I've been using Chromecasts and it's gotten so slow and buggy. I was trying to cast from VLC on my phone to it and I had a ton of trouble getting it to show up and connect and after I finished streaming from my phone I tried to switch to the YouTube app and it just kept on crashing.
It's 2024, I'm tired of dealing with shitty tv streaming experiences. I want something completely uncompromising. I want a silky smooth experience and I don't want it to randomly break on my.
I'm thinking about shelling out for a shield TV, but I'd rather have control over my device since I don't want to deal with the manufacturers fucking around with my device after the fact.
I'd love to be able to set up a raspberry pi for this, but would I be able to get a seamless experience? I don't mind doing extra up front work to get it set up, but I don't want it to be an ongoing maintenance thing, and I'd like it to work with Chromecast so it's easy to stream to from a variety of devices.
Can I actually pull that off with a raspberry pi or should I go with the shield TV?
The Pi won't cast from your phone, so Im not sure how you will make things better if using your phone is must-have. I also use cast as my main way to watch stuff, and i've experienced my cast devices not being found from different phones and same apps. E.g. the pixel phones find the cast devices (chromecast, and a hi-fi system that has cast abilities), but a Realme no-name chinese android phone won't. Or that my chrome browser can't find the cast devices either, no matter which OS is used under (I have to cast the whole tab).
And even if you install emby or jellyfin on your raspberry pi, the app might not see the casting device. It'd work better if you just don't cast, and instead just direct emby/jellyfin's phone app to play the media on the raspberry pi connected to a tv.
Also, be aware, that 1 GB of ram is not enough to use emby/jellyfin. I have a raspberry pi 3b+ with 1 gb of ram and it swaps like crazy when i use these media servers (music only). Minimum is 2 gb, best if you can get it with 4 or 8 gb. If video is needed, you will need a Pi5 for best results.
Yeah I'm just so sick of cast being unreliable. The main reason I'm asking here is to answer two questions. It's getting Chromecast set up on a raspberry pi even a thing (I'm just not really informed about what it requires), and are raspberry pis powerful enough to provide a silky smooth streaming experience. It's kinda sounding like the answer is no.
You can try to make a raspberry pi as a chromecast receiver, not sure how well that still works, these articles are old https://www.maketecheasier.com/create-diy-chromecast-raspberry-pi/