Stremio is a Mediacenter thingy. You can provide different video sources using Plugins.

People mainly use it for torrenting. It'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.

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:

> We run non-intrusive ads occassionally

(Their typo, not mine.)

So it's like Plex, but, with ads in it.

> What is Stremio?

> Stremio is a modern media center that gives you the freedom to watch everything you want.

https://www.stremio.com

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/Cable era. Networks were not fast and streaming could not work that efficiently so a p2p network alievated the stress allowing viewers/listeners to grab media and be quick about it.

They state: "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."

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?

My goal really is to have a sleek, up to date TV OS that doesn't rely on me buying a specific TV or replacing it every 5 years when it stops receiving app updates.

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

I already use Stremio with LineageOS on Raspberry 4, it'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.

As far as their app goes, it'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/when someone/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's supposed to use BitTorrent. Switched back to popcorn time, no issues since.