In 1984 authoritarian country they gestures.

I would go for an Apple TV 4K box with ethernet (don’t burden yourself with wifi when you can have gigabit ethernet for $20). No ads, simple, works, looks really nice, apps are very responsive, I can fly through my home media collection’s wall of posters using the remote without any delays in loading images. Compatible with all the major streaming services. Has infuse for streaming local media as well as Plex and Jellyfin apps.

If you’re interested in spending some money and want something better without the Apple ecosystem (be warned, Google seems to be cracking down on sideloading so who can say how much longer that lasts but do as you feel right) I’d recommend something from Dune-HD.

Considering how old the Nvidia Shields are at this point, the disinterest from Nvidia in refreshing them periodically as Apple does, the insertion of ads, framerate switching issues, etc I think Dune-HD makes the superior product for upmarket non-Apple TV streaming. People have been waiting for a Shield update for 4 years now. In that time Apple dropped their own prices to make Nvidia look like even bigger clowns still selling old hardware and chips all these years later at such mark-up.

They support AV1, dolby vision, atmos and 2 of their 4k models have a dual OS set-up. One is Netflix certified Android which gets you full support for 4k streaming, DV, atmos, etc from all major streaming services, the other is a special virtualized container running a customized version of linux with a media center which you can install Kodi, Plex, Jellyfin, etc onto.

People who say “just run it off a PC you install Linux on” are not very serious or not very discerning (or more hardcore than me in their refusal to ever pay for any streaming services). Quality from such non-certified devices is capped at 720p without dolby atmos, dolby vision, etc from nearly all the major streaming services.

If you don’t want to drop as much as Apple or Dune-HD charge I’m not sure what to say. Walmart’s onn USED to be a great choice as you formerly could root them but they changed that and locked them down since 2024 I believe. Just get something beefier than a stick that plugs into your TV IMO, any kind of box is going to be superior in terms of ability to deal with heat.

Interesting project. Thanks for the link and I do appreciate it and could see some very good uses for that but it’s not quite what I meant.

Unfortunately as it notes it works as a companion for reverse proxies so it doesn’t solve the big hurdle there which is handling secure and working flow (specifically ingress) of Jellyfin traffic into a network as a turn-key solution. All this does is change the authorization mechanism but my users don’t have an issue with writing down passwords and emails. Still leaves the burden of:

• choosing and setting up the reverse proxy,
• certificates for that,
• paying for a domain so I can properly use certificates for encryption,
• making sure that works,
• chore of updating the reverse proxy, refreshing certs (and it breaking if we forget or the process fails), etc

Which is a hassle and a half for technically proficient users and the point that most other people would give up.

By contrast with Plex how many steps are there?

1. Install (going to skip media library setup as Jellyfin requires that too so it’s assumed)
2. Set up any port settings, open any relevant ports on firewall, enable remote access in setting with a tickbox
3. Set up users
4. Done, it now works and doesn’t need to be touched. It will handle connecting clients directly to the server. Users just need to install Plex client, login to their account and they have access.

By contrast this still requires the hoster set up a reverse proxy (major hassle if done securely with certificates as well as an expense for a domain which works out to probably $5 a year), to then have their users point their jellyfin at a domain-name (possibly a hard to remember one as majesticstuffbox[.]xyz is a lot cheaper than the dot com/org/net equivalents or a shorter domain that’s more to the point), auth and so on. It’s many, many, many more steps and software and configurations and chances for the hosting party to mess something up.

My point was I and many others would rather take the $5 we’d spend a year on a domain name and pay it for this kind of turn-key solution for ourselves and our users even if provided by a third party but that were Jellyfin to integrate this as an option it could provide some revenue for them and get the kinds of people who don’t want to mess with reverse proxies and certificates into their ecosystem and off Plex.

Jellyfin needs to partner with someone people can pay a very low and reasonable and/or one-time fee to enable remote streaming without the fuss of setting up either dangerous port-forwarding or the complexity of reverse proxies (paying for a domain-name, the set-up itself including certificates, keeping it updated for security purposes).

