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How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

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Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#101

Post by Splines »

m-p-3 wrote: post #35
retSava wrote: post #4

Argh, this must be so frustrating for the Kodi devs...! There really is a very strong case for running a Kodi-box for ones own legit collection, and now it's just mentioned for the (admittedly, probably) not so slight share of piracy. MPAA and friends has turned their eye on Kodi since a while ago, like Sauron on the little hobbitses. Could this be a submarine piece?

Thanks to Kodi, my Steam Link has been repurposed into something I actually use.

How's the performance on it? I tried it recently and found it pretty unsatisfactory. Maybe it was the media - I read somewhere that if the file needs transcoding it's all in software.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#102

Post by paul7986 »

pnutjam wrote: post #57
omg_ketchup wrote: post #40

There's a massive gap between the pirate service and the "legitimate" media service. For one, you can just type something in, and get the movie you want. You don't have to navigate between 15 different services, and then find out the film is only available on mail-order DVD, or in other countries. For television, the networks are HORRIBLE about providing their content to cord-cutters. Want to watch the latest episode…

I'm not a big fan of comcast, but their x1 boxes do a pretty good job of aggregating content and giving it to you wherever it comes from. They have a deep on demand selection and include netflix access, if you use netflix.

The above is probably a comment left by Comcast ... I mean what hacker newser likes Comcast?

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#103

Post by mschuster91 »

Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #31
alistproducer2 wrote: post #28

I would totally support micro-payments to content producers as opposed to the status quo. Until then.....Kodi all day baby! Cut the cord and never going back! I, however, didn't buy one pre-packaged. I did it the "hard" way and installed it on a Rpi3. If only I could play netflix on it, it would be perfect.

You need the widevine lib but I was under the impression that recent builds of kodi could support Amazon Prime and Netflix content via plugins (valid accounts for both are obv needed) https://github.com/asciidisco/plugin.video.netflix EDIT: Reading the issues on the NF Plugin GH seems like you will need a heatsink for the RPI3 and you are prob only going to max out at 720p

> EDIT: Reading the issues on the NF Plugin GH seems like you will need a heatsink for the RPI3 and you are prob only going to max out at 720p

Why, though? Isn't the Pi CPU the same family that's also in smartphones, where Netflix works even with the FHD (or Retina!) screens everyone and their dog puts in a smartphone?

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#104

Post by octalmage »

nickysielicki wrote: post #74
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't a simple "log in to see the links" approach solve this problem?

Better to make some money from the people watching your streams on a computer without an adblocker, than it is to hide the stream and have people hit their back button and find one of the dozens of other sites. The cost to run one of those sites is being overestimated here. They don't actually serve any of the video streams, just embedding from the dozens and dozens of little-known free live streaming services.

But, those little known free streaming services are also losing money here. It's those sites that are really losing.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#105

Post by Spivak »

rhino369 wrote: post #37
Nullabillity wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you think IP owners can adapt when piracy is made so transparent that it doesn't even feel like piracy anymore? Stop thinking of it as paying for a physical product, and start thinking of it as a tip jar for making more stuff in the future.

Why would anyone think tip jar as a business model is a good idea? Do people really want a world where the Battle of the Bastards stops so Jon Snow can tell you about how much he loves Sonos Speakers, how he uses Blue Apron, and then reads a list of Patreon supporters?

So commercials? The thing that basically every streaming platform has sans a Netflix and HBO.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#106

Post by Spivak »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #71
octalmage wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're ripping from sites that are ad supported. So the site doesn't get the ad impressions, and the plugin developer could (if they put ads in the plugins). Site operators hate it, and are constantly blocking them. Basically, they reach out to about 80 sites and scrape for links, then resolve those. It's a pretty insane process, but they've got it working just well enough.

Wouldn't a simple "log in to see the links" approach solve this problem?

Any site that tried this would be replaced immediately by another that didn't.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#107

Post by kyle-rb »

>That ease applies to creating the piracy addons themselves. Since primarily all they do is find existing sites that host pirated content, grab working links, and present them in Kodi's user-friendly interface, Betzen rates the complexity about the same as creating a simple web page.

This seems like an oversimplification. Most sites that host pirated content want you to watch that content within their website; so they can get their ad revenue and mine cryptocurrencies while you watch. They intentionally make it hard to get at their content, so in most cases, it's significantly harder than "creating a simple web page."

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#108

Post by colejohnson66 »

Freak_NL wrote: post #80
omg_ketchup wrote: post #40

There's a massive gap between the pirate service and the "legitimate" media service. For one, you can just type something in, and get the movie you want. You don't have to navigate between 15 different services, and then find out the film is only available on mail-order DVD, or in other countries. For television, the networks are HORRIBLE about providing their content to cord-cutters. Want to watch the latest episode…

> CBS hiding Star Trek behind their proprietary $10/month service is going to kill Star Trek, because the intended audience sees it as a bullshit cash grab. Interestingly, that seems to be US (and I think Canada) only. The rest of us get the new episode on Netflix every Monday. The new one should be ready by now. Of course, if I want to actually watch it in 1080p I still have to resort to piracy, because Netflix does…

That might have something to do with HDCP

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#109

Post by LordKano »

fao_ wrote: post #98
LordKano wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an example of market forces at work.

In case you're not being scarcastic: There is no such thing as these vague "market forces" you proclaim.

No. I wasn't being sarcastic.

Yes. It is precisely what I said it was.

The existing market wasn't being responsive to the wants and needs of their customers so the underground market sprung up to meet those needs.

It's not that people aren't willing to pay for these things, it's that they want to have a convenient way of doing so.

John Q Customer is not going to pay for Cable+Internet, Netflix, Hulu, CBS All Access, Amazon Prime and HBO Go.

Media company green caused this.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#110

Post by Crosseye_Jack »

mschuster91 wrote: post #103
Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need the widevine lib but I was under the impression that recent builds of kodi could support Amazon Prime and Netflix content via plugins (valid accounts for both are obv needed) https://github.com/asciidisco/plugin.video.netflix EDIT: Reading the issues on the NF Plugin GH seems like you will need a heatsink for the RPI3 and you are prob only going to max out at 720p

> EDIT: Reading the issues on the NF Plugin GH seems like you will need a heatsink for the RPI3 and you are prob only going to max out at 720p Why, though? Isn't the Pi CPU the same family that's also in smartphones, where Netflix works even with the FHD (or Retina!) screens everyone and their dog puts in a smartphone?

It seems to be down to inputstream.adaptive which is the bridge between widevine and kodi. See all the decoding has to be done in software and atm inputstream.adaptive isn’t refined/optimised enough for lower end CPUs such as what powers the RPI.

Remember that the rpi is designed to be cheap. The whole rpi3 board is sold for $35 which still makes a profit for the board manufacturers and the Raspberry Pi foundation. So “corners” had to be cut somewhere and using a less powerful CPU helps keep the cost down.

Note: The devs believe they will be able to get 1080p widevine protect content to playback smoothly sooner or later, but as of the last time I looked at it, that belief is a best guess, I dunno if they have optimised the code yet or if they have changed their opinion of if/when it will be done.

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