Creating My Own Linux-Based Smart TV | Hacker News Reader

Creating My Own Linux-Based Smart TV

carltheperson.com

63 pointscarltheperson34 comments

It's always more satisfying to create something yourself but LibreELEC is a minimal Linux distro (barely even a distro) that boots directly into Kodi and is ideal for this kind of use case. It even has native CEC support.

You should have stopped at ‘but’.

Great job, Hacker.

Love a good hack. But in this case, I just use LibreELEC (kodi) and call it a day :D

Kodi is definitely a very cool project.

I haven't used it much myself. How well does it work with streaming services? It seems like it's designed to be really good for offline content.

I use it primarily with my own Jellyfin instance, but there are Netflix, Disney+ and pretty much anything you can think of plugins. The YouTube irritatingly complicated to get working, but then there are "play on kodi" plugins for various browser so you can flip what you're watching to the big screen. It's really an amazing project.

Out of interest, why do you use Kodi as a frontend rather than a native Jellyfin client?

Kodi is a native Jellyfin client, isn’t it?

Being able to play media from Jellyfin and other locations like YouTube, samba shares, etc is why I tend to use Kodi. I’m not stuck with one server/service.

https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/clients/codec-support/

No more transcoding and/or demuxing subtitles on the server

Also the more mature/retro UI, although you can skin it like Jellyfin’s web UI or like yet another streaming service if you prefer

LibreELEC is my go-to as well. I like to buy old thin-clients with bad storage for next to nothing and net-boot them diskless

CoreELEC for me - the Amlogic chips are much more capable than the average Pi/PC/SBC when it comes to video, with features like quality deinterlacing (as good as modern TVs), HD audio passthrough, Dolby Vision, etc. Plus LibreELEC is always a bit janky, be it frame skip, audio sync issues, incorrect output levels, etc

After over 25 years of building various HTPCs (with various assortments of timeshiftimg PVRs like Windows Media, XBMC, Kodi, SageTV, SnapStream, MythTV, TVheadend etc, and futzing with MPEG video-in cards on Windows, RSS feeds, etc), various other TV boxes like Popcorn Hour, and nasty Android TV boxes, I finally settled on the AppleTV 4K paired with Plex server running on Debian on an old HP EliteBook laptop.

Life is too short for messing around with these sort of sub-optimal workarounds in 2024, when there are now finally great affordable fuss-free tech out there.

im in the same boat as you. i have a roku currently talking to my jellyfin server running on my pi and a few months ago roku decided there needed to be more adds and it really has killed what little speed the roku had to begin with

definitely eyeing an apple 4k tv and getting a lifetime subscription to the infuse player

I've been doing something similar for awhile. Using my old laptop (damaged keyboard just like OP). Set 'lid close' to "do nothing" (it runs 24/7 with the lid always closed). Connected to TV via HDMI.

Only app is browser. Shortcuts for streaming and movie/tv reviews etc. Use the TV regular remote for volume and on/off. Use remote mouse 90+ percent of the time. Keyboard only when my preset links are insufficient and I need to type.

Have the same setup in the BR (running on a used mini-Optiplex I bought for $135). Works great.

Great hack, thanks for taking the time to document it.

Our modern tv's are just the worst.

I would probably be tempted to try and find one of those generic lvds driver boards and get rid of the "smarts" entirely.

https://ifan-display.com/lcd-oled-display-driver-board-every...

I wonder if something similar to a Wii Remote's tracking would work better for controlling the cursor, as that would let you point right where you want instead of needing to use gyro.

Is there any benefit of using a laptop rather than a pi?

Used laptops are cheaper than Pi's.

The benefit for me was that I already had an old laptop lying around. :)

I'm sure a Pi could work well for this too. It just needs to be powerful enough to display websites and videos smoothly.

Ahh I see. You are indeed right about the power. I will give it a try some time and share under this comment if everything is OK with the PI or not. Thanks for the article and the reply!

A Pi would probably not be allowed full HD quality on most web streaming sites, it would not have hardware accelerated decoding of the DRM'ed video stream and the CPU is probably too weak to do software decoding.

The best thing about this setup is that the freaking Smart TV isn't spying on you and selling your data to advertisers.

It probably still tries to analyze what's on screen, but probably can't send it anywhere if no network connection is available (unless it has a WWAN radio or can hop onto some Sidewalk-type network).

These kludgey hacks have a very early 2000s feel to them.

Shame there isn’t a way to just put custom firmware on a TV.

Looks like the gentleman built their own immersive entertainment system out of nothing on a consumer device. The future has never been so adaptable or malleable before. This man's got craft much more than kludge.

I’m not criticizing it, but half a laptop, some HTML and an iPhone shortcut isn’t the most elegant smart TV interface.

It’s a shame because there’s probably decent compute in that TV that people can’t access.

I have this too!

The TV is used as a monitor, connected via HDMI to my linux computer...

Yup. Intel Nuc and a Logitech K400. I dont bother with cute menu things and just use whatever DE with scaling turned up to 150%. 99% of the time you're in FF/Chrome watching streaming video.

Same here, I have an LG TV which I dumbed down by removing the Ethernet cable. I use a BeeLink mini-PC, running Ubuntu, with Chrome for TV and VLC for DVDs and CDs. I still use the TV remote for turning power on and off, and changing input source (I still have cable, mostly for news). I would never use a Logitech wireless keyboard/trackpad for typing anything complicated, but it works great as a remote control.

I bought a couple of those gyro-mouse/keyboards, exact same model!

Using them is pretty awful! The gyro doesn't feel right (don't know how to explain it, it's nowhere near as natural as a WiiMote). And laying it down without, you know, moving the mouse which usually brings up controls in a video player is impossible. Not to mention how often you'll lay it down and the mouse will go to an edge of the screen, causing the video controls to persist.

Having said all that, I'm still really intrigued with the concept.

I bought one for myself for a Steam Deck, and one for a friend that uses a computer as their smart tv. Neither are in use anymore, both replaced with Logitech wireless keyboard +trackpad combos.

I also gave up on the "air mouse" things as too jiggly and random, and got a mini thumb keyboard with a touchpad on it. I ended up with an older & cheaper version of this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GCPVZDW

This is cool!

I'm wondering how you change the input port (e.g. PS5), guessing you jump back to the Samsung OS in those cases?

I don't have anything else plugged into the TV. If I had a PS5 I would have to jump back to Tizen OS, yes.

This was great hacker news. Enjoyable read, too.

“Cool clock, Ahmed”

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