Stremio OS Is Now Available for Raspberry Pi 5 and 4

Stremio is a Mediacenter thingy. You can provide different video sources using Plugins.<p>People mainly use it for torrenting. It&#x27;s nice in theory since it allows you to watch basically anything without having to download it first. It will find and download Torrents on demand and start playing them after a small buffer has been built.<p>But stremio users are only active on a given Torrent while watching its content. Meaning that they contribute nothing back to the network. If everyone (or a large enough percentage of users) would act like this the whole (public) BitTorrent Network would no longer work.

Never heard of Streamio before, but from the FAQ:<p>&gt; We run non-intrusive ads occassionally<p>(Their typo, not mine.)<p>So it&#x27;s like Plex, but, with ads in it.

&gt; What is Stremio?<p>&gt; Stremio is a modern media center that gives you the freedom to watch everything you want.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.stremio.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.stremio.com</a>

So I am kind of opposed to piracy but the novel idea of a peer based CDN has its merit. Imagine an encrypted framework where Netflix operates in a peer to peer communication. It would drastically reduce the overhead a streaming service would require to send content to users. If people are all watching the similar content or opt-in to supporting the network chunks of data could stored across many customer peers to complete the mesh. This would allow high quality content with a reduced amount of latency for delivery. It is why piracy took of during the DSL&#x2F;Cable era. Networks were not fast and streaming could not work that efficiently so a p2p network alievated the stress allowing viewers&#x2F;listeners to grab media and be quick about it.

They state: &quot;While the Raspberry Pi 5 is fully capable of smooth 4K playback, Raspberry Pi 4 will not be able to play 4K content due to hardware limitations.&quot;<p>This likely depends on the codec. The Pi 4’s BCM2711 SoC, unlike the BCM2712 in the Pi 5, has hardware support for H.265 (HEVC) up to 4Kp60. However, the Pi 5 can still support H.265 (HEVC) up to 4Kp60 through software-based decoding, thanks to its more powerful CPU and GPU.

I have no interest in Streamio, but I have really wanted an Android TV OS I can run on commodity hardware for things like Netflix, YouTube et al, I wonder if this might be a suitable solution?<p>My goal really is to have a sleek, up to date TV OS that doesn&#x27;t rely on me buying a specific TV or replacing it every 5 years when it stops receiving app updates.

I&#x27;ve been using Stremio for about a year now and have been very happy with it, if I had an Rpi I&#x27;d definitely give this a try.

I already use Stremio with LineageOS on Raspberry 4, it&#x27;s android so you can install a lot of apps directly from the store, stremio included.

I wish the app was open source. I have plenty of experience with android and video app development and would love to contribute some features. But alas.<p>As far as their app goes, it&#x27;s a really good app though. It brings a better experience than most paid alternatives (Netflix, Prime Video, ...)

You have everything in a single app with somewhat nice UX. If&#x2F;when someone&#x2F;a company is able to find a solution to the licensing problem and releases this with a good enough price point, privacy will be ‘solved’

Used it for 2 weeks, shows, movies kept buffering even though it&#x27;s supposed to use BitTorrent. Switched back to popcorn time, no issues since.