Hi and hope all are well today. First, thanks in advance for any / all responses. Second, apologies if this isn’t the best place to ask this question.
I’m curious if anyone, has moved completely from using an AppleTV to something else. Current use case for the ATV is a few streaming apps (Crunchyroll / HiDive, Tubi, etc.) and Apple Arcade (a few casual games).
If you did completely switch, what did you decide on using? Did you go back to buying movies / using a DVD/Blu-Ray player, setup a mini PC and stream from websites / rip music and movies, use a gaming console instead, etc.?
Exploring options and entertaining thoughts for right now. Again, thanks and have a good day / evening.
Edit - 2024/01/01 - Just wanted to thank everyone for the lively discussion and resources (links, recommendations, etc.) related to my question.
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ATV is the only box I recommend. I’m anti-Google, don’t trust Amazon (and now their service is going to do ads on a paid Prime membership), and Roku has major privacy issues at least in the past. Curious why you’re seeking an alternative to Apple.
I’m curious why you would trust Apple and not the others you have listed. All of them will do literally anything to just earn more money and exploit you as much as possible.
Apple is the least terrible of my list.
Based on what metric? Because Apple says so?
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Because Apple doesn’t rely on selling or advertising your data as a business segment.
I find this very hard to believe.
“We provide some non-personal data to our advertisers and strategic partners that work with Apple to provide our products and services, help Apple market to customers, and sell ads on Apple’s behalf to display on the App Store and Apple News and Stocks. For example, we may share non-personal data about your transactions and viewing activity, as well as aggregated user demographics such as age group, gender (which may be inferred from information such as your name and salutation in your Apple ID account), and region, to Apple TV strategic partners, such as content owners, so that they can measure the performance of their creative work, meet royalty and accounting requirements, and improve their associated products and services.”
All in all, yes, Apple is generally better than other Big Tech companies (cough, Meta, cough cough, Amazon, cough Samsung), when it comes to privacy. They seem to do a better job at collecting less data, probably because they aren’t trying to sell as many ads as Google and Facebook – yet.
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/apple-tv-4k/
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Roku’s data sharing is vast, which is, unfortunately, too common in the streaming TV space. Automatic Content Recognition or ACR is the way Roku and others try to identify every show you watch whether it be streaming, cable, broadcast on an antenna, or even the DVDs you watch. They collect all this data to target you with new shows, and allow you to be targeted with lots of ads from lots of places. It’s a lot of data collection and you should opt out. Note when you opt out of ACR, a Roku spokeswoman said, “Opting out of ACR does not affect collection of information about the use of Roku streaming channels.” So yeah, they’re still collecting data on you, just a little less.
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/roku-streaming-sticks/
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Of course, Google uses your personal information to sell those targeted, personalized ads you see all over the place like in your Gmail, in your favorite Solitaire app, on partner websites, and on YouTube. Yup, the ads are everywhere. Google does say they won’t use things like your religious beliefs or health information to show you ads…although we just have to trust them on that. I’m sure we’ve all seen ads based on sensitive things about us that felt pretty creepy. And Google says they won’t use content from your Google Drive, Email, or Photos to personalize ads. We sure hope not.
Google also says they can collect a good bit of information on your child if they use Google services, including services managed by parents through Family Link for children under 13. The data they say they can collect on your child includes location data, voice and audio information, what apps and devices your child uses, and your child’s activity within Google’s services. And then they say they can use that data to “provide recommendations, personalized content, and customized search results.” Yes, Google is going to push content to your kid basd on their online activities. Google does say that they, “… will not serve personalized ads to your child, which means ads will not be based on information from your child’s account or profile. Instead, ads may be based on information like the content of the website or app your child is viewing, the current search query, or general location (such as city or state). When browsing the web or using non-Google apps, your child may encounter ads served by other (non-Google) ad providers, including ads personalized by third parties.” Parents, if you plan to let your kids use Google’s services, it’s good to do some research beforehand.
