You can buy a good mini-pc for a couple hundred bucks and its much more powerful and flexible. You can run windows or linux etc and hook up any keyboard, controller, remote, and do whatever you like.
More flexible, yes, but are you really getting more powerful than an A15 for that price, especially when running a general purpose OS?
That last point is really hurting why media PCs disappeared: you’re paying considerably more - a whole number multiple - for an experience which isn’t designed for a TV, and in return you get the fun of playing sysadmin when you’re trying to relax. Most people are not going to pay a significant premium so they can deal with drivers and trying to figure out why their HDR isn’t working. Device lifetime theoretically could counter that out but I’m skeptical that hardware won’t be what sets the timing for that in either case, and the dollars per year metric isn’t favorable there.
There are certainly better push-button solutions on the market, but arguing in the AppleTV's favor for performance is probably a phyrric victory at-best. If you want an AppleTV, get an AppleTV - if you want a streaming box for your ripped Blu-Rays and legally-dumped retrogames, you can build it yourself for roughly the same price.
The cheapest one Google knows about is an AliExpress no-name brand at $159 and that’s because it includes no storage or RAM, and uses a 3750H which benchmarks at less than half the speed. Once you add memory, it’s over $200. It does match the Apple TV on 4K@60 HDR support so I’d assume it must have hardware support.
Amazon has a couple of off-brand Intel devices, also around $200 for around half the Apple device’s performance.
Again, if you really want a PC you certainly can make it work but the reason it’s unpopular is that you’re paying a lot more – this is starting at 150% for hardware which is unlikely to last as long – and you then have to support a full PC, buy remotes, etc. If you enjoy that as a hobby, sure, but it’s hardly surprising that most people buy something which just works out of the box.
Judging by the threads on those proprietary embedded devices, I think my setup passes the "just works when you want it to" test even better than those appliance things, which market an illusion of stability but are doing the same mutable update dance behind the scenes (with the added complication of corporate whims).
As someone who started using desktop Linux and supported it professionally before the turn of the century, yes, I’m aware and you’ll note that I never claimed otherwise. The reason I mentioned general purpose operating systems is that they’re not optimized for non-keyboard/mouse UI and you’re more likely to get in a situation which requires more work to sort out via the CLI.
The other concern I raised was drivers. Support for hardware video decoding, colorspaces & depth, high-quality sound, etc. is certainly technically possible but also something which not-uncommonly ends with angry rants. If you are passionate about open source and eager to take on that responsibility, great, but it’s not a popular choice.
My Kodi box boots straight into Kodi. I have a mini wireless keyboard on it (Rii X8?), but the alphanumeric functionality isn't particularly used and it could just as easily be a video game controller or even an IR remote.
There is no "situation which requires more work to sort out via the CLI", beyond when I deliberately choose to make changes to the system. If I ever did want to pop out of Kodi and run a general desktop + browser - say for sports streams - then the additional input hassle would be due to doing something I couldn't do with an appliance anyway. You can't really characterize this as a drawback.
And sure if some driver functionality doesn't exist, then obviously you can't use it - you set your expectations to what is available and how much you want to tinker. And the real answer to "angry rants" is to use an operating system with reliable change control, so that if you start tinkering with something, it cannot end up in a broken state when you want to use it to relax.
Also I find it a bit disingenuous when people argue for the "less expensive" options that put you at the mercy of streaming companies. My amd64+Kodi+zfs+VPN setup certainly isn't the cheapest, but neither is a corporate puck with several monthly fees for streaming services. If one wanted to be entertained for the least money possible, I suspect that would just consist of using your current laptop/computer running a general purpose OS to play dodgy streaming sites. But most people seemingly want something more than that (which ties back in to my first paragraph).
So I gave in, switched to Plex, paid for a Plexpass lifetime account, and bought embedded devices that could stream content off my server.
I have way less flexibility now that I’m on an AppleTV 4K. I also continue to get occasional headaches (e.g. recently the remote control randomly stops being able to control the volume), but the size of the headache is limited to pulling out a different remote control / turning all the things off and on again. Mental effort not required.
I have a laptop that goes into the 4x2 HDMI splitter, and I occasionally whip that out if there’s a real desperate need. But it’s the absolute last resort. It’s just easier to use the ATV.
It’s not that I lack the ability to produce a better PC based solution today, it’s that I lack the interest, and the $200 ATV is good enough that I’d rather throw money at the problem than time.
> dont see the benefit of these android based TV devices or Apple TV anymore.
My point was simply that an Apple TV is significantly cheaper ($100-120 vs. the $200+ PCs people mentioned) and it has roughly a factor of two better performance. Now, it’s inarguably less flexible but most of that flexibility doesn’t help with things many people want to do, which was the original point: people buy these because “spend less, everything you actually use just works” is actually a pretty good sales pitch.
Setting that all up on PC is much more of a chore.
If all you want is netflix and youtube then of course a 50$ chrome stick is fine.
Having to use a mouse and keyboard is a pain point for me when I use my desktop on my TV from the couch. For the mouse I use the trackpad on a ps5 controller, so the mouse isn't so bad.
Possibly you could: * Not require passwords for everyday operation of your computer * Boot into some sort of launcher designed for televisions * Have a fairly narrow set of apps and services that work well with your setup. For example I don't know how you'd use Netflix or Disney plus with a remote on Linux.
Admittedly I only have local media and YouTube (via a Kodi Plugin)and don't use any streaming services so Kodi fulfils my needs perfectly.
1. https://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Autostart_Kodi_for_Linux
2. https://kodi.wiki/view/Remote_controls
https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Wireless-Media-Keyboard-N9Z...
https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wireless-Multi-touch-Certifi...
https://www.amazon.com/Rii-Wireless-Bluetooth-Backlight-RTi8...
We also have an old laptop attached to the TV. We set that up in the lockdowns so we could use a webcam on the TV and a wired microphone on the coffee table to "get together" with friends and family, still use it occasionally for Dungeons & Dragons with friends who live too far away to visit often. The Apple TV doesn't support webcams, but wins at everything else, hands down. Even for desktop-y stuff, streaming my Macbook or my girlfriend's iPad to the Apple TV is less hassle.
Desktop ergonomics just don't work on the couch, at least for us, even with a nice-ish wireless keyboard with touchpad. Having a touchpad remote with just four buttons that have very predictable functions and a simple mobile-ish UI is nice, even to me, and I'm a desktop power user otherwise. Desktop OSes are for work, school or uni, most people aren't inclined, encouraged and/or enabled to explore and play in those, so they don't get them the way desktop power users do and tend to expect everyone else to, or the way people get mobile UX.
If you want something nearly everyone can pick up quickly, even older children and some seniors, make it touch-based, responsive, give it proper apps and the same core animations mobile phones have and you're 80% there.
That’s about it though.