is there any decent open source alternative to using the crappy Google TV that comes with the television, or the crappier non-Google TV proprietary interface from utterly clueless TV companies, or buying a Roku?

I think the issue is due to DRM. Most streaming services for example will make the experience in using a web browser on your PC a crappier experience. For example I cant get anything above 720p using Safari. I think in MS Edge you can do 4K, but you have to stand on your head and say the ABC backwards to get it to work. This is all due to "Piracy" of course. So to get the best possible experience you need to use the app for the service you want to use. 

[Thomas A. Fine]

Everybody suggesting hardware, but obvioiusly there's a ton of options there.  I was really asking if there's already a software project like this.  And if not, why not.

 

5 hours ago, jaslion said:

No! You need google services support for most of that and guess what open soirce android projects dont get? That!

You can patch it in but well extra step and not always everything works. Netflix and all those streamers will downgrade you to lowest quality because of beinf a unverified device so well might as well just pc box it.

This would be a problem.    I has assumed that while Netflix downgrades on Linux, it doesn't downgrade on android, and that open source android would still run a lot of that stuff.

I wonder if there could be some semi-official effort, which could provide guarantees to Google, Netflix, etc., but still not be evil.  Some sort of non-profit corporation that would provide a single locked down distribution but still be open source.

It still seems like there should be a path to creating something like this within the open source community.  All the commercial options are some combination of crappy and evil.