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Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

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Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#101

Post by puchatek »

denkmoon wrote: post #27
psychstudio wrote: post #12

Been using Kodi (XBMC) for nearly 20 years. The piracy FUD surrounding XBMC a few years ago really disappointed me. We use Kodi for streaming tv (Australia) and internet radio and it is perfect for this. That's all I wanted to say really. The piracy FUD has been disappointing.

Piracy is a moral obligation.

Not consuming media offered by a corrupt system would be plausible. And there would be plenty of choices to source content directly from artists. Or make your own.

Pirating content is just something people do because it's technically feasible. To silence the cognitive dissonance and justify the behavior towards their peers and reconcile it with the rest of their character (presumably they would not steal physical objects with a clear ownership status), this narrative of a morally motivated fight against the big bad recording company or film studio is employed. It's intellectually dishonest.

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#103

Post by dheera »

bane wrote: post #77

I honestly can't keep track anymore. I've used plex for a number of years and it's "fine" but they keep spending time developing things I don't want and ignoring things the community would like in an effort to "go commercial" and "legitimatize". I want a media center that can do these things: - access from phone or tablet: remote is nice to have, but on my own network is a must - can chromecast everything - can scrap…

Is there an open source thing that can act like a Chromecast but run on, say, a NUC and output to an arbitary gstreamer pipeline or some other foo?

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#104

Post by harrisi »

marderfarker2 wrote: post #91
harrisi wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this sarcasm? I don't mean any disrespect or negativity, I just don't understand. I'm not familiar with this space, but I don't see why the aforementioned expectations are unrealistic. The only issue I can imagine is big media companies strong arming a player in this space (which I assume is what happens to existing companies mentioned). There's nothing technically impossible mentioned.

I’d rather the app be a master of one than a jack of all trades Plex is very good when it comes to “just works” for media consumption. That “just works” experience (API enrichment, artwork sourcing, device verification etc.) isn’t easy to maintain.

That's totally fair. I also definitely agree that IJW is difficult. And people want different things, and have different ideas of what "It Just Works" means. I was just curious about what about the previously mentioned requests were unreasonable.

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#105

Post by harrisi »

oefnak wrote: post #97
harrisi wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this sarcasm? I don't mean any disrespect or negativity, I just don't understand. I'm not familiar with this space, but I don't see why the aforementioned expectations are unrealistic. The only issue I can imagine is big media companies strong arming a player in this space (which I assume is what happens to existing companies mentioned). There's nothing technically impossible mentioned.

Ebooks, photos and emulators? In my opinion they don't belong in my cinema app.

I agree! But, objectively, someone does think they belong. That's beside the point. I was curious if there are technical, business, or political (or something else) reasons why it's not possible (either theoretically or practically).

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#106

Post by stjohnswarts »

tuscen wrote: post #55
parineum wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it is literally charging us to partake in our own culture If I create something it's not your culture unless I decide to share it.

If you agree to erase your memory of all culture surrounding you and to create truly from blank than your statement could have some sense.

The culture around our current set of movies very very very likely wouldn't exist without for profit markets for that IP. Sorry my blood, sweat, tears in making new items isn't "free" for you to take unless I release it as free (which I certainly have in the past). I mean you can steal it obviously because it's an IT product but that doesn't make it moral at least not in my culture.

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#108

Post by otherme123 »

harrisi wrote: post #86
a254613e wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Your expectations from one piece of software are completely unrealistic.

Is this sarcasm? I don't mean any disrespect or negativity, I just don't understand. I'm not familiar with this space, but I don't see why the aforementioned expectations are unrealistic. The only issue I can imagine is big media companies strong arming a player in this space (which I assume is what happens to existing companies mentioned). There's nothing technically impossible mentioned.

Almost everything is technically possible. But I don't think that "ebooks, pdfs, cbz, cbr, etc." reader is a reasonable requirement for a media center. Or an emulator. They start complaining that software is bloated to appeal the community, and then request more bloat, but to their particular wants.

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#109

Post by Seirdy »

nonbirithm wrote: post #100
progman32 wrote: post #93

This may be unpopular, but after using Kodi and similar software for many years (and enjoying it!), I just gravitated back to the basics. Want to watch a movie? Navigate to it in my file manager and play it with VLC. Music? Just use Winamp 2 or Audacious. I realized I was messing with odd HDMI passthrough issues, database issues, audio sync, broken plugins, stressing about tagging, etc etc every movie night much more…

This is fair, but I've found that I want to watch my content on a television instead of my computer monitor, since I already have everything set up. Unfortunately, it seems that there aren't many good options for just playing files on the network natively using Android TV alone. It seems that a lot of people reach for Plex or similar in this situation, but setting up Plex requires a separate computer to serve the fil…

I recommend using an HDMI cable. The inconvenience of threading a cable across the room is massively outweighed by the convenience of never having to deal with network issues, limited bandwidth, or introducing additional software issues you didn't already have before.

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#110

Post by progman32 »

nonbirithm wrote: post #100
progman32 wrote: post #93

This may be unpopular, but after using Kodi and similar software for many years (and enjoying it!), I just gravitated back to the basics. Want to watch a movie? Navigate to it in my file manager and play it with VLC. Music? Just use Winamp 2 or Audacious. I realized I was messing with odd HDMI passthrough issues, database issues, audio sync, broken plugins, stressing about tagging, etc etc every movie night much more…

This is fair, but I've found that I want to watch my content on a television instead of my computer monitor, since I already have everything set up. Unfortunately, it seems that there aren't many good options for just playing files on the network natively using Android TV alone. It seems that a lot of people reach for Plex or similar in this situation, but setting up Plex requires a separate computer to serve the fil…

Ah, I see. I have a PC hooked up to my TV, which I use for the purposes mentioned in my post. I (perhaps erroneously) took it for granted that most people using these programs were doing the same.

This is probably beside the point, but thinking back, XBMC made a lot of sense back in 2003 when it was released. It wasn't as feasible to a) have an entire spare PC and b) hook it up to the TV easily. I certainly didn't have HDMI or even VGA on my TV back then, only composite and maybe component analog video...

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