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/google-chromecast-with-google-tv/
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It’s a matter of who sells the least amount of data. Seems to be Apple.
Seems to be that way. I agree with your insinuation that “they aren’t trying to sell as many ads as Google and Facebook – yet”. I don’t see any special ethics beyond keeping their brand loyalty afloat.
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So you don’t have a source either? ;)
Ok, let’s say that’s true. Which of the alternatives do you genuinely think are better?
Fallacious question. In real life there can be no good options. That doesn’t mean we should support one for being less bad.
A trillion dollars is hard to make without selling data, but fair enough.
It isn’t that hard when you convince a globe that your luxury phone is the only status symbol that matters.
Apple isn’t perfect, but the premium you pay on their devices does mean that they wrap the data mining bat in some padding first before they beat you over the head with it. Microsoft and Google just keep adding more nails.
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Go to Google and search for “is Apple selling data”. Have fun reading about how, yes they have been caught doing it in the past and are still being suspected of it. You’re naive if you think just because it isn’t public knowledge yet that one of the cruelest companies on the planet isn’t in to some other nefarious crap.
Apple, the company that has by far the worst anti-consumer practices when it comes to technology and is actively lobbying against you being able to own your products?
I mean, neither of you is wrong. On user privacy, Apple is probably the least worst of the big providers. At the same time their business model is to lock in users to their platform and hardware. “Once you’ve gone Mac you’re not going back” is the result of a deliberate design choice on Apple’s part.
Sounds to me like OP is aiming to bypass the entire corporate cloud service mess by going self-sufficient via FLOSS?
Apple is a hardware company first, not an advertising and services company like Google and Roku, and not a literal massive online retailer like Amazon.
Apple TV is the only one that doesn’t have ads on its home screen. I use an Apple TV to play all my physical media that has been ripped to mov and re-encoded with handbrake
Apple is a fashion company.
Thank you for the comment. I should’ve provided more context in the original post. Without getting too deep, I’m starting to reconsider my personal views on privacy, content ownership (vs. streaming), where / how I spend my money, etc.
I’m in the Apple ecosystem but wondering if going back to open source, purchased media (music, movies, etc.), donating to projects, etc. is “better”. Which is highly subjective and personal, of course.
The reason for the question was to see what other folks may be doing.
If privacy is the concern, you should really read the breakdown from Mozilla someone shared. Can’t miss it, large wall of text in this thread. Apple ecosystem is much better than others in the privacy department. The other players are much worse when it comes to personal data collection and selling.
Yup, I did go down the rabbit hole and read the links and stuff. Interesting reading and something to consider. I guess it’s back to a non-networked DVD/Blu-Ray player and get stuff from the local library or Craigslist :)
Also aim for non-networked TVs or they might be doing ACR and phoning home, even if you’re watching your own physical content. A former coworker on ad selling side mentioned before ACR on smart TVs, companies like Nielsen and alike would track content using digital fingerprints hidden in the overscan part of your TV. So there’s all sorts of creepy tracking tech all over.
Yeah, a sad side effect of the subscription/advertising economy. Current TV has as much of that turned off, that I can find at least. Although I haven’t gone full “remove everything from the network”, yet 🙂
I have tried Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast (not the new models with an interface), and AppleTV. So far Apple TV is the cleanest without ads or sponsored content on the home screen.
If you find something better please let me know.
I like my Roku, but it would be much more annoying without a pihole to block the ads.
And telemetry.
When I switched my family from predatory directv, this was obviously a question I had, and I ended up going with chromecasts (gen 2 and 3/ultra). Once I showed them how to use their phone as the controller, it immediately clicked, which was fantastic. I thought about an atv or an android box, but that would involve multiple profiles and remembering to switch when someone else wanted to use it (android TV boxes have this buried in the system settings; and I’m the only one with an apple account). Ads were a showstopper for me too, so the pictures/art on the cc when idle was great.
