Specifically I’m wondering about the TV frontend UI. Presumably most people are going to be using an android tv box like fire tv or chromecast? Something else?

I recently picked up a new chromecast 4k that has the “Google TV” OS on it and… I’m having a hell of a time coming up with a UI that looks similar to the stock one (with movie recommendations, up next, my watchlist, etc) but that hooks into piracy streaming services.

For launchers I found projectivy, but I noticed that the “channels” feature which pulls in that sort of thing is remarkably limited. Streaming-wise I’ve got stremio and cloudstream, and only stremio lets me pull in my library into projectivy. Which is okay but I can’t get that synced with trakt or getting recommendations; it all has to be managed from stremio.

whereas cloudstream doesn’t really have any connectivity at all. There’s a few streaming services that somewhat pull things in but it’s not great. Netflix doesn’t seem to hook into it, nor plex. It ends up being better to just use the stock home and manually launching into stremio/cloudstream when I want them.

Surely there has to be a better way to do this? The stock home screen is nice with free live tv, movie recommendations that link into various paid streaming services, etc. I’d just like to hook in something like stremio, plex, etc. instead, but that seems impossible?

What exactly do y’all do for your setups? Trying to manage my google play watchlist/likes independently of trackt, and then also managing my stremio library separately from both just feels like hell. I end up having to take mental note of the stuff I see on the home screen and manually searching it up.

The live tv channels that the stock homescreen has is seemingly not replicated anywhere else which is a bit disappointing. I saw the old android tv menu get really close to what I’m after, but I can’t manage to get it working on my newer chromecast. The menu installs, but the channel feature doesn’t work, making it pointless.

Is there a better way?

    • janabuggs@beehaw.org
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      5 months ago

      My Chromecast won’t stream anything with a high quality codec, such as HD mkv files. Are you running into this issue at all?

      • Froyn@kbin.social
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        5 months ago

        Not since I replaced my router. 1.8Gbs is so much smoother than the 100mbs I was getting from the ISPs device.

        • janabuggs@beehaw.org
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          5 months ago

          Hm. I’m with a fiber* based ISP that requires use of their router. It sucks, but it’s that or Comcast which is indescribably bad in my area.

          • Froyn@kbin.social
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            5 months ago

            Google the model number of the modem/router and it should tell you the speed of the Wifi built in. I’m using the ISP modem/router, but I’ve disabled the router portion and installed my own.

        • janabuggs@beehaw.org
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          5 months ago

          Last year’s G454V HD. I end up handbraking to shitty mp4s because MKV and HD avi files cannot stream without lagging. I have tried streaming from VLC, emby, and plex