Hi and hope all are well today. First, thanks in advance for any / all responses. Second, apologies if this isn’t the best place to ask this question.
I’m curious if anyone, has moved completely from using an AppleTV to something else. Current use case for the ATV is a few streaming apps (Crunchyroll / HiDive, Tubi, etc.) and Apple Arcade (a few casual games).
If you did completely switch, what did you decide on using? Did you go back to buying movies / using a DVD/Blu-Ray player, setup a mini PC and stream from websites / rip music and movies, use a gaming console instead, etc.?
Exploring options and entertaining thoughts for right now. Again, thanks and have a good day / evening.
Edit - 2024/01/01 - Just wanted to thank everyone for the lively discussion and resources (links, recommendations, etc.) related to my question.
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I have tried Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast (not the new models with an interface), and AppleTV. So far Apple TV is the cleanest without ads or sponsored content on the home screen.
If you find something better please let me know.
I like my Roku, but it would be much more annoying without a pihole to block the ads.
ATV is the only box I recommend. I’m anti-Google, don’t trust Amazon (and now their service is going to do ads on a paid Prime membership), and Roku has major privacy issues at least in the past. Curious why you’re seeking an alternative to Apple.
Thank you for the comment. I should’ve provided more context in the original post. Without getting too deep, I’m starting to reconsider my personal views on privacy, content ownership (vs. streaming), where / how I spend my money, etc.
I’m in the Apple ecosystem but wondering if going back to open source, purchased media (music, movies, etc.), donating to projects, etc. is “better”. Which is highly subjective and personal, of course.
The reason for the question was to see what other folks may be doing.
If privacy is the concern, you should really read the breakdown from Mozilla someone shared. Can’t miss it, large wall of text in this thread. Apple ecosystem is much better than others in the privacy department. The other players are much worse when it comes to personal data collection and selling.
Yup, I did go down the rabbit hole and read the links and stuff. Interesting reading and something to consider. I guess it’s back to a non-networked DVD/Blu-Ray player and get stuff from the local library or Craigslist :)
Their box UI is poor, typing sucks and you can’t just close an app or turn off the box. It is a really annoying piece of tech to use.
Huh? Use the remote app on your phone. It automatically pops up like a notification when there’s a text box on the screen. So easy. You can turn the box off by holding the power button for a few seconds. To close apps, you double tap the TV button and then it’s an iOS like interface that you scroll over and swipe up on the ones you want to close.
The UI is very minimal and the same across most all apps, so it’s easy to learn and use. It may be missing some power features, but most things are accessed via clicking of just holding.
use the remote app on your phone
Take a second and just let it sink in how fucking stupid that sentence is. Why do I need an application on my phone to use my device efficiently? Why doesn’t the remote have T9-like keys, or voice input? Hell, they invented the click-wheel, come on.
“your new garage door opener uses a pin. since the fob doesn’t have numbers, you just need to unlock your phone and type your pin in that way instead!” would be DOA with the first review. Why is apple getting a pass here?
(I’ve never used the atv, just seen it used by others, and text input wasn’t something they needed)
I’ve never used the atv
We can tell, because…
Why doesn’t the remote have T9-like keys, or voice input?
It absolutely has voice input.
For passwords, copying and pasting my long, unique, complex passwords from my phone is way easier than any T9 input would ever be.
I have used numerous smart TVs native systems, Google TV boxes, and the NVIDIA Shield. I could not tolerate the UI paradigms or THE FUCKING ADVERTISEMENTS on literally every other system. It is repulsive.
Bonus points to the NVIDIA Shield for being alone it it’s ability to do Atmos from my own media files, though…
It’s almost like I said I’ve never used one, how mind-blowing. Your deduction skills are truly unmatched.
I went looking at the product page and saw no button for voice in any of their images. I guess you have to hold something for a few seconds, but as a new user, I’d never know it was there.
Also, plex and a few others offer the options to type, scan a qr code, or visit a url and sign in to validate the user. I guess if you’re stuck with typing as your only option, fine, use the app. Still not what I’d call a good user experience.
99% of apps on Apple TV have the same kind of login option.
If they don’t, it’s on the app developer to implement.
Maybe you ought to take the stance of not talking about something you’re unfamiliar with. Every thing you’ve pointed at has been wrong.
You’re not a fan of Apple, that’s your stance, you’ve made it clear, just stop there.
99% of apps on Apple TV have the same kind of login option. If they don’t, it’s on the app developer to implement.
The exception to this that I run into regularly is connecting to a local media server, say through Infuse (seems to handle some codecs better than Plex, and has few if any audio sync issues, though I recommend pointing Infuse at a Jellyfin instance so your library’s metadata doesn’t get cleared and need to be re-indexed on the Apple TV somewhat regularly).
Maybe you ought to take the stance of not talking about something you’re unfamiliar with. Every thing you’ve pointed at has been wrong.
On the internet?? 🙃
I’m curious why you would trust Apple and not the others you have listed. All of them will do literally anything to just earn more money and exploit you as much as possible.
If you have Apple users at home, the integrated experience and the video quality is going to be very hard to match from other platforms. My parents use Chromecast and it takes so many more steps to send content on to their media system. The video quality when casting also suffers a little, though that may be because they’re using cheap ISP router AP combo box, and I’m using Ubiquiti APs instead. Having said that, I do think the A15 processor in the most recent model is an overkill in the graphics performance department, so I wouldn’t completely rule out device capability compared as the cause of video quality difference.
