Pi5 or Pi4 streing computer.

D1craig

D1craig

D1craig

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So I've been looking to get myself a streaming box like a firestick but better. I have a firestick and I feel it just doesn't have enough memory or space or whatever and always seems to run slow when I get the apps or programs I want to run on it.

I want to run streaming apps like netflix, disney plus and maybe even sky sports.

From my research it seems the pi5 just can't do it even as good as my old firestick.
The pi4 seems to have encoding/decoding that the pi5 doesn't have.
I will be getting a pi 4 or 5 just to mess with eventually but I would speed up that process if I can use one to stream videos from the streaming apps.
 
Non starter, as unless you are going to use the web versions of each of those apps, there isn't a way to use them.

I've never had an issue with the performance of Roku streaming devices, but for best performance I think you'd probably need to look at an Nvidia Shield or Apple TV
 
I think you can install Kodi branch on a pi5 but you'd need ir remote control .

I have a pi5 but I use it for music server picoreplayer

Not sure how DRM license works in apps but as regular Kodi box should be ok playing local video and audio files
 
How would I go about building a mini pc similar to an n100 or something along the ryzen cpu/apus? I cant find what motherboards I'd need or anything other components that go with them. I've got the urge to build and I want to build something useful.
 
D1craig said:
How would I go about building a mini pc similar to an n100 or something along the ryzen cpu/apus? I cant find what motherboards I'd need or anything other components that go with them. I've got the urge to build and I want to build something useful.
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I haven't built a HTPC in years- no point as the off the shelf media boxes generally are fine- remote control, cheap, small, low power, silent, HDMI out with all bitstream pass through with no messing about.

I've used a couple of amlogic boxes, I'm on a 905x3 and it does everything except AV-1 codec, I think the newer versions do.

Ideally want a OS that is media front end only, not windows + kodi as it just makes it more complicated. You'll also need IR receiver dongle. Hopefully has proper framerate switching/scaling/bitstream out otherwise just expensive experiment.
 
D1craig said:
I've got the urge to build and I want to build something useful.
Click to expand...

Not sure how you can build anything useful when there's no way to integrate all the various streaming services into anything you build.

D1craig said:
I want to run streaming apps like netflix, disney plus and maybe even sky sports.
Click to expand...

As said earlier, this is a non starter. Better to just get an Nvidia shield
 
Armageus said:
Not sure how you can build anything useful when there's no way to integrate all the various streaming services into anything you build.



As said earlier, this is a non starter. Better to just get an Nvidia shield
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yeah I read something about DRM key and app support or something, those cheap chinese boxes aren't supported so apps won't work.

If that is important than get a video streamer that is official Nvidia shield and others...but you'll be paying for it...compared to the cheap amlogic boxes £25 will do, a basic 2GB RAM is fine for local video files on NAS.

I'm happy with mine, but the supplied IR remotes are terrible, with hardly any IR power in them. I've used corelec on microsd to bypass the android/kodi method as I had issues with processing, and now OS overhead is much lower.
 
I've not looked at the other options ie. Shield, roku etc. I do have a firestick and in all fairness it functions fine ( well it did when I got it, haven't used it for ages ) I just assumed something with more RAM, upgradeable storage and maybe a better cpu would do a lot better and a pi5 was in my head.

So now it's a question of firestick ( might buy a cube ) or a mini pc ie. N100. I dont want to spend more than a firecube would cost me for a mini pc.
 
For the price of an N100 based mini PC, you can buy an Nvidia Shield TV Pro (if buying second hand, likely with some money still in your pocket). If you're not bothered about local playback, the regular Shield is even cheaper and will happily playback anything from pretty much any streaming platform. They really are one of the best media playback devices out there. The Pro has a huge list of codecs and compatibility. I use a Pro for local playback with Plex for my ripped 4K UHD collection and it's literally faultless. I have used it with Prime Video, YouTube and Disney+ in the past and had no issues.

I've built many HTPC's and similar over the years and honestly they just don't compare. As others have said, having a fast, silent box with a massive list of codec support that for lack of a better term, "just works" and includes a solid remote (all hail the Toblerone!) it's hard to beat!
 
cokecan said:
For the price of an N100 based mini PC, you can buy an Nvidia Shield TV Pro (if buying second hand, likely with some money still in your pocket). If you're not bothered about local playback, the regular Shield is even cheaper and will happily playback anything from pretty much any streaming platform. They really are one of the best media playback devices out there. The Pro has a huge list of codecs and compatibility. I use a Pro for local playback with Plex for my ripped 4K UHD collection and it's literally faultless. I have used it with Prime Video, YouTube and Disney+ in the past and had no issues.

I've built many HTPC's and similar over the years and honestly they just don't compare. As others have said, having a fast, silent box with a massive list of codec support that for lack of a better term, "just works" and includes a solid remote (all hail the Toblerone!) it's hard to beat!
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I do want it to be a bit of a pc aswell though. The main goal will be streaming from such apps but I want to do some other pc stuff aswell. Play some very light gaming (atm raid shadow legends but likely others in the future), browse the Internet etc etc.
 
I'm not familiar with that game, but Google suggests it's available on mobile and major OS's (Win/Mac). If that's right then a Pi wouldn't have been suitable in the first place. The Shield like many of these HTPC boxes are Android based. It's likely you could install or sideload the game directly and play it. There's also the option of Steam Link if you have another machine with Steam installed (assuming you have it on Steam).

Otherwise if you want to game on it to, then I'd guess an N100 Windows based system might be what you're looking for, though I have no idea what streaming services are like in Windows now days.
 
D1craig said:
I do want it to be a bit of a pc aswell though. The main goal will be streaming from such apps but I want to do some other pc stuff aswell. Play some very light gaming (atm raid shadow legends but likely others in the future), browse the Internet etc etc.
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Have both. Use PC for gaming, and a kodi box or similar for video files.
 
I went through this recently and settled on a Chinese android box, works absolutely fine. Deals with all codecs from my Plex server etc.

Would've went for a shield if I wasn't so cheap, but in hindsight I saved myself £90~ and works fine.

You can also connect a pad and play shadow legends etc
 
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Begbie said:
I went through this recently and settled on a Chinese android box, works absolutely fine. Deals with all codecs from my Plex server etc.

Would've went for a shield if I wasn't so cheap, but in hindsight I saved myself £90~ and works fine.
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yeah the amlogic boxes are decent enough although I have come across some AV-1 codecs so make sure a new box supports that, as it just plays at 5fps and lags.

Android OS wasn't great though as pass through wasn't working properly and no matter what I did it had some kind of extra video processing going on, you could tell straight away, booting into coreelec showed a cleaner less processed image. Bitstreaming worked also.
 
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