And no a VPN is not a solution, the difficulty for non-technical users in setting up a VPN (if it’s even possible, on smart-tvs it’s almost always not, and I don’t think devices like AppleTV and other streaming boxes often support them) is too high and it’s an unwanted annoyance even for technical users.

I’m not talking about streaming video’s through someone else’s servers or using their bandwidth. I’m talking about the connection phase of clients and servers where Plex acts like an enhanced dynamic DNS service with authentication. They have an agent on the local media server which sends to the remote web service of the third party the IP address, the port configured for use, the account or server name, etc. When a client tries to connect they go to this remote web service with the servername/username info, the web service authenticates them then gives them the current IP address and any other information necessary. It then sends some data to the local Jellyfin server about the connecting client to enable that connection and then the local media Jellyfin server and the client talk directly and stream directly.

Importantly the cost of running this authentication and IP address tracking scheme would be minimal per Jellyfin server. You could charge $5/year for up to 20 unique remote clients and come out ahead with a slight profit which could be put back into Jellyfin development and things like their own hosting costs for code, etc. Even better if they offer lifetime for this at $60-$80 they’d get a decent chunk of cash up-front to use for development (with reasonable use restrictions per account so someone hosting stuff in Hetzner or whatever and serving 300 people with 400 devices will need to pay more because they’re clearly doing this for profit and can afford to throw some more money at Jellyfin).

Until Jellyfin offers something that JUST WORKS like that it’s not going to be a replacement for Plex, whatever other improvements they offer to users it’s still a burden for the server runner to set up remote streaming in a way that isn’t either incredibly dangerous (port forwarding) OR either involves paying money to third parties AND/OR the trouble of running your own reverse proxy and/or involves walking users through complicated set-up process for each device that you have to repeat if you change anything major like your domain name when using a VPN.

at least 12GB of RAM,

Doesn’t exist and frankly not necessary. At present nothing needs this much RAM and I say this as a power user who runs a local media server and is familiar with concepts such as running Plex with remote transcoding on devices such as the Shield. The only things that come close to this much RAM might be recent generation gaming consoles like Xbox or Playstation but they don’t run Android and aren’t built for streaming, remote controls are third party accessories.

Other problems: I’m unaware of any devices even without the high RAM request that exist that fulfill all of those asks. Particularly 4k 120hz seems to be something no one has any interest in putting in a streaming box despite plenty of them having HDMI 2.1. I checked and even Apple TV 4K’s do not support 120hz despite having the right hardware for it.

Fact is commercial streaming services which these devices exist to cater to have no interest in 120fps/hz content, even 60fps with dolby vision is kind of more bandwidth than they like using and they upcharge premiums for it.

Basically your choices are (all these assume giving up the RAM ask):

• Run two devices, one for local streaming of things like games and 120fps content, one for watching streaming services that’s Android TV certified and will get you 4k content from them (at only 60fps). Cost is probably going to be north of $300. You can with this option get a mini-PC and kind of hack together a game streaming solution and if you want you can put 12GB of RAM in it but you won’t need them.
• Buy something that ticks most of the boxes but either give up the ability to stream 4K content from commercial services (because no Android TV certification) OR give up the 120fps demand. If you’re willing to give up the 120hz you might look into the Dune-HD premier 4k pro which has full Android TV support and certification for 4K streaming from all the major services, does 4k 60fps, has very impressive specs for a streaming device (top of the line) and is $200 and you can add an SSD to increase the storage from acceptable 32GB to well over a TB if desired. Otherwise if you’re willing to give up 4K from commercial streaming services and get only 1080p from them they have a few 8K devices that do have support for 120fps but the price doubles and if you want 4k on the major streaming services you’ll need another device.

Other options if you’re willing to give up the 120hz demand would be the Nvidia Shield Pro. As to a remote that controls everything, I believe the Dune-HD remotes do have that capability but honestly your wants are really specific and high end. Most people would use two boxes if they HAD to have all you’ve asked for.

You might also consider waiting to see if Valve does release a streaming device like they’ve teased. If Valve does something like that it might finally be the golden one that has 120hz support though you’re still not going to get 12GB of RAM. But you’re looking at waiting a year at least I think even if that does materialize and it may not.