My main concern is replacing the remote, because bluetooth on linux is quite awful.
Im guessing run kodi is the other solution? I want the SO to be able to use it as easily as the smart tv, which is of course riddled with ads and downloading random shit on my network that I hate (20 gigs to Disney + in a month. I dont have any subs. Wtf is it downloading? I blocked it now ofc)
For reference, trying to axe the smart tv and use my atari vcs with mint on it to fulfill those needs. It should have the power and I want to keep the sleek look and not have an actual pc in the room.
For software, Kodi is very good and probably easy enough for your SO to operate.
If you want a very small, low-power device, consider a Raspberry Pi 5 (or maybe a RPi 4 if you don’t need high-end A/V output). Raspberry Pis are tiny, and unlike most other single-board computers, their video processor correctly handles fractional frame rates that are common in broadcast video. LibreELEC is a ready-made operating system for these devices, centered around Kodi.
If you want more versatile (and more expensive) hardware, NUC-class mini-PCs are often praised for use as media centers.
If you want to build your own system, consider an AMD Zen 5 or Zen 4 CPU, or maybe Zen 3. Most of these have an integrated RNDA2 GPU. That iGPU only has a couple of cores, so you won’t be doing much 3D gaming without adding a graphics card, but they are more than enough for hardware-accelerated video decoding/encoding.