Based on my readings, I think most recent high end nVIDIA Shield Tv Pro is the only closest in terms of raw performance and even then it may be a bit behind. Tegra X1+ found in the Shield Pro is on Maxwell architecture, which is older than GeForce 1080 series’ Pascal architecture, if I’m not mistaken. This would date it to around 2015-ish; whereas the previously mentioned A15 processor in most recent version of AppleTV 4K was introduced in 2021 with iPhone 13 series.
Keep your Apple TV and use it as a streaming client for whatever you stand up on the backend. Personally I have a Synology NAS that I love and I use the net to get all my content. Use the net. 😉
Appreciate your comment, and that seems like a common setup. If you didn’t have the ATV, what would you front end the Plex server with? I have a Synology router and would probably buy a Synology NAS, if I went that route.
I would go with Jellyfin instead of Plex. It’s open source and works great
Actually with a Synology NAS you don’t need Plex, they have a built in equivalent called DS Video with apps for Apple TV, iOS, Android, etc!
I’ve had an Nvidia shield in the past as well and it works reasonably well, but the video experience is definitely better on the Apple TV. The Android boxes make more sense if you want a place to install emulators that also occasionally streams.
DS video is much worse than Plex in my experience, it’s not even close. The only upside is getting hardware transcoding for free, but that’s about it.
Thank you for this! I’ll look more at the Synology NAS devices and see what that’s all about. I’m probably the other way around, stream more, and emulate once in a while.
I have had various sticks and Roku highest end models and then got the latest ATV with hard wire port that adds Dolby vision and high frame rate HDR. I have a 2022 high-end TV.
The video quality is noticeably better. Not sure of older ATV, but this is clearly better than the top end Roku. Also, I’m not sure if it is the same on older tvs
The other thing is that you want to hard wire if at all possible. Even the best wifi can’t touch the reliability of a wire
Nvidia Shield Pro with the default launcher disabled & replaced, Plex server. I’m pulling the unused apple TV out of the media setup this week.
Preference on a launcher? I’m getting tired of the google ads lol
I use flauncher. It’s ugly and doesn’t have a lot of features but I don’t care. I only have two apps installed, so I’m rarely looking at or using the launcher anyway.
I ran an Apple TV in the living room for a long time to access my Plex server and whatever subscription my wife has this month. As time went on it got more and more glitchy until it came to the point where I had to power cycle the thing every few days. Replaced it with a cheap fire stick, annoyed the crap out of me. Replaced that with a cheap Roku, it was only slightly better than the shitty firestick.
My wife got me the NVIDIA shield pro for Christmas this year, and I picked up the p2920 controller for it. My god this thing is awesome - not only is it the best tv box I’ve ever used, I can use moonlight to play games on my rig or GeForce now to stream games. I highly recommend this thing
Roku really should not sell most of their cheapest options, they’re very bad, while the top of the line Rokus are very solid.
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Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters AP WiFi Access Point NAS Network-Attached Storage Plex Brand of media server package
3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 5 acronyms.
[Thread #393 for this sub, first seen 1st Jan 2024, 07:55] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Roku ultra with the memory card. But no one in my household uses apple devices.
Appreciate the comment. The Roku seems to be pretty popular and luckily it’s just me, so I can experiment.
Roku, Playstation, Xbox, streaming device from ISP (like the device from comcast), Fire stick, and I’m sure there are many more. They all do what you’re looking for.
Xbox sucks as a streaming box, especially with Plex. If you try to choose something from the watchlist, it can’t send a url to the related streaming app.
I use a Synology NAS + Plex + Chromecast, works great.
Thank you! I’m going to start looking at the Synology NAS devices. I have one of their routers which I really like so the NAS stuff should be similar (fit, finish, interface, etc.).
my go-to setup is
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chromecast with googletv 4k
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alldebrid membership (€3 a month)
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stremio app + torrentio addon
Appreciate the info / response. I’ll have to check out alldebrid, stremio, and torrentio; those are new to me.
debrid is basically “cloud torrenting”, a server torrents the files and you download them from there. extremely useful if you live in a jurisdiction where p2p filesharing is illegal.
stremio is a netflix-like video player app, torrentio an addon that let’s you crawl torrent sites and stream stuff via debrid.
Thank you for the info on these. As I figure out what I want to do, I will keep these in mind! Sounds like some good stuff.
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I’ve never used an Apple TV, but my smart TV is a Roku and it does most of the things you’ve described. I use Crunchyroll and Tubi and a few other streaming apps including Apple’s. I use Prime Music and it has like 99% of the albums I want to listen to. Obviously it doesn’t have Apple Arcade, but I mostly just play games on my phone anyway. I even put a Roku box on an old CRT TV that I use sometimes for watching older shows in SD format lol! I don’t know if this is the type of answer you were looking for but I hope it’s helpful.
As does my fire stick, and even my Vizio smart TV … all except the Apple Arcade
I’ve bent thinking about moving in the other direction. I try to avoid privacy abuse of the SmartTV and Fire Stick is being enshittified, so what should I use? AppleTV seems interesting to try plus games may be fun
We have a Roku and host a Plex server. I have never had an apple tv but I don’t think I am missing anything
Thanks for the reply. Seems Roku / Plex are a fairly common combination.
Yup. The generic answer. I’d rec a nvidia shield pro. I have two and fucking love them.
Edit: also prefer jellyfin
