Discussion
Anyone run a Kodi box thru their telly? Or run Kodi via any other android box? Any thoughts on it?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/KODI-XBMC-Android-TV-Box...
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/KODI-XBMC-Android-TV-Box...
Functionality is great, the looks do need a revamp, though if you have the time and energy you can fix that yourself. I don't understand why the menus scroll left and right rather than up and down, that's my main complaint.
Anyway, use the yatse remote for it and you don't need to see the interface at all, just pick what you want to watch on your phone.
I'm mostly on Plex now too, works perfectly with Chromecast for a better experience.
Anyway, use the yatse remote for it and you don't need to see the interface at all, just pick what you want to watch on your phone.
I'm mostly on Plex now too, works perfectly with Chromecast for a better experience.
I run it through a media centre PC I built a while back. Many different skins,and they've just updated the looks in the latest update.
I use it to listen to all my music and watch TV shows and films streamed from my NAS. Fantastic bit of kit.
Use a Logitech Harmony remote and that saves the need to pick up a new remote to work it.
I use it to listen to all my music and watch TV shows and films streamed from my NAS. Fantastic bit of kit.
Use a Logitech Harmony remote and that saves the need to pick up a new remote to work it.
Dan_1981 said:
Blackbox / Pheonix installed on a firestick here.
Fairly easy to do. Build is the best I've used so far.
Despite what anyone tells you - I really don't see it as a replacement for sky etc. Unless you are happy watching everything catchup style .
With certain add ons then it is very much a replacement for Sky 1, Atlantic, Movies, Netflix/Amazon Prime too. And watching things on demand is surely a benefit for most? Fairly easy to do. Build is the best I've used so far.
Despite what anyone tells you - I really don't see it as a replacement for sky etc. Unless you are happy watching everything catchup style .
phil_cardiff said:
Dan_1981 said:
Blackbox / Pheonix installed on a firestick here.
Fairly easy to do. Build is the best I've used so far.
Despite what anyone tells you - I really don't see it as a replacement for sky etc. Unless you are happy watching everything catchup style .
With certain add ons then it is very much a replacement for Sky 1, Atlantic, Movies, Netflix/Amazon Prime too. And watching things on demand is surely a benefit for most? Fairly easy to do. Build is the best I've used so far.
Despite what anyone tells you - I really don't see it as a replacement for sky etc. Unless you are happy watching everything catchup style .
I'm quite happy with it, and get everything I want from it, however many many people complain about it not working properly, or it being slow or lagging or buffering or links not working and so on.
It's by no means plug and play.
phil_cardiff said:
With certain add ons then it is very much a replacement for Sky 1, Atlantic, Movies, Netflix/Amazon Prime too. And watching things on demand is surely a benefit for most?
I wouldn't say it could ever be a replacement for a service like Sky etc, you can't just install stuff and then it just works for ever, add ons come and go and it requires a bit of tinkering to keep things up to date, nothing too taxing mind.Dan_1981 said:
phil_cardiff said:
Dan_1981 said:
Blackbox / Pheonix installed on a firestick here.
Fairly easy to do. Build is the best I've used so far.
Despite what anyone tells you - I really don't see it as a replacement for sky etc. Unless you are happy watching everything catchup style .
With certain add ons then it is very much a replacement for Sky 1, Atlantic, Movies, Netflix/Amazon Prime too. And watching things on demand is surely a benefit for most? Fairly easy to do. Build is the best I've used so far.
Despite what anyone tells you - I really don't see it as a replacement for sky etc. Unless you are happy watching everything catchup style .
I'm quite happy with it, and get everything I want from it, however many many people complain about it not working properly, or it being slow or lagging or buffering or links not working and so on.
It's by no means plug and play.
I know what you mean but if Exodus and Specto continue as they are then buffering and dead links aren't an issue.
And let's not forget the cost. The odd technical issue is a reasonable trade off for the money you're saving a month.
scjgreen said:
Yes i run it on 3 Raspberry Pi's connected to a 12TB Media Server and shared SQL Database.
I don't use any of the add ons really as most aren't particularly reliable
Same hereI don't use any of the add ons really as most aren't particularly reliable
4 R-Pi2's all going back to a HP micros server with 12tb of storage using PHPadmin for the share sql db
I've got it on a few Raspberry Pis too. I wouldn't call it a replacement for Sky only because the content I watch through each is different, I'd lose the Sky subscription before losing Kodi. Don't use a standard skin either and do find it does just work once installed. Buffering hasn't been an issue here either.
Too Late said:
scjgreen said:
Yes i run it on 3 Raspberry Pi's connected to a 12TB Media Server and shared SQL Database.
I don't use any of the add ons really as most aren't particularly reliable
Same hereI don't use any of the add ons really as most aren't particularly reliable
4 R-Pi2's all going back to a HP micros server with 12tb of storage using PHPadmin for the share sql db
phil_cardiff said:
Dan_1981 said:
phil_cardiff said:
Dan_1981 said:
Blackbox / Pheonix installed on a firestick here.
