A new project can transform the humble Raspberry Pi into a media center in a rather simple manner. The Pi can access both locally stored data or data stored in the cloud.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Raspberry-Pi-Turn-the-popular-single-board-computer-into-a-NAS-and-a-media-center-with-free-cloud-storage.466079.0.html
I wanted to use my RPI4 for similar purposes but noticed a few limitations which I documented in my blog in detail: michaelspinboard.blogspot.com .
Summoning up my experience: it works and performs well if you don't care about crypto since the soc lacks AES extensions. Also using a SATA SSD as data storage drive didn't work out as many of the 2.5" drive cases still use outdated controllers (I tried three of them...).
I didn't cover hardware video encoders and decoders in my blog post but I successfully managed to get h264 encode/decode running after recompiling the kernel on Ubuntu and enabling an additional kernel module. But it looks like they are switching over to v4l2_m2m in kernel 5.4 which still takes time to majure . (but it is technically a good decision to use an open, modern api).
I still like the RPI4, it's an amazing single board computer. Especially considering the price. But for my own setup I decided to use an AsRock DeskMini A300 instead.
So what chance is there for us uncodified meson types. How do you actually plug your hard drives in and when? Most notable is the unintelligible video...what are they thinking? I guess it could be me though?