Curious why you went the other way :o
Because Google is collecting data on EVERYTHING you do.
But as a person who doesn’t use G services (well, Grayjay)… the question still stands
You use Google services whether you know it or not.
Understood about the ads / sponsored content. I’ve not used anything but an ATV, but I’ve heard similar (ads, interface, etc.). If I come up with a different solution, I will revive the post and let folks know. Thanks.
Keep your Apple TV and use it as a streaming client for whatever you stand up on the backend. Personally I have a Synology NAS that I love and I use the net to get all my content. Use the net. 😉
Appreciate your comment, and that seems like a common setup. If you didn’t have the ATV, what would you front end the Plex server with? I have a Synology router and would probably buy a Synology NAS, if I went that route.
I would go with Jellyfin instead of Plex. It’s open source and works great
Adding that to my to-do list for research, thank you for the post!!
If you keep using your Apple TV and switch to Jellyfin as a backend, the Infuse application has been amazing. It’s free with a premium version (that does offer a lifetime license).
Appreciate the details on Infuse. Still looking at all the options, thanks for the response!!
Actually with a Synology NAS you don’t need Plex, they have a built in equivalent called DS Video with apps for Apple TV, iOS, Android, etc!
I’ve had an Nvidia shield in the past as well and it works reasonably well, but the video experience is definitely better on the Apple TV. The Android boxes make more sense if you want a place to install emulators that also occasionally streams.
Thank you for this! I’ll look more at the Synology NAS devices and see what that’s all about. I’m probably the other way around, stream more, and emulate once in a while.
DS video is much worse than Plex in my experience, it’s not even close. The only upside is getting hardware transcoding for free, but that’s about it.
If you have Apple users at home, the integrated experience and the video quality is going to be very hard to match from other platforms. My parents use Chromecast and it takes so many more steps to send content on to their media system. The video quality when casting also suffers a little, though that may be because they’re using cheap ISP router AP combo box, and I’m using Ubiquiti APs instead. Having said that, I do think the A15 processor in the most recent model is an overkill in the graphics performance department, so I wouldn’t completely rule out device capability compared as the cause of video quality difference.
Based on my readings, I think most recent high end nVIDIA Shield Tv Pro is the only closest in terms of raw performance and even then it may be a bit behind. Tegra X1+ found in the Shield Pro is on Maxwell architecture, which is older than GeForce 1080 series’ Pascal architecture, if I’m not mistaken. This would date it to around 2015-ish; whereas the previously mentioned A15 processor in most recent version of AppleTV 4K was introduced in 2021 with iPhone 13 series.
And with my luck, the day I buy a Shield is the day they announce a new one :) Luckily it’s just me, so I’m the only to complain if I do something dumb, ha! I’ll start keeping an eye on the Shield, as I’m not in a rush to buy / change.
Appreciate the device info and response!
I have had various sticks and Roku highest end models and then got the latest ATV with hard wire port that adds Dolby vision and high frame rate HDR. I have a 2022 high-end TV.
The video quality is noticeably better. Not sure of older ATV, but this is clearly better than the top end Roku. Also, I’m not sure if it is the same on older tvs
The other thing is that you want to hard wire if at all possible. Even the best wifi can’t touch the reliability of a wire
Got it, and yes, current ATV is hardwired. Wi-Fi in my home wasn’t too bad, but wired is definitely better. Appreciate the response / thoughts.
Not sure if it’s a factor for you but roku tries to phone home a lot more than anything else on my network (or perhaps my firewall just catches it more than other devices and apps). Otherwise roku is pretty good.
Nvidia shield tv is better though. It’s the best set top box. Made even better by replacing the default launcher/ home screen (android TV default launcher now has 2/3 or more of the screen taken up by ads or “recommended content” which is just ads).
ProjectIvy is a great launcher if anyone needs it
That’s what I’m using now and I like it.
I will give this a look, appreciate it!
One of the concerns is the current state of “privacy” with these devices. Interesting that you can mod the Shield (as mentioned by a couple of others as well). Good to know, even if I get one just to tinker / experiment. Thank you so much!
Yes that’s a concern with all of them, Apple TV included.
Agreed, Apple is not above scrutiny on the privacy front. Appreciate the response.
Nvidia Shield Pro with the default launcher disabled & replaced, Plex server. I’m pulling the unused apple TV out of the media setup this week.
Preference on a launcher? I’m getting tired of the google ads lol
I use flauncher. It’s ugly and doesn’t have a lot of features but I don’t care. I only have two apps installed, so I’m rarely looking at or using the launcher anyway.
Thanks, this seems like a common theme as well as Roku and Plex. At least you can recoup a few dollars on the ATV if you sell it.
I host a Plex server for streaming and my apple TV 4k 2021 would refuse to play high bit rate media. Kept displaying an error message telling me I’ve exceeded the limit. Started searching online and everyone consistently called Nvidia shield pro the best one can buy. Bought it, love it, now have 3. But all I use it Plex. I’ve made my server basically all streaming services combined to one.
If I may ask, what are you using to host the Plex server? I’ve read about people using NAS devices (Synology, etc. which has Plex available natively) and running a PC with a lot of storage. Appreciate the comment!
Roku, Playstation, Xbox, streaming device from ISP (like the device from comcast), Fire stick, and I’m sure there are many more. They all do what you’re looking for.
Xbox sucks as a streaming box, especially with Plex. If you try to choose something from the watchlist, it can’t send a url to the related streaming app.
Roku ultra with the memory card. But no one in my household uses apple devices.
Appreciate the comment. The Roku seems to be pretty popular and luckily it’s just me, so I can experiment.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters AP WiFi Access Point NAS Network-Attached Storage Plex Brand of media server package
3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 6 acronyms.
[Thread #393 for this sub, first seen 1st Jan 2024, 07:55] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
my go-to setup is
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chromecast with googletv 4k
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alldebrid membership (€3 a month)
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stremio app + torrentio addon
Appreciate the info / response. I’ll have to check out alldebrid, stremio, and torrentio; those are new to me.
debrid is basically “cloud torrenting”, a server torrents the files and you download them from there. extremely useful if you live in a jurisdiction where p2p filesharing is illegal.
stremio is a netflix-like video player app, torrentio an addon that let’s you crawl torrent sites and stream stuff via debrid.
Thank you for the info on these. As I figure out what I want to do, I will keep these in mind! Sounds like some good stuff.
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I’ve never used an Apple TV, but my smart TV is a Roku and it does most of the things you’ve described. I use Crunchyroll and Tubi and a few other streaming apps including Apple’s. I use Prime Music and it has like 99% of the albums I want to listen to. Obviously it doesn’t have Apple Arcade, but I mostly just play games on my phone anyway. I even put a Roku box on an old CRT TV that I use sometimes for watching older shows in SD format lol! I don’t know if this is the type of answer you were looking for but I hope it’s helpful.
Appreciate your insights on how you use the Roku devices. Understood about gaming, my eyes can’t handle mobile gaming :)
As does my fire stick, and even my Vizio smart TV … all except the Apple Arcade
I’ve bent thinking about moving in the other direction. I try to avoid privacy abuse of the SmartTV and Fire Stick is being enshittified, so what should I use? AppleTV seems interesting to try plus games may be fun
We have a Roku and host a Plex server. I have never had an apple tv but I don’t think I am missing anything
Thanks for the reply. Seems Roku / Plex are a fairly common combination.
Yup. The generic answer. I’d rec a nvidia shield pro. I have two and fucking love them.
Edit: also prefer jellyfin
I use a Synology NAS + Plex + Chromecast, works great.
Thank you! I’m going to start looking at the Synology NAS devices. I have one of their routers which I really like so the NAS stuff should be similar (fit, finish, interface, etc.).
