I torrent to my laptop to watch films and shows (VPN with a killswitch). Want a dedicated setup so bought a Raspberry Pi 4b thinking of KODI setup. Is KODI the way to go, or is there a better way to stream or download movies via the Raspbery Pi4? What can you suggest for my home-made box to replace Disney, Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.? Looking for safe pointers and hopefully can search for the “how to” parts if needed.
I can only suggest jellyfin. It is lightweight and can do in-house and outside streaming as well.
Thanks for this - have had a look at the link and it seems just right! Very grateful.
My setup here: a headless RPI4, running :
- RPI OS lite;
- a transmission server so I can add torrents from my computer, or phone using a browser;
- a VPN running all the time;
- a Jellyfin server.
On my TV and other devices, I’m running a Jellyfin client. My experience with Plex is not as good as with Jellyfin, as Plex struggles to play some MKV files.
If you just want to stream, get an Android box / Google TV with Stremio + Realdebrid. No storage needed, no *arr, no torrents, no VPN, just easy as.
Personally I use Kodi, I stream eveything and enable downloads for when I’m travelling.
My setup:
Addons = Seren / Fen
Real-Debrid account. Better high quality buffer free torrent streaming.
And Trakt to keep a track of TV shows.
I can recommend the dietpi OS; it is a minimal os that comes with a package manager for installing containers for things like radarr, sonarr, deluge, and jellyfin, which will allow you to download/watch movies(find on radarr, download with deluge, watch on jellyfin) and tv shows (find on sonarr, download with deluge, watch on jelyfin) in a fairly autonomous way. Its a bit of setup if you havent done it before it might not be for you but once its running its fairly seamless.
I have a very similar setup, but I recently switched to using CasaOS on top of the DietPi. It comes with docker compose presets for all the arr apps, and also creates a homescreen with icons for all apps. I was doing this using a bunch of different services before, but CasaOS bundles it all together.
Never used kodi so don’t know if this pipeline would work for you considering you might like the ability to stream from pirated sources on demand. But if you are ok with downloading your movies and shows to a local repository that you can then access from any device anywhere in the world. Then I suggest using prowlarr, radarr, sonarr, qbittorrent, overseerr, and plex media server respectively. It sounds like a lot of tools but each one plugs into the other so they all overlap and handle different parts of the whole pipeline.
If you wanted more general info about what each one does then let me know
Thanks! I will read aobut each tonight and hopefully understand, but might return to you if I am struggling. My initial use case had been for watching at home rather than remotely, but if a remote access set-up is an option, then why not.
A good place to read about all the apps that end in arr is their wiki called servarr
They provide setup instructions and descriptions as well as downloaders and scripts. They also each have a GitHub repository and webpage with screenshots and more flashy promo material so you can get a good idea of what they look like and how they work.
Essentially they all automatically go out and download any movies or shows you’ve told them to look out for, format the files and place them neatly in folders that your media manager like plex or jellyfin can then make available for you to watch on the client devices on phones, computers, smart tvs, chrome casts, Apple TVs, everything really
Quote!
Imo don’t get a raspberry pi 4. It can’t play everything from my nas. I ended up with a used mini office pc. It works so much better and I can use it as a regular PC with no hickups.
I was using libreelect on the pi streaming from my nas.
There’s also stremio and the torrentio plugin. If you don’t care about not having access when you’re offline.