I have recently switched a second tv to kodi and I‘m very happy. I had an appletv but it is just so limited and reminds me that I dont really own that device. Now I can play retro games, watch all my movies, listen to music and see my favorite pictures without having to use apples ecosystem or paing them for being able to use my device.
I really dig my tcl roku tv. Ultra cheap and has plex/jellyfin. Has 1 ad on the main screen that can be easily blocked but can also be setup to insta launch an app on boot. These tvs also have decent latency in game mode too (my most important requirement).
The ad on the right side of the home screen always shows up for me, even with a pi-hole setup at home. I actually ended up factory resetting my roku tv and disconnected it from the inyernet entirely a couple years back for that exaxt reason. Except roku OS 10+ actually gas built-in ads on the right side that show up even if you're offline.
...so how did you get rid of the ads entirely? Because I'd love to do that myself.
You have to disconnect the internet for a while. Think a month or two.
Weird, I've had it disconnected since the factory reset.
Maybe I should connect it, let it load new ads, and then cut it off again?
Humm. How long has it been disconnected? I wouldn’t reconnect just in case it starts a timer back over or something.
A couple of years now. I messed around with the Secret Menu settings today and I might have solved it; my guess is that there are some "default" ads cached forever on certain settings.
Wow. Secret menu? Didn’t even think to look for that. What does it slow you to do?
Any offline or disconnected smart TV, pi 4 with Kodi (LibreElec), Steam Link, blu-ray player, AVR, and a Logitech Harmony remote to tie it all together. We have a huge disc collection that we've ripped and we also grab media from the library.
even though Microsoft clearly wants to push Windows 10 users to Windows 11
does it still require a pointless hardware upgrade? then no, they clearly fucking don't.
Cheapest TV you can find that has the specs that you are interested in combined with a $50 pawn shop laptop and an inexpensive wireless keyboard and mouse.
Linux is optional but highly encouraged.
Connect that to a USB dac which is then piped into an amplifier for 2.0 sound.
I could probably rig up a subwoofer for a little extra oomph but none of the amplifiers I found at the thrift store have a way to turn off a powered amp or power an unpowered one.
Another option would be one of the t95 Android boxes. There are some really great tutorials on how to replace their stock firmware with a Linux and get all of the activity and availability that you would typically need as a media box out of them for just you know $25 and 3 to 8 hours of your time depending on how tech savvy you are and what your luck of the draw is.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)