
Ask HN: What's your media centre setup? - Shaddox
I was recently surprised with a nice gift of a Samsung Smart TV. I never owned a Smart TV before and it seems indeed pretty nice with all its capabilities. I hooked up a portable hard drive to it and the media playing capabilities seem rather limited so I&#x27;m interested in expanding it with something silent and with low power consumption. I&#x27;m interesting in torrenting unlicensed indie films and copying all the dvds I ripped and bought over the years via a network. What options do I have?<p>As far as I researched, a NAT seems likely the best option, albeit I&#x27;m not really sure how nicely it would play around with a smart tv. How do the streaming protocols work on such a thing and I don&#x27;t know which ones are decent.<p>Other options seem to be a raspberry pi or a router with a torrenting client.<p>I opened this thread because I&#x27;m curious what setups other HNers have and if one seems nice enough I might emulate it myself.
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thisisabore
Kodi, using LibreELEC, on an aging PC I built myself (with one of the smallest
cases I could find back in 2010 or so).

I'd recommend reading the recommendations on the Kodi forums regarding
hardware choices, depending your needs/wants:
[https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=252916](https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=252916)

At any rate, I think these days the which media centre question is mostly
settled, it's Kodi. The question is: running as an app on Android? On your
laptop? On a proper dedicated box and OS? If so, from scratch? Using one of
the purpose built distros? (OSMC, Libre ELEC).

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thisisabore
I read your question too fast. Sorry. For storage, a NAS will be nicer than a
rpi with a drive. There might be some other single board computers with better
hardware options for managing multiple drives, but from what I've seen this is
not an area where SBCs shine.

I expect your TV to understand UPnP, possibly SMB and maybe AFP. That info
should be in the TV's manual/manufacturer's website.

The Kodi answer still stands as I'm guessing you will find the TV's media
centre limited, as they usually are ;)

