I'm waiting for the Raspberry Pi 5 to set up as a media PC behind my tv. There are really good, reliable, and high quality sites that let you stream any movie or TV show. No need to vpn or torrent. Firefox with ublock origin streaming anything I want in 1080 for free.
I should add I have a RP4 and it's not beefy enough to stream 1080p full screen from a browser to my 4k tv.
I use an RP4 and it's fine with streaming 1080p h.265 stuff off my NAS drive, though it did struggle a bit with serving up the Planet Earth videos. It claims to be able to decode 4k, but probably not very well.
I haven't tried. Through a Web browser, maybe. There's a Kodi netflix addon, I know that. It's just a Debian box, so any solution that'd work on a Linux machine would probably be okay.
When I completely replaced my PC, I intended to use my old PC as a media box. But in reality, I've basically used my Chromecast for everything. One of these days I'll probably want to watch something that isn't on one of my streaming sites, but I've been surprisingly resistant to that so far.
Chromecast is the ideal smart device so far, for me. No ads or anything. I use my phone as a remote and basically every video app supports it easily. Open app, press cast, select what I want to play. Exactly what a smart TV should have been like.
What type of Chromecast do you use? I recently bought a Chromecast Ultra for a new TV after being happy with a secondhand one for years (3rd gen, I think). The difference in UI was such a disappointing step down. I don't want a home screen with apps and ads, I just want something I can stream to from my phone! And I can't say for certain, but it also feels like I get more ads on YouTube compared to using the older Chromecast.
No you bought a Chromecast with Google TV. A Chromecast ultra is just a 4k version of the original.
I used my CCwGTV for 8 months then sold it and got a CC ultra instead.
I hate the promoted content from networks and apps I would never use.
My only beef with Chromecast is I feel like they are designed to die after 2 years. I've gone through three now; it always seems like right around the 2-year mark, it starts having issues staying connected to the network. But I keep buying them because, like you said, it's basically the ideal smart device.
Did you try getting the chrome cast ultra that has the ethernet port on the power adapter? I've had a lot less trouble with connectivity on that one vs the original wireless only.
Every 4 months or so it will lock up and require a power cycle. So I do still have some of the problems you describe.
Careful though, some smart TVs actually list in the ToS where they'll take screen captures of what you're watching for "informational purposes", make sure you have all data collection turned off anyway even if you don't use it as such.