I am making an attempt to exchange my Apple TV with a mini PC

I’ve determined to check a radical change to my front room streaming setup.

For years, I’ve used an Apple TV 4K for streaming, and whereas it’s been an important machine general, I’ve all the time wished to attempt swapping it for a house theater PC. In my early cord-cutting years (circa 2010), I used an affordable Intel Atom-powered Lenovo nettop (now out of date) to entry Hulu’s web site (nonetheless free on the time) and keep away from its subscription charges on related TV gadgets. Plugging an affordable mini PC into your TV as we speak may yield related benefits.

This experiment may fail for a wide range of causes, and I’ve already hit some snags in my preliminary setup. But when it really works, it may provide much more management over the streaming expertise together with some potential value financial savings over time.

The case for a house theater PC (in 2025)

I’m going into this mini PC experiment with a bunch of use instances in thoughts:

Advert-skipping powers: With a desktop internet browser, I can use MultiSkipper to fast-forward by commercials on Hulu, Peacock, Tubi, and different ad-supported streaming providers, and I can use uBlock Origin to keep away from adverts on YouTube. This might save some huge cash as ad-free streaming subscriptions get costlier.

Password sharing: Netflix’s crackdown on password sharing doesn’t apply to web site or cell app use, presumably as a result of it’d be difficult to dam out-of-home use on transportable gadgets. Watching on a PC may make account-splitting simpler, particularly as extra providers observe Netflix’s lead.

Unrestricted multiview: Image-in-picture is a multitude on streaming platforms, with inconsistent help throughout apps and gadgets. That’s not a difficulty on PCs, the place you possibly can simply open up extra browser home windows or use the helpful picture-in-picture Chrome extension. This might actually come in useful throughout March Insanity.

Jared Newman / Foundry

Unlocked playback speeds: Some movies simply don’t must be watched at common velocity, however excluding YouTube, most video providers don’t allow you to velocity up playback on sensible TVs and streaming gadgets. In contrast, Netflix’s internet model has built-in velocity controls, whereas the Video Velocity Controller extension works throughout a broad vary of websites.

Streaming guides galore: Whereas most streaming platforms provide information options for monitoring reveals and discovering new issues to look at, they don’t work with each streaming service they usually are typically loaded with adverts and upsells. On a PC, you possibly can take your choose of streaming information websites resembling Reelgood, JustWatch, Trakt, and Plex Uncover.

Extra leisure choices: With a mini PC setup, I’m trying ahead to utilizing some apps that aren’t accessible on an Apple TV, resembling Nvidia GeForce Now and Plexamp.

The {hardware}

Jared Newman / Foundry

I didn’t need to spend so much on this endeavor, nor did I desire a noisy desktop PC that takes up quite a lot of house.

That led me to Beelink’s Mini S12 Professional, whose $169 avenue value is simply a little bit increased than the nicest streaming gamers, and its footprint isn’t a lot bigger both. Whereas its Intel N100 processor is light-weight, it helps 4K HDR video, comes with Home windows 11, and features a pretty beneficiant 16GB of RAM and 500GB of storage.

Related merchandise abound from different mini PC distributors, however I’ve had a optimistic expertise utilizing a barely pricier Beelink SER5 Ryzen-based PC as my on a regular basis pc and determined to stay with a model that I do know.

One caveat: The Mini S12 Professional doesn’t help HDCP 2.2, which Netflix requires for 4K HDR video. The SER5 doesn’t have that limitation, however I caught with the cheaper mannequin for causes I’ll clarify beneath.

The trade-offs

Whereas I’ve barely began utilizing this new setup, I’ve already encountered just a few points.

The largest drawback is inconsistent 4K HDR video help on streaming websites. Netflix technically helps 4K HDR in Microsoft’s Edge browser, however even on Beelink’s higher-end SER5, it refused to budge past 1080p. Amazon Prime and Max don’t help 4K or HDR on PCs in any respect.

That stated, I solely upgraded to Netflix’s Premium tier with 4K HDR (which prices $25 monthly, as an alternative of $18) for testing functions. Max costs further for 4K HDR as effectively, and huge swaths of different streamers’ catalogs are restricted to 1080p anyway. Encompass sound can be a difficulty on streaming websites, however my front room setup is stereo-only anyway.

Wechip

The opposite apparent challenge is usability. Retaining a mouse and keyboard in the lounge is out of the query, and whereas I’m trying into air mouses with small built-in keyboards, like this one, navigating a desktop interface will probably be much less preferrred than clicking round on an actual distant. This may take some finagling, and the remainder of my household will doubtless want to modify over to the Apple TV or the Google TV software program constructed into our tv.

Comply with up! I solved my TV streaming issues with this $30 keyboard

In different phrases, this gained’t be an excellent resolution for everybody, and it won’t even work out within the Newman family. If this entire TV experiment fails, I’ll doubtless repurpose the little Beelink PC as an affordable approach to play with some Linux distributions; if it succeeds, it might be a lot a extra liberating approach to entry streaming content material. I plan to report again quickly with new suggestions and findings both means.

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