This may seem like a stupid question but I am hoping for a serious answer. At our location we have only had access to broadband for a couple of years. Before then our rural dial-up was so awful that streaming anything was out of the question. When this finally changed, all of it was a new learning experience for me. I started with a dedicated Windows streaming PC because that was what was familiar to me. As time went on, I became aware of other options and I investigated some of them, but I always went back to the PC. I did a lot of customising with scripts and the like, and over time I have tweaked it to the point where it works pretty well, especially as a media player. I have single-click menus that work from my remote and playing any recorded item is a snap. When streaming, URL shortcuts I have set up also work reasonably well, though this is not as simple. Browsing new sites from the couch remains a pain, though, in spite of shortcuts and macros I have created to streamline it as much as possible.

At various times I have looked at other options. I tried Google Cast, but it didn’t work well for us. When we got a Sony smart TV, I also checked that out, but I quickly realised it was a waste of time. I have kept coming back to the streaming PC as the least worst option.

I keep hearing about the experiences of others with Kodi, Plex, Apple TV, Roku, and so on, and I keep wondering if I am missing something. I did try downloading Plex and Kodi at different times, but all they seemed to do was make a mess of my well-ordered media files and I soon ditched them. As far as I can determine, this kind of software mainly just wants to act as a media player, and I don’t need or want that. What I want is something that simplifies the streaming interface.

One problem with that is that every site is different. YouTube uses HTML5 which at least has a short-cut key for going full screen, but it still requires awkward mouse movements to navigate, set up a file and start it playing. Most other sites still insist on Flash, which is even worse. Different sites require different clicks in different places to set resolution and play and do other things. It is not simple and I am the only one prepared to put up with it.

I have looked at the Apple TV site but I’m not prepared to pay for something that might not do what I need. What I need is basically a single-click interface for a range of different streaming sites. Does an ‘app’ actually do that? It isn’t completely clear. As far as I can see, it looks like it might work a bit like changing channels on a single site, such as Netflix, but not for navigating between sites. I get it that there are different apps for different sites, but I assume those only exist for mainstream ones.

The problem here is that our tastes are not mainstream. We don’t watch American series TV or blockbuster films, so we aren’t interested in Netflix or Amazon or services like that. We do watch BBC iPlayer, for which there is an app, along with ABC iView, SBS, some PBS, YouTube, and a number of European arts sites. Our taste is mostly art films, classical concerts, documentaries, and public broadcasting. We regularly switch between a dozen or so sites for this content.

So would Kodi, or Apple TV, or anything else actually add anything to our viewer experience or is my home-brew streaming computer actually the best that we can get? I would be interested to know what users of Kodi and the other options think about this. Again, I do not need or want a fancy media player interface. What I have already created over the past couple of years works for that as well as anything ever could. What I am looking for is something that makes streaming different channels on a wide range of different sites as simple as pressing the channel button on a TV remote. Is this even possible?