h3o How did you get it working on Mate?
I have a fairly recent model HP desktop that I bought as refurbished for very little money. It sits beside my TV and connects via HDMI. Obviously, it runs on MATE, as I've mentioned before. The TV happens to be a Samsung 4K smart TV, but that doesn't make much difference, as in my setup it's used only as a monitor.
I get cable content and local stations from tv.youtube.com, and I've found the best browser for the purpose is Firefox. (I use Vivaldi everywhere else, but Firefox handles YouTube TV much better.)
The main reason I switched to MATE for this purpose is because it avoids screen tearing right out of the box, with no add-ons or other configuration needed. It just provides smooth video content with no issues.