Or even better, get one of the many LibreELEC supported devices (including, as somebody mentioned, a Raspberry Pi 5) and put LibreELEC on it (which is a pared-down Linux with Kodi).

Personally after maybe a decade running successive generations of TV Media Players to play my growing video file collection on my TV, on my latest upgrade I ended up going down the Mini-PC with Linux and Kodi on autostart route (as I used it also as a home server) and am very satisfied with it, though if I wanted to just use it as a Media Player I would've gone with LibreELEC and on of the various ARM SBCs they support (maybe the Pi, maybe something cheaper).

There really is no reason to use closed commercial solutions for this.

Edit: If all you do is consume media on it via Kodi, you can use a remote like this one so it's the same usage experience as with a commercial device, just without the enshittification.

[–] lemmywinksthegerbilking@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

even just a spare laptop and an HDMI cable will do

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 weeks ago

Well, the Mini-PC actually looks like it belongs in my living room TV table.

But, yeah, functionally it would work just as well on a spare laptop as long as the microprocessor in it has the video decoders in hardware (something which is only a concern for really old laptops).

Beyond that, I wouldn't recommend an old desktop because of its higher power consumption and noise, but a laptop should be fine on both regards.

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