Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System • Hacker News Board

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#161

Post by thefz » Tue, Dec 21, 2021, 8:47 AM UTC

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 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.

I have been doing this all the time with Kodi. Just disable media scanning and browse through. I'm sold on Kodi because for years it has been the only way to watch video on my Linux NUC without tearing, it digests every media I can throw at it, and it's overall just very easy to configure and use.

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#162

Post by Ballu » Tue, Dec 21, 2021, 8:48 AM UTC

I used to play with these software long time back, Kodi was the last one before moving to "whatever" stick :) (And I am not into media now) But I have question regarding media, what are you going to play? Where are you going to download the movies/songs, etc unless use illegal ways. It was amazing journey of few years for me, ripping CDs, DVDs, VCDs, BluRay, HD-DVD, etc and playing all those on TV with Kodi box. (Eventually moved to WDTV box).

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#163

Post by thefz » Tue, Dec 21, 2021, 8:51 AM UTC

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…

> 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

I've stopped using it at home because it keeps on wanting to transcode files for me even if I configured it not to and having gigabit ethernet. And it destroys my server's CPU doing so since I'm not that rich to have a spare video card around.

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#164

Post by lajamerr » Tue, Dec 21, 2021, 9:00 AM UTC

benjaminwootton wrote: post #143

smackeyacky wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just buy a google chromecast with google tv and install VLC on it. No games or mame but everything else on the list is covered. Kodi is fun but having to educate the non technical household members how to use it is not fun. Thats what killed the old HTPC concept for me. Too much fiddling, not enough watching.

How does this work? Where is the media hosted? Chromecast nearly cracks this problem, but playing local media has always needed weird fragile browser extensions in my experience.

The newer Chromecast(Chromecast with Google TV) has a redesigned Android TV interface with a smart remote. The older chromecast you didn't really have any interface to interact with it aside from sending a signal from your phone to control it remotely.

In this case I believe the above commenter was just implying to use your home PC as your Media server, install VLC on the Chromecast with Google TV, and then play the media back on the Chromecast via the Network share.

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#165

Post by nunodonato » Tue, Dec 21, 2021, 9:03 AM UTC

senko wrote: post #122

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…

> Want to watch a movie? Navigate to it in my file manager and play it with VLC. That's how I use Kodi on an (otherwise) headless HTPC (a RPi) connected to my TV. You don't need to build and maintain a content library, plugins, etc. Select Videos - Files, navigate to a folder, select the file and enjoy. > What are people's favorite "killer apps" for software like Kodi? Is it just convenience and I've have had bad luc…

Same. I have it installed in my Xiaomi mi tv (Android tv). Connected an external USB drive and it's good to go

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#166

Post by bennyp101 » Tue, Dec 21, 2021, 9:11 AM UTC

I used to use it when it was XBMC, but for some reason that escapes me now, I ended up switching to Plex, and stayed there.

I think it was just after they rebranded to Kodi, something happened and it didn't work right - my memory is a bit hazy

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#167

Post by orloffm » Tue, Dec 21, 2021, 9:12 AM UTC

I use Kodi on a Raspberry Pi 3. It plays everything 1080p apart from h265 sources. Can't recommend enough.

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#168

Post by alophawen » Tue, Dec 21, 2021, 9:15 AM UTC

refracture wrote: post #118

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…

Auto subtitle downloads? Come now if you are only watching rips of your own legally purchased media the subs would be available to you already… unless you aren’t. Seriously though you are asking a lot here.

That's been a plex feature since day 1 (?)

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#169

Post by hyperman1 » Tue, Dec 21, 2021, 9:15 AM UTC

I got an old PC my job was dumping(Haswell, I think), installed kodi, and put it under the TV. Then copied all our DVDs on the hard disk. Use the android app as remote.

It works flawlessly. The startup time is a bit slow, but once running, my 4 year old kid can choose his bed time series and watch 1 or 2 episodes on his own. My wife also knows her way around.

Now there are tons of unused options in there, but who cares. But I never had to mess around with the settings like the other poster experiences, it just works.

Only problem is I can't manage to play from the Nickelodeon website, but maybe a bit of googling might unearth a webbrowser plugin.

Re: Kodi: An Open Source Home Theater System

#170

Post by Cockbrand » Tue, Dec 21, 2021, 9:16 AM UTC

LeoPanthera wrote: post #23

I run LibreElec on a Raspberry Pi, which is a just-enough-OS for Kodi. It works great, and is even a good choice for playing music over HDMI, because unlike some other music-playing distributions, it doesn't use ALSA, and simply bit-bangs the decoded audio out of the HDMI port. Works very well.

+1 for LibreElec on a Raspberry Pi. Zero hassle, zero fiddling, everything just works, and it feels like it's built into the TV as it uses its IR remote as the only input device.