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It's always more satisfying to create something yourself but LibreELEC is a minimal Linux distro (barely even a distro) that boots directly into Kodi and is ideal for this kind of use case. It even has native CEC support.
Great job, Hacker.
These kludgey hacks have a very early 2000s feel to them. Shame there isn’t a way to just put custom firmware on a TV.
Looks like the gentleman built their own immersive entertainment system out of nothing on a consumer device. The future has never been so adaptable or malleable before. This man's got craft much more than kludge.
It’s a shame because there’s probably decent compute in that TV that people can’t access.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use it primarily with my own Jellyfin instance, but there are Netflix, Disney+ and pretty much anything you can think of plugins. The YouTube irritatingly complicated to get working, but then there are "play on kodi" plugins for various browser so you can flip what you're watching to the big screen. It's really an amazing project.
Out of interest, why do you use Kodi as a frontend rather than a native Jellyfin client?
Being able to play media from Jellyfin and other locations like YouTube, samba shares, etc is why I tend to use Kodi. I’m not stuck with one server/service.
Love a good hack. But in this case, I just use LibreELEC (kodi) and call it a day :D
Using them is pretty awful! The gyro doesn't feel right (don't know how to explain it, it's nowhere near as natural as a WiiMote). And laying it down without, you know, moving the mouse which usually brings up controls in a video player is impossible. Not to mention how often you'll lay it down and the mouse will go to an edge of the screen, causing the video controls to persist.
Having said all that, I'm still really intrigued with the concept.
I bought one for myself for a Steam Deck, and one for a friend that uses a computer as their smart tv. Neither are in use anymore, both replaced with Logitech wireless keyboard +trackpad combos.
Is there any benefit of using a laptop rather than a pi?
The benefit for me was that I already had an old laptop lying around. :) I'm sure a Pi could work well for this too. It just needs to be powerful enough to display websites and videos smoothly.
Only app is browser. Shortcuts for streaming and movie/tv reviews etc. Use the TV regular remote for volume and on/off. Use remote mouse 90+ percent of the time. Keyboard only when my preset links are insufficient and I need to type.
Have the same setup in the BR (running on a used mini-Optiplex I bought for $135). Works great.
Our modern tv's are just the worst.
I would probably be tempted to try and find one of those generic lvds driver boards and get rid of the "smarts" entirely.
https://ifan-display.com/lcd-oled-display-driver-board-every...