Raspberry Pi 4 Client

Hi,

Just wanted to say I’ve been following for years back when AppleTV was the only client.

I would love to have a Raspberry Pi client. Is this in the works at all?

As far as I'm aware, no. You can use Kodi, and the PVR client. But it is still missing some features.

Yes. you can. but is not easy and only for those who are very familiar with using custom Android roms, sideloading apps and some adb use and using a OS that is devoid of any Google apps services.

You can find custom Android TV roms out there that can work on the Pi.
I have used Lineage OS 17.1 Android tv 10 image on my Pi4 8GB just for fun.
It worked fine for Channels DVR, after sideloaded the app via adb.
However, you are stuck using only software decoding.

That’s what I was thinking. How is software deciding with mpeg2/h264? I hope one day they’ll release a PiClient image.

I did not use it extensively. But it seemed to work fine for OTA and TVE.

However, the final cost to get a Pi fully setup, all the parts needed, or you buy one of those "kits" with case, heatsinks/fan, power cord, sd card...etc....it is higher than just buying a Google Chrome Cast with Google TV or a TiVo Stream 4K, both are far far better devices to use for Channels.

Does the AndroidTV for Raspberry Pi have all those ads? I’ll probably end up getting a ChromeCast with AndroidTV, but would love to use an open source client.

i...don't know what u are referring to.

I don't think Google has ever released or put forth their Android/Google TV OS to open source, like the normal mobile OS Android is.
I have read that some users on xda that make custom Android tv roms have had takedown issue and legal issues from Google.

On mobile sorry. I updated it

Its a raw os. with zero apps. it had, at the time i used it, the stock default android tv home screen launcher, that displayed nothing but the apps installed, which again, were none until u manually add them in some fashion.
Since it is a custom rom and has root access, you can do whatever you want with it via adb and such. like i said, it is not for someone that has not had previous experience with that world of custom android roms and tech knowledge and skills.

The extra apps and OS-level features that make "Android TV" are not part of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP); they are separately licensed to OEM/ODMs and not available individually.

(However, the SDKs and tools needed to implement apps that take advantage of the special Android TV features, such as the TV Input Framework (TIF), are available in their source form and freely available.)

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I purchased the ChromeCast with GoogleTV and it works great with TVE. I would still love a Linux client, a raspberry pi image would be even better. Thank you for your hard work team. Yes I know it’s cheaper to purchase these devices, but I would like a dedicated channels STB I know it sounds dumb, but would be great and simple. I know two buts in one sentence.

The devices we’ve built channels for have dedicated SDKs for building apps for TVs.

The raspberry pi is just a Linux device. It would mean starting from scratch. This isn’t something we have the resources for or is really realistic.

Ok. Thank you for the reply. Any chance you guys could maybe work on a Kodi add on?

Either way great product. I love being able to record locally from TVE.

There is one for 18/Leia. (You may have to search the forums for it.) They have indicated there may be one for 19/Matrix once the stable release occurs. (IIRC, there were quite a few PVR-related changes between versions that makes a new PVR client for Matrix non-trivial.)

Edit: Here's the thread for the Kodi Addon. Also, here's the specific post about changes in the API and waiting for Matrix: