Kodi v17.0 “Krypton” Release Candidate 4

Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
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I know a bunch of you, like me, use Kodi for your media center needs. With today's announcement of Release Candidate 4, Team Kodi is getting close to releasing their next v17 release.

Personally I'm both looking forward to, and dreading the next release of Kodi. While every new release brings exciting new features and fixes bugs, they also invariably break most of my Kodi plugins, like my MythTV PVR plugin. On top of that Kodi 17 is supposed to include a brand new completely reworked UI to replace the standard Confluence theme. This means I'm going to have to teach everyone how to use it again.

This is the fourth Release Candidate for our upcoming v17.0 “Krypton” which contains our continuous effort to further improve v17.0 before we make it final. Our team will certainly try to tackle as much of the reported problems as possible with the limited resources we have. We do want to note that since we are just a small team some of the reported bugs might not get fixed due to lack of developers or time. As such we would certainly welcome any developer who has the ability to help us out to try and fix the bugs he or she encounters and submit it to our code base for review. We sure would like to thank every one involved with either development, testing or simply helping out others with answering their questions.
 
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I keep hearing a lot about Kodi.

I've just always used Plex over my network to play my storage of mkv's.

Now we have a Roku Premier Plus and we especially love using that even more.

I'm guessing Kodi does some of the same things.
 
SixFootDuo said:
I keep hearing a lot about Kodi.

I've just always used Plex over my network to play my storage of mkv's.

Now we have a Roku Premier Plus and we especially love using that even more.

I'm guessing Kodi does some of the same things.
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It's very flexible, which is why I like it. I primarily use Kodi as a front end for my MythTV DVR server, as well as streaming my other content straight off of my NAS. There are more community plugins than you can shake a stick at. I build compact dedicated boxes with Kodi straight on top of Linux without a desktop environment. This results in very low storage and RAM footprints.

If doing your own Linux thing istn your bag, it will also run in Windows, and there is also a pre-packaged Linux image where everything just works named OpenElec.
 
I've been using Plex as well but Kodi offers some things that Plex doesn't. I also see that Kodi can now be "integrated" with Plex so you have the centralized server/database benefits of Plex with all the addons and flexibility of Kodi. Haven't tried it yet though.
 
I really like Kodi, to watch Youtube and IGN videos from afar with an MCE remote. To get everything working right is a bit frustrating, but for people who like to tinker, overcoming the setup obstacles is part of the fun! That being said, having an easier way to watch netflix within it with an mce remote would be REALLY welcome, without having to resort to a combination of other programs.
 
Xbox controllers are surprisingly capable Kodi remotes. Including on Linux.
 
Hmm. This is news to me... With my crappy back I have been using an Xbox mouse simulator by Nicklas Hult (Thank you guy!!!!!) so I wouldn't have to crawl out of bed every time Netflix wanted to make sure I was still there. Works awesome for Netflix, YouTube, all that.. but I may have to try this.
 
Hielo_loco said:
That being said, having an easier way to watch netflix within it with an mce remote would be REALLY welcome, without having to resort to a combination of other programs.
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Yeah, I've had this argument with some of the Kodi Develpers over on their forums. They are, by and large, dyed in the wool Open Source guys to whom DRM is a four letter word, and there is no way no how they will ever integrate anything even remotely DRM related into their code.

I can see both sides of this. I certainly don't like DRM, but it's damned inconvenient when the supposedly "all in one" media center software isn't "ALL in one".

There are ways to get Netflix to work, but they are kind of hacks. There is a Netflix plugin, but it doesn't do any of the DRM itself, so it relies on a Chrome launcher plugin, launching Chrome in "theater mode" (full screen) for video playback,

It is a pain in the butt to set up (especially on window-manager-less installs like my three HTPC's) but once you get it set up, it works... Sort of. I could never get it to stop tearing during playback. The rest of Kodi changes the screen refresh to match videos (if so configured, and the refresh rate is available) or does a good job of interpolating if you don't, but neither of these features seem to interract with Chrome in the Chrome launcher.

While I love Kodi, It's my biggest gripe with the software (the stupid name being my second), and the reason we still keep an old Roku in the living room. I don't really ever watch Netflix, but it is a must have feature for my better half, so it stays.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Yeah, I've had this argument with some of the Kodi Develpers over on their forums. They are, by and large, dyed in the wool Open Source guys to whom DRM is a four letter word, and there is no way no how they will ever integrate anything even remotely DRM related into their code.

