Roku is exploring ways to show consumers ads on its TVs even when they are not using its streaming platform: The company has been looking into injecting ads into the video feeds of third-party devices connected to its TVs, according to a recent patent filing.
This way, when an owner of a Roku TV takes a short break from playing a game on their Xbox, or streaming something on an Apple TV device connected to the TV set, Roku would use that break to show ads. Roku engineers have even explored ways to figure out what the consumer is doing with their TV-connected device in order to display relevant advertising.
Ok…I have an old chromecast that I use when I travel to connect to my jellyfin server. It’s already giving me crap in the home screen for movies and series on platforms I don’t even have. What would be a cheap and portable device I could use when I travel so I can hook to any TV?
Thanks!
A raspberry pi would probably do it honestly
While that sounds nice and all, I’ve had playback issues before…not to mention it’s bulkier than a chromecast, and I’d still need a remote…There’s no Android or Android-TV solution that’s privacy friendly right?
Fair enough.
Personally I use a shield, but there’s nothing about it that precludes the possibility of tracking. If all you need is to connect to jellyfin on your home server, you might be able to install something like tailscale on it and use a firewall to block any other connections.
I don’t think there’s a ready made solution though
If it’s just Jellyfin, a SBC (like RPi 3B+ or better) running LibreELEC (just enough OS for Kodi) with the Jellycon add-on would do the job.
(There’s also the Jellyfin for Kodi add-on which integrates your Jellyfin media into the native Kodi library, but my success with that has been limited.)
Configure LibreELEC to auto-connect to your phone hotspot, then you’ll be able to control it using the Jellyfin or Kore app for selecting the media, and the Kore app for more advanced Kodi remote control. In my experience, at least, Kore is better for configuring subs and audiostreams, and for fwd/rev and fine-grained seeking.
Actually, I thought that Jellycon as the solution would make it impossible to select the media to play from the Kore app, but I just noticed that it’s actually possible:
In Kore, select “Addons” in the sidebar, tap “Jellycon”, then navigate to the “Content” tab, and tap “Jellyfin libraries”. This means that you can control it all from Kore! - though, imo, the media overview is a bit prettier in the Jellyfin app, but I think the trade-off is worth it for a more sleek solution. You’ll only need the Jellyfin app or webapp for forcing library scannings, editing metadata and such.