I currently use an Apple TV 4K, which is - as far as I’m aware - more or less the best streaming box you can buy. However, it’s the version without ethernet, and Steam Link has become a dog over wifi for some reason. So I figured I’d look around to see if there’s an alternative solution.
Hardware-wise, I have a Dell Optiplex 3020 or a 2014 Mac mini (running Debian), to choose from, but have no real idea where to go from there, beyond the vague notion that KDE have put big screen mode back into beta. I did have a play with that a few months ago in a VM, but was struck that there were (obviously) no applications that made any real use of it.
Does anyone out there run anything they’ve built themselves? If so, what?
This is probably the route I’ll ultimately take. Gonna toss KDE Neon on my 2014 Mac mini and see how it rolls.
For what it’s worth, in recent months Dolby Vision and HD Audio formats became viable on x86-64 hardware running Kodi (LibreElec, specifically):
https://forum.libreelec.tv/thread/30362-dolby-vision-w-fel-3d-for-pc-amd-intel-nvidia/
Steam Link on old hardware won’t probably go well.
Game streaming benefits greatly from hardware video decoding — to the point where it’s practically required for smooth streaming.
Mac Mini’s CPU and iGPU might support that to some extent, but you’d be most likely limited to H.264 and 1080p — no newer codecs and no 4K.