I can see both sides of this. I certainly don't like DRM, but it's damned inconvenient when the supposedly "all in one" media center software isn't "ALL in one".

There are ways to get Netflix to work, but they are kind of hacks. There is a Netflix plugin, but it doesn't do any of the DRM itself, so it relies on a Chrome launcher plugin, launching Chrome in "theater mode" (full screen) for video playback,

It is a pain in the butt to set up (especially on window-manager-less installs like my three HTPC's) but once you get it set up, it works... Sort of. I could never get it to stop tearing during playback. The rest of Kodi changes the screen refresh to match videos (if so configured, and the refresh rate is available) or does a good job of interpolating if you don't, but neither of these features seem to interract with Chrome in the Chrome launcher.

While I love Kodi, It's my biggest gripe with the software (the stupid name being my second), and the reason we still keep an old Roku in the living room. I don't really ever watch Netflix, but it is a must have feature for my better half, so it stays.
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Exactly! My Kodi "all in one" solution includes PowerDVD for blurays, Internet Explorer plus LM Remote or Neatmouse for Netflix 1080p, plus all the required fiddlng with xml and batch files to get everything working. I´m fine doing all of that for myself, but for my girlfriend or my folks, its Roku or a console. Pity, I had been trying to mod an old i3 as an htpc for my parents, but it would just have become a constant tech support nightmare when something inevitably stopped playing nice with all that stuff.
 
mashie said:
We are using SPMC (Android Kodi fork) and it is working great on an Nvidia Shield TV. My parents are using Kodi on a small HTPC and it is working fine for them too. It will be interesting to see what the Confluence replacement will look like.
Click to expand...


You don't have to guess, you can follow the second link in the story for screenshots, or install the release candidate for yourself and test it! :p
 
SixFootDuo said:
I keep hearing a lot about Kodi.

I've just always used Plex over my network to play my storage of mkv's.

Now we have a Roku Premier Plus and we especially love using that even more.

I'm guessing Kodi does some of the same things.
Click to expand...

I'm the same as you, more or less. I used to use nothing but Kodi until I heard about Plex. Once I switched to Plex, I've never looked back. Supported on a ton of devices, reliable, fast, easy to use, wife approved; what more could a guy ask for in a front end player?
 
Does KODI do cable television? I still use Microsoft Media Center as it has been the only software that works with cablecard hardware. I am not trying to cut cords, I still like and use Comcast, apparently I am one of the few that hasnt had issues with the company in the 16+ years I have been a customer.

The problem I face, is that my CETON card only works with media center, and now media center software is being abandoned by microsoft and stuck to windows 7. The windows 10 workarounds I have played with still has bugs that need to get dealt with on a regular basis.
 
rbarr110 said:
Does KODI do cable television? I still use Microsoft Media Center as it has been the only software that works with cablecard hardware. I am not trying to cut cords, I still like and use Comcast, apparently I am one of the few that hasnt had issues with the company in the 16+ years I have been a customer.

The problem I face, is that my CETON card only works with media center, and now media center software is being abandoned by microsoft and stuck to windows 7. The windows 10 workarounds I have played with still has bugs that need to get dealt with on a regular basis.
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They don't have their own PVR backend, but there are plugins for a number of other backends. I use MythTV for a PVR and live TV backend, and the MythTV plugin for Kodi as a frontend. Works quite nicely.
 
I use Kodi for the front end in my theater. Really like the interface. Also run Plex on my server to stream all my movies to everything else in the house and out side of the house. Not really a fan of the new Kodi 17 look. I run a different skin any way just waiting on them to make it work with 17. Kodi lets me bitstream DTS:x and dobly Atmos .
 
I've always felt Kodi is a lot of work vs. Plex is damn near zero touch. I understand Plex doesn't do everything Kodi does, but if you have FireTV, 90% of the media options are already there. Add an HDHomerun device and it's even better it seems.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I know a bunch of you, like me, use Kodi for your media center needs. With today's announcement of Release Candidate 4, Team Kodi is getting close to releasing their next v17 release.

Personally I'm both looking forward to, and dreading the next release of Kodi. While every new release brings exciting new features and fixes bugs, they also invariably break most of my Kodi plugins, like my MythTV PVR plugin. On top of that Kodi 17 is supposed to include a brand new completely reworked UI to replace the standard Confluence theme. This means I'm going to have to teach everyone how to use it again.

