Faceman2K23

The shield pro 2019 is probably still the best overall, it's not perfect as there are some weaknesses due to the age of its chipset, but for all the common formats used in Movies and TV it works perfectly, especially if you are playing full remux files, not re-encoded compressed video. Kodi runs very well, Plex runs very well, Jellyfin is mostly perfect too, but has some limitations in the current version.

Yes it supports HDR10 (not10+) and Dolby Vision, which covers 98% of all 4K blurays and TV shows, anything HDR10+ just gets played in HDR10 compatibility mode, if you TV doesn't do DV it plays the HDR10 layer on 99% of files. There are some issues with HLG as it isnt properly supported but you don't come across that format all that often and there is usually an SDR or regular HDR version available, if your TV supports manually activating HLG then it works fine.

Yes there is a minor colour bug in some DV content, no it isn't the end of the world as some people make it out to be.

It is one of the only players that will give you full DTS:X and Dolby Atmos support, it has a very nice configurable upscaler for lower res content (AI upscale on low works excellently with minimal artifacts), it still has a lot going for it despite its age.

Also its easy to decrapify with ADB, you can easily configure third party launchers and other fun stuff.

What is your network infrastructure that is giving you those poor performance numbers?

Most consumer all in one routers are crap but not that bad. the file server should always connect to the main hub of the network with Ethernet (whether that be the router, a switch or an all-in-one crap box), these days pretty much everything should be at least 1gigabit.

Are you trying to use wifi for everything? that's a recipe for disaster unless you really know what you are doing and have multiple APs and careful signal strength and channel management

Prowlarr is good because it combines usenet indexers and torrents. Makes it very easy to search for anything and compare versions/sources.

Gets even weirder when you see LGs webOS kinda started out as PalmOS

I have seen some talk over on XDA forums, but since there is more to an android TV than just the basic android OS, it's a bit trickier without risking losing licences/compatibility/DRM/features.

Some older LG webOS tvs can be rooted and custom apps installed too such as ad free youtube players etc.

Not sure if there's a list, but most Android based TVs can be cleaned and modded to some degree via ADB. If you can access the dev settings in android, chances are you can do a lot to make it better, strip out some google or branded packages, replace the launcher to block OS level ads etc. Projectivy usually works well since it supports input switching on many devices, but it's still better to do all of this to a separate box and then plug it into a TV that is firewalled/filtered/offline. more control and less to fuck up.

Rooting and unlocking bootloaders is more complex as these android devices dont have normal recovery systems and require a lot of custom drivers to make the video and audio processing work, so it's not worth going that far.

LCDs do tend to speak somewhat standardised languages, but there is a lot more to a modern TV than just an LCD controller.

Color and white balance calibration, image/motion processing, HDR Processing, backlight control/dimming zones, input management, audio decoding/encoding/passthrough, digitizing analogue sources, HDMI licencing, Dolby licencing, etc.

If you want a better smart TV the best thing to do is to get a hackable TV like most android based models, replace the launcher, strip out system apps and telemetry with ADB and start fresh, then either leave it offline or use filtering to only allow access to the services you approve.

I haven't watched this one but every clip I see is increasingly unhinged.

I guess I have to add it to my watchlist.

Yip, I have a Linux VM running on one of my boxes in the garage that is plugged into a video matrix so I can bring it up on any screen in the house, I use the pi to connect Keyboard/Mouse/controllers etc to that when I'm using it.

I use Ubooquity and Komga, both mainly for the OPDS service which I access on various devices.

Ubooquity is good for basic book and file serving, but does support graphics. Komga is very much graphic focussed and is very good at it.

I replaced 4x Pi4 4gb with a single N95 mini PC with 16gb ram and wont look back.

Only PI left in my home is just running a 24/7 USBIP bridge.

the only reason to use a pi is if you need GPIO pins for custom devices.

In most cases yes, but hdd space is cheap enough that lossless compression is just the best option. Can always use them as originals to spin off mp3s or other compressed files when needed.

300cds would only be around 120 gigs flac compressed