+1 Kodi. Been running it for ages on an old laptop with a infared remote with USB dongle. Kodi is set to autostart. Pretty hands off and can stream to it from local sources using Kore for android.
EDIT: Can stream from local AND online sources using Kore ex Newpipe (Youtube).
I think bluetooth or 2.4 mhz is better than IR. Coming to think of it mine is a china something with keyboard on the side and remote on the other using 2.4 mhz. So point of line is not needed which is nice.