This is the fourth Release Candidate for our upcoming v17.0 “Krypton” which contains our continuous effort to further improve v17.0 before we make it final. Our team will certainly try to tackle as much of the reported problems as possible with the limited resources we have. We do want to note that since we are just a small team some of the reported bugs might not get fixed due to lack of developers or time. As such we would certainly welcome any developer who has the ability to help us out to try and fix the bugs he or she encounters and submit it to our code base for review. We sure would like to thank every one involved with either development, testing or simply helping out others with answering their questions.
Click to expand...
Any reason you don't just go with a 3rd party UI? Originally I think I used Aeon (though maybe there was another before that). In the last several years I've used Transparency.

I'm pretty sure Transparency is partially based on Aeon, but it's been so long that I don't remember anymore. As long as Transparency continues to be supported, I'm set.
 
nilepez said:
Any reason you don't just go with a 3rd party UI? Originally I think I used Aeon (though maybe there was another before that). In the last several years I've used Transparency.

I'm pretty sure Transparency is partially based on Aeon, but it's been so long that I don't remember anymore. As long as Transparency continues to be supported, I'm set.
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I started using Confluence just because it was the default. Now I continue using it as there are many users, not all of whom are tech savvy enough to adapt to new interfaces easily.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I started using Confluence just because it was the default. Now I continue using it as there are many users, not all of whom are tech savvy enough to adapt to new interfaces easily.
Click to expand...
Right, but you said the UI is changing and they'll have to relearn it anyway.
 
nilepez said:
Right, but you said the UI is changing and they'll have to relearn it anyway.
Click to expand...


Good point. When 17 launches, I probably won't upgrade immediately. I'll save it for a time when I have plenty of time to train everyone on a replacement. That that point I'll review what is out there and choose one.

That being said, if someone updates Confluence for 17, I'll probably just use it, to save myuself the trouble.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
That being said, if someone updates Confluence for 17, I'll probably just use it, to save myuself the trouble.
Click to expand...

That totally makes sense, and I can imagine someone doing that, because I'm sure there are plenty of people who like that skin (I'm just not one of them ;) )
 
The problem with Plex is that it still falls back to transcoding far too often. I can't reliably use it on my NVIDIA Shield TV or Fire TV Stick to this day. I do have a sufficient server to transcode but it's a huge waste of resources I'd rather spend on other things considering both those devices have more than adequate hardware to handle any media I have on hand. I do use Plex on my Raspberry Pi 3 via RasPlex and it also works great on my phones, tablets, and ChromeCasts. For everything else I find Kodi + PlexKodiConnect to be the best of both worlds. I just feel that you should never be satisfied with having to transcode - it should never be an issue. Kodi (as well as OSMC, OpenElec, LibreElec, etc.) is clearly superior for power users. I do love the PMS part of the package, though.
 
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In the last few months I switched from a NUC/OpenElec setup to Nvidia Shield TV...

Must say I really like it so far, you get Kodi via Google Play AND Netflix and I believe they just added Amazon. Everything out of the box, console like, no mistaken hardware, supports bitstreaming (at least via Kodi). Integrated IR remote support for the AV nerd like me with a fancy programmable RF remote. IMO its one of the best out of box streaming AND home media players out there.

I too will miss confluence (when it makes it to the shield) ... I actually preferred it for my simple Movie/TV show needs. I tried many of the other Kodi skins and I always went back to confluence. It just seemed to fit my ui preferences the most.

I also have been using Nvidias game streaming service... free for 3 months... its ok. Selection is fairly poor but they have many of the lego games my girlfriend likes. Outside of some temporary network issues from time to time its not a bad solution for casual console gaming.

I did buy a few games from them, what was really cool was they came with steam keys as well. Which is AWESOME and removes many fears of the service going under leaving yous stranded.

I am actually thinking of setting up a PC to be a game streamer for the service since comcast enabled caps on my service:) Which I think streaming has been a factor in my overage this month.
 
Maxx said:
The problem with Plex is that it still falls back to transcoding far too often. I can't reliably use it on my NVIDIA Shield TV or Fire TV Stick to this day. I do have a sufficient server to transcode but it's a huge waste of resources I'd rather spend on other things considering both those devices have more than adequate hardware to handle any media I have on hand. I do use Plex on my Raspberry Pi 3 via RasPlex and it also works great on my phones, tablets, and ChromeCasts. For everything else I find Kodi + PlexKodiConnect to be