I have one TV for my PC monitor and one for, well, TV. Both hardwired to the network, no external network access. Wrote a quick PS script to switch from one to the other or both, made it into an EXE with buttons, très chic. Everything streams off a crappy USB drive “RAID” array. OpenVPN server with Digital Ocean, hosted in Amsterdam, $6/month. DONE.
I’m not on some crusade against capitalism, I simply choose not to participate in bullshit like this.
For over a decade I’ve been watching TV Series and Movies from a Media Box connected via Ethernet to my home NAS (which is generally an old notebook or even my router - once I got myself a decent router - with some external hardisks), which is actually a pretty simple network to set up using Ethernet Over Powerlinr adaptors (which were already good enough for it back when they only did 20 Mb/second and now that they’re 1000Mb/s will handle even the huge resolution lightly compressed stuff that one can now find as booty out there).
The setup has been recently upgraded to a Mini-PC with Lubuntu and Kodi, which is in my living room (right next to my Internet router to which it is connect with Gigabit Ethernet) and is also my home NAS and Bittorrent server over always on VPN, with a wireless remote for using in my living room to control Kodi (so it works the same as a TV Box for watching media) whilst the background stuff I control from my main PC remotely using a mix of web interfaces and ssh command line.
I had never had this good an environment for TV entertainment and I’m not even using any of the *arr suite or Usenet to source content so a lot of it is really just doing the same stuff as a decade ago but with better hardware and a more modern UI for media playing and (most importing) a way faster Internet connection.
Anyways, the point I’m making is that nowadays one can actually upgrade a little bit from your setup (which, by the way, is superior to what I had before my Mini-PC upgrade) cheaply and even get themselves very close to the same experience as the corporate stuff (media box with remote and a nice UI to play stuff from a media library) whilst maintaining maximum control and getting no shit from enshittification.
PS: I couldn’t recommend more getting a wireless remote if you want to just be able to sit down on your sofa and have a no hassle media box experienced (even whilst behind sits a far more complex home infrastructure that what people who outsource that side of things to the likes of Hulu have). It real helps with having a shit-free under your total control entertainment experience without sacrificing the part of that experience that comes from having a modern interface for media selection.
Charles Stross put it succinctly in The Atrocity Archives:
Idiots emit bogons, causing machinery to malfunction in their presence. System administrators absorb bogons, letting machinery work again.
This explains why computers suddenly start to work when help arrives. Becoming a bogon sink takes much suffering and practice. You’re already on the path.
Its honestly getting to the point now where doing these home setups are so much simpler than owning these proprietary streaming boxes which have everything locked up to serve you ads or just steal data in general.
Hooking a PC up to the TV even to watch the paid services is probably better at this point.
I have one TV for my PC monitor and one for, well, TV. Both hardwired to the network, no external network access. Wrote a quick PS script to switch from one to the other or both, made it into an EXE with buttons, très chic. Everything streams off a crappy USB drive “RAID” array. OpenVPN server with Digital Ocean, hosted in Amsterdam, $6/month. DONE.
I’m not on some crusade against capitalism, I simply choose not to participate in bullshit like this.
tl;dr: STEAL YO SHIT.
For over a decade I’ve been watching TV Series and Movies from a Media Box connected via Ethernet to my home NAS (which is generally an old notebook or even my router - once I got myself a decent router - with some external hardisks), which is actually a pretty simple network to set up using Ethernet Over Powerlinr adaptors (which were already good enough for it back when they only did 20 Mb/second and now that they’re 1000Mb/s will handle even the huge resolution lightly compressed stuff that one can now find as booty out there).
The setup has been recently upgraded to a Mini-PC with Lubuntu and Kodi, which is in my living room (right next to my Internet router to which it is connect with Gigabit Ethernet) and is also my home NAS and Bittorrent server over always on VPN, with a wireless remote for using in my living room to control Kodi (so it works the same as a TV Box for watching media) whilst the background stuff I control from my main PC remotely using a mix of web interfaces and ssh command line.
I had never had this good an environment for TV entertainment and I’m not even using any of the *arr suite or Usenet to source content so a lot of it is really just doing the same stuff as a decade ago but with better hardware and a more modern UI for media playing and (most importing) a way faster Internet connection.
Anyways, the point I’m making is that nowadays one can actually upgrade a little bit from your setup (which, by the way, is superior to what I had before my Mini-PC upgrade) cheaply and even get themselves very close to the same experience as the corporate stuff (media box with remote and a nice UI to play stuff from a media library) whilst maintaining maximum control and getting no shit from enshittification.
PS: I couldn’t recommend more getting a wireless remote if you want to just be able to sit down on your sofa and have a no hassle media box experienced (even whilst behind sits a far more complex home infrastructure that what people who outsource that side of things to the likes of Hulu have). It real helps with having a shit-free under your total control entertainment experience without sacrificing the part of that experience that comes from having a modern interface for media selection.
I wish I was technically savy enough to do any of this.
Unfortunately I am cursed, I break shit and hate having to spend hours working out what’s fucked on my computer.
TV’s wifi card shit itself, problem solved pulled out replaced.
Computer wouldn’t boot cause reason number 432 (actually the flash on the MB said fault reserved for future fault finding) hours of struggling.
Perhaps you’re a bogon emitter like my wife?
Learn more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_bogodynamics
Charles Stross put it succinctly in The Atrocity Archives:
This explains why computers suddenly start to work when help arrives. Becoming a bogon sink takes much suffering and practice. You’re already on the path.
I kept reading this as bogan too haha
Its honestly getting to the point now where doing these home setups are so much simpler than owning these proprietary streaming boxes which have everything locked up to serve you ads or just steal data in general.
Hooking a PC up to the TV even to watch the paid services is probably better at this point.
Throw in an ad blocker like a Pi-hole. Life changing. FFS, $10 a month on AWS and you can spin a Lightsail instance, or roll your own on a toaster.