Hello everyone!
Lately i have been wanting to get a low cost ( under 100$ ) media player for my tv. however i'm annoying when it comes to what functionality it needs to have. i need it to run netflix, hulu, crunchyroll, youtube. i would like it to be controlled by my android phone. however i don't what this to take up my smart phone. and i would like it to have a web browser on the tv as well. thank you.
I have a chromecast, and in terms of video it works very well for things like youtube and netflix where chromecast is integrated into the player. Trying to watch amazon prime didn't seem to work so well since I would have to stream the tab it was playing in. Although that might be due to my router not being the best, I'm not 100% sure.
I use chromecast for netflix, the tek on big screen ;) youtube, and website videos, it works very well for the price and i would definitely recommenced it.
Raspberry Pi running RaspBMC works well for Netflix, Youtube and Amazon Prime Instant (as well as local and network media). Haven't tried Hulu or Crunchyroll (was gonna do Hulu, but never got around to it), but I believe there are addons for those as well. The interface can be a little sluggish, but it's nothing crazy. Video always plays fine, including HD content.
Haven't tried Chromecast, so I can't compare.