Fairly easy to do. Build is the best I've used so far.
Despite what anyone tells you - I really don't see it as a replacement for sky etc. Unless you are happy watching everything catchup style .
With certain add ons then it is very much a replacement for Sky 1, Atlantic, Movies, Netflix/Amazon Prime too. And watching things on demand is surely a benefit for most? Fairly easy to do. Build is the best I've used so far.
Despite what anyone tells you - I really don't see it as a replacement for sky etc. Unless you are happy watching everything catchup style .
I'm quite happy with it, and get everything I want from it, however many many people complain about it not working properly, or it being slow or lagging or buffering or links not working and so on.
It's by no means plug and play.
I know what you mean but if Exodus and Specto continue as they are then buffering and dead links aren't an issue.
And let's not forget the cost. The odd technical issue is a reasonable trade off for the money you're saving a month.
I think the real problem is the law of unintended consequences. As 'Kodi' becomes more and more mainstream amongst the general public the more attention it will receive from content providers and the more pressure there will be on ISP's to keep blocking the hosting sites. We're already seeing this now as the previous poster mentioned having to click through sources to find one that works. Eventually I think we'll just reach the point where it'll be too much hassle to use without a VPN or the like at which point Joe Public will have to go back to Sky or whatever.
Summary - suits geeks and thieves.
Long answer...
I've used Kodi (or XBMC as it was until recently) for years a lot of time viewing content from our NAS which has a fair amount of saved content on, mostly the kids films and music. It's absolutely fantastic for that.
I realised we weren't watching much outside of free to air channels on the TV so we ditched sky a few years ago when we bought an HD TV. I didn't want to pay sky extra money for free to air HD channels.
I built a PC to run kodi on it to replace the sky plus box in the lounge. I went with a linux PC type machine rather than just a pii/firestick/appletv type lightweight device because I wanted to have that skyplus like functionality and to do that I had to create a TV tuner back-end which would connect to the satellite dish and handle recordings etc. That was an absolute, total pain to set-up and I'm pretty techie, but since then my wife and young kids have been happy enough using it so I've not gone back to sky. After a while we switched the backend TV tuner from mythtv to tvheadend, tvheadend was much easier but still quite painful to set-up.
I didn't really want to do down the dodgy add-ins route so we don't run very many add-ins at all. The situation used to be be better because 4od, demand5 and itv player worked. Now I think we use only, iplayer, youtube and another one for streaming music (logitech squeezebox client).
In the end I supplemented the kodi with a roku stick to give us access to itv-player, all4 and demand5. We only use that though when we have to because you can't skip the adverts.
Overall I'm happy with what we've had out of it, but I'd never recommend doing it the way I have to someone who isn't going to enjoy tinkering with it from time to time, I like the technical challenge so it's fine with me, though annoying if things breakdown when there's some important show to watch.
Other than the technical challenge aspect, the only other reason to use it would be to use the add-ins which allow you to steal paid for content without paying sky/netflicks/etc. I don't do that so I can't really comment on it.
Long answer...
I've used Kodi (or XBMC as it was until recently) for years a lot of time viewing content from our NAS which has a fair amount of saved content on, mostly the kids films and music. It's absolutely fantastic for that.
I realised we weren't watching much outside of free to air channels on the TV so we ditched sky a few years ago when we bought an HD TV. I didn't want to pay sky extra money for free to air HD channels.
I built a PC to run kodi on it to replace the sky plus box in the lounge. I went with a linux PC type machine rather than just a pii/firestick/appletv type lightweight device because I wanted to have that skyplus like functionality and to do that I had to create a TV tuner back-end which would connect to the satellite dish and handle recordings etc. That was an absolute, total pain to set-up and I'm pretty techie, but since then my wife and young kids have been happy enough using it so I've not gone back to sky. After a while we switched the backend TV tuner from mythtv to tvheadend, tvheadend was much easier but still quite painful to set-up.
I didn't really want to do down the dodgy add-ins route so we don't run very many add-ins at all. The situation used to be be better because 4od, demand5 and itv player worked. Now I think we use only, iplayer, youtube and another one for streaming music (logitech squeezebox client).
In the end I supplemented the kodi with a roku stick to give us access to itv-player, all4 and demand5. We only use that though when we have to because you can't skip the adverts.
Overall I'm happy with what we've had out of it, but I'd never recommend doing it the way I have to someone who isn't going to enjoy tinkering with it from time to time, I like the technical challenge so it's fine with me, though annoying if things breakdown when there's some important show to watch.
Other than the technical challenge aspect, the only other reason to use it would be to use the add-ins which allow you to steal paid for content without paying sky/netflicks/etc. I don't do that so I can't really comment on it.
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