I have a 50 terabyte NAS for storing my movies and TV shows. And access it from any of the TVs in my house.
For music…I have a music streaming subscription for convenience, but also have some vinyl records for the small-ish number of albums I want to keep forever.
I wish we had a way to simulate a universe in which the GOP gets every single one of its policies implemented. Then let it run like a Sim City level. Just to see what a dumpster fire it would be.
The Bluray video quality is average because it’s just upscaled SD copy. But it’s still the best anywhere available.
The issue is they fucked up the Bluray audio. The 5.1 surround sound track is really just stereo but coming from all speakers.
Thankfully, there is a fan copy that combines the Bluray video with DVD audio.
My high end PC from 3 years ago won’t run Windows 11 because of TPM bullshit.
Better support for Dolby Vision. I also prefer the Infuse UI.
Sideloading and customisation is a downside. Like other Apple devices, the App Store is the way they want you to install things.
There are ways to sideload things like Kodi through pre signed certificates but I don’t know much about it.
Dont need another Apple device.
No need for other Apple devices. It can act as a standalone box. It may want an AppleID account during setup. I’m unsure about that part.
I posted this elsewhere in the thread, but…AppleTV with the Infuse app.
I tried a bunch of different media boxes and HTPC options over the year. But this is by far the best setup in my experience.
AppleTV with the Infuse app.
Blows everything else away. It will connect to Plex and Jellyfin servers. Or a standard SMB folder share if you prefer. No ads. It never lags. Has reliable frame rate matching. And you’re likely to get 5+ years of software update support.
The only thing it won’t do is Atmos from Bluray rips (it will do lossless 7.1 but not the atmos layer). If you need that, then get an Nvidia Shield Pro.
The realpolitik answer is that they’re the only country in the region with highly functioning western-style market economy. That is valuable to other functioning western style market economies. Its a system trying to help itself propagate.
They’re addicted to attention. And will do anything to get it.
I run an LG OLED TV (disconnected from network), AppleTV, and my own media server. I haven’t seen an ad in my TV for years.
These threads always have comments like “I want a fast device that’s well built and has years of software update support and doesn’t have ads and respects my privacy…but I’m not an Apple customer”.
I mean, fine, fuck Apple. But stop buying the cheap alternatives and complaining about them.
This is one area where Apple have actually done a decent job.
Even the article reluctantly admits the AppleTV is the best media box now. Because it’s the only one that doesn’t throw ads on the home screen.
HomeKit also enforces local network control so you don’t need the manufacturer app or third party cloud services.
But the industry as a whole really needs better standards and accountability. And people need to stop buying products from an ad company (Google).
It’s sad how Apple’s strategy of “just use an actually fast CPU and make a Home Screen without ads” is a breakthrough in the industry. It shows what a fucking mess everyone else is in.
There is a 16:9 “open matte” edition of blade runner 2049 floating around many torrent sites. Unfortunately it’s only 1080p SDR. But it does look great and is a neat way to rewatch the movie.
The fun way to watch movies is to have a NAS with a Plex/Jellyfin server and browse them on your TV with a nice UI in the comfort of your living room.
Want to watch this movie in 4K Dolby Vision with atmos? Just browse or search for it and click on the poster art. Want to stop that half way through and watch a tv series instead? Go for it. It’ll take all of 5 seconds to navigate to it and have it playing.
After going through the effort to set that up, I can’t go back to anything else.
If a drive fails or other issue occurs with my NAS, it will send me an email and then shut itself down. Replace a dead drive and off I go again. No data loss due to RAID. (insert obligatory comment that RAID is not a backup solution and that you should have a separate backup for important files)
The Android market sort of split into cheap streaming sticks vs more expensive but niche boxes (like the Zidoo or Dune players). The former are meant for streaming but lack power. The latter are more capable players but often can’t stream from legit services due to DRM.
The Shield sits in this weird middle ground where it’s actually good for a variety of use cases….but unlikely to get an update due to small market demand.
Although I’d argue that unless you need atmos audio passthrough for Bluray rips…the AppleTV 4K is the best option these days. Super fast processor, no ads or bullshit in the OS, reliable frame rate matching, good track record of software updates and vendor support, and apps like Infuse which is a superb Plex and Jellyfin client. It’ll do 4K REMUX playback with lossless 7.1 audio, and the UI never lags…ever. Just a shame about no audio passthrough which prevents it from being an enthusiast player.
Apple lay out some details here: https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/
They control the cloud hardware. Information used for cloud requests is deleted as soon as the request is done. Everything end-to-end encrypted. Server builds are publicly available to inspect. And all of this is only used unless the on-device processing can’t handle a request.
If somebody wanted to actually create a private AI system, this is probably how they’d do it.
You can disagree with this or claim somehow that they are actually accessing and selling people’s data, but Apple are going out of their way to show (and cryptographically prove) how they’re not. It would also be incredible fraudulent and illegal for them to make these claims and not follow through.