this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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Ive been pretty happy so far with roku and blocking stuff with pihole, but every day I am more and more tempted to build a media pc...
This is the way to go. I tried pihole using Samsung smart features, but if you block the telemetry eventually your apps stop working and you can't get them working again without doing a factory reset with blocking down. It's prohibitively a pain in the ass, taking hours every time YouTube stops working.
Never had any issues with Roku on pihole.
I believe one reason maybe that the software is so garbage it can’t handle not being able to submit all its logging information when otherwise the system thinks it’s online.
That makes perfect sense and explains why you can't fix it just by bypassing blocking temporarily and reinstalling the app.
This is the case with Rokus as well. If you also redirect or block the hard coded DNS (Google) from bypassing your local DNS it starts to get extremely sluggish over time... presumably from background processes repeatedly resending requests out.
Depends on your blocklist. It would freak out every so often on me when I was preventing it from bypassing my DNS with its hard coded ones until I added in a forced redirect instead.
Currently trying that for the same reasons you are tempted. Roku was passable and even a good choice years ago and it's on a precipitous race to the bottom now.
Problem for me currently is finding a non windows solution that is navigable from a controller or remote is .. tough. Steam, emulation station, Kodi all have reasonable interfaces but there seems to be a gap in a unified launcher solution (as well as a decent 'app' for accessing YouTube.) I really don't want to spin up a single VM for each activity when they all in theory should play nice together.
My solution to this problem is Jellyfin, fed by usenet-backed sonarr/radar and Tubesync to pull in YouTube channel subscriptions. Those are added to a Jellyfin library which is accessible right next to movies and tv shows.
This is all through the Jellyfin app on a 2019 Nvidia Shield Pro. It's a perfect couch-friendly setup. For just regular YouTube browsing, SmartTube can be installed on the Shield and on your phone. You can then cast to the SmartTube app on the Shield instead of to the YouTube app.
It seems we have similar backend setups 🏴☠️
I'll need to dig into an android solution a bit - smarttube seems pretty nice but has no Linux version unfortunately.
Exactly what I've been looking for too, and have come up wanting. I got excited recently about finding KDE Plasma Big Screen, but then it falls at the last hurdle on the app selection.
That gave me abandoned vibes when I looked into it. Maybe they just didn't update anything on their site but I struggled to find any recent info or reviews on it. A shame honestly. I loved the idea.
Looks like it was released in 2022, and I haven't been following the development but the github looks like it has changes as recent as two weeks ago. I had just assumed that the lack of apps is primarily the big streaming content providers not opting to allow apps on an OS without a shitload of telemetry because it's not in their interest.