> I think honestly the best solution really is to just use a stock PC and forget all of this crap.
I used to do that, with a Linux HTPC and Plex. I eventually switched to the physical AppleTV device, with all the content on a surplus Mac mini connected to the home network. It's just less work to maintain. On the old setup, it always worked perfectly whenever I was around and had plenty of time to tinker with things. It only ever had problems when I was at the office, very busy, and the kids wanted to watch some show I had digitized from our DVD collection. Granted, the problems were always small and easily fixed, but they were disruptive because of the circumstance.
I've never had that happen to me with the Apple setup. Yeah, you've got to at least partially buy into their ecosystem. But they don't force you to go all in if you don't want to.
I'm currently using Jellyfin to manage my media. With very few exceptions, it's been as turnkey as it gets. Anything with a web browser is good enough to use it, making nearly any kind of setup sufficient. Almost any OS can just browse the web very well. I run it with Docker on Synology DSM. Early on in Jellyfin's life, some Jellyfin server updates required manual intervention, but for a long time now, I just update periodically (every few months) and haven't run into a problem.
With that in mind, if I wanted a Linux HTPC setup for minimal tinkering, for the purposes of accessing YouTube and Jellyfin, I'd probably go with an immutable system; I like the look of Bazzite for this. Then, I'd probably disable automatic updates, and manually update things periodically when I have time. If it breaks, you can always roll it back, but manual updates will take the minimal potential disruptions to probably just zero. You could run this on a cheap mini/NUC PC. For TVs that are not mounted to the wall, you could probably even mount it to the back using a VESA mount adapter.
That said, I don't currently have plans to replace all of my Chromecast setups, so I haven't actually done this. That's because they've been working very well for years and there's really no reason to mess with something that works. They were cheap, they run Android apps, and I've cut out all of the unwanted advertising.
I used to do that, with a Linux HTPC and Plex. I eventually switched to the physical AppleTV device, with all the content on a surplus Mac mini connected to the home network. It's just less work to maintain. On the old setup, it always worked perfectly whenever I was around and had plenty of time to tinker with things. It only ever had problems when I was at the office, very busy, and the kids wanted to watch some show I had digitized from our DVD collection. Granted, the problems were always small and easily fixed, but they were disruptive because of the circumstance.
I've never had that happen to me with the Apple setup. Yeah, you've got to at least partially buy into their ecosystem. But they don't force you to go all in if you don't want to.