Background
I’ve been living without a proper TV for the past 20 years. Nevertheless, I’m consuming a shitload of video content. Mostly streaming services; the usual suspects. But also select contents from Germany’s public TV stations.
So far, I’ve been watching such videos on my laptop computer – I get a lot of screen-time there, far more than on my phone. I’ve always spent the extra buck on laptops with top notch displays and speakers. Living alone, this has been fine and I never felt the need for buying a TV or a stereo. But now I’ve moved into a bigger place and I’ve been busy buying all sorts of furniture and decor. I think that a big TV screen will ultimately become part of my setup.
Trouble is, I do not like those modern “smart” TVs. I’m almost exclusively using open-source software on all of my devices. And I’m trying to sandbox proprietary software (and software from other dubious sources) in VMs and containers as much as I can. I really hate the idea of having hardware with commercial software and an Internet connection (and probably cameras and microphones) running in my living room.
Kodi to the rescue?
So, the plan is buying a huge (but “dumb”) computer display and linking it up to a Raspberry Pi with some open-source media center software. There seem to be plenty of open-source projects that could do the software part. Yesterday, I started tinkering with one of them: Kodi, formerly known as XBMC.
I did not want to run a dedicated Kodi Linux distribution. Instead, I’m sticking to good old Raspberry Pi OS (previously “Raspbian”). I’m already using this on a few other Pi devices, and I’ve got good automation around it. I’m using Ansible scripts to manage these Pis and a few of other boxes, including my laptop and the servers that host this blog and everything else on meeque.de. These Ansible scripts take care of basic user configuration, ssh access, WiFi connection, software packages, etc.
Luckily, Raspberry Pi OS is based on Debian, and both come with a Kodi package. Or, more precisely, dozens of packages that contain various components of Kodi. So I knew that installing Kodi (and keeping it up to date) wouldn’t be a huge problem.
That said, I’m aiming for a lightweight Kodi deployment, without a full desktop environment. The Pi should simply boot right into Kodi. I was worried that this could be some hassle, but I found this guide that showed how easy it is. Kodi has a dedicated “standalone” mode that can be run from a terminal:
kodi-standaloneSo I ssh-ed into the Pi, ran the above command, and the Kodi UI came up on the attached display. (Had to run it as root though, will try to set it up for a less privileged user later.)
Then I followed the same guide and set up a systemd service for Kodi. Just hacked it into my Ansible scripts right away. After reboot, the Kodi UI came up automatically, as desired. This was way more straight forward than I had feared.
Unfortunately, I do not have a USB keyboard at hand right now, but I found an old USB mouse and hooked it up to the Pi. This allowed me having a closer look at the Kodi UI. And getting familiar with some basic Kodi settings. Looks like it’s got all that I would expect from a media server, and I haven’t even tried any fancy add-ons yet. The default theme looks a bit old fashioned (early 2000s style, I reckon) but I bet there’s heaps of alternative out there.
Next I installed the Kore Official Remote for Kodi app on my Android phone. Following instructions in the app, I enabled the remote control HTTP API in the Kodi settings, configured a passphrase, and connected the app to it. Unfortunately, the app does not seem to allow managing the settings of the Kodi server itself. Guess I’ll have to resort to walking over to my Pi and configure Kodi from there. Or, find out how to work with Kodi config files over ssh, and mange them with Ansible…
The hardware – for now
So far, I haven’t settled on my TV hardware. I’m exploring Kodi on old hardware that I still had lying around. Namely an ancient 1600×1200 20″ LCD and a 1st generation Raspberry Pi with a USB WiFi dongle. The Pi only has 0.5 GB of RAM – I was very surprised that the Kodi UI can work with so little memory at all. The CPU is not the fastest either, so the UI feels very slow. Even the mouse pointer has significant lag. And I haven’t even tried playing any fancy media yet.
I’ve already ordered new hardware, which should make further exploration much more pleasant. I’ve opted for a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B with 4 GB of RAM. It’s not the latest model, but it looks like it can be operated with passive cooling. In contrast, active cooling (i.e. a fan) seems to be recommended for the latest Raspberry Pi 5.
What’s next?
I’ll still have a lot of exploration left to do. As mentioned before, I want to manage everything with Ansible asap. Including Kodi settings, Kodi add-ons, and updates. I couldn’t find a dedicated Ansible module for Kodi, so I’ll have to do lots of scripting myself. Let’s see how that will play out…
Ultimately I’d like to see the following capabilities in my new media center TV setup:
- Playing media right from Kodi.
Both streamed media from the Internet and locally stored media. - Playing media from my laptop computer over Kodi, to leverage the attached screen and audio system.
There seems to be a myriad of options here, many of them proprietary. I guess a free AirPlay implementation like Shairplay will do the trick. - Using the screen attached to Kodi as a second display for my Laptop computer. This should work over the air using WiFi.
Again, there’s a myriad of options, many of them proprietary or even bound to special hardware. I might be able to use the AirPlay protocol here, too, or have a look at Miracast, Google Cast, etc. - Remote access to the Kodi UI from my laptop. I hope that this could be more convenient and more powerful than a remote control app on my phone.
A free remote desktop protocol should do the trick, maybe good old VNC or even Spice. (The latter is tailored to VM scenarios, not sure it makes sense for remote UI access over the network.)
There might be synergy between some of the above. I’m still hoping to solve most of it using Kodi add-ons. If that does not work out, I’ll have to run additional software next to Kodi. This might mean resorting to a full-fledged desktop environment after all.
If all goes well, I’ll be in the market for a big computer display and matching speakers soon. And for some kind flexible wall-mount, so I can rotate the display to various directions. I want to watch “TV” from the couch, but also work from my table. Who knows, maybe I’ll buy some DVB receiver hardware eventually, and rejoin the insanity that is broadcast television.
I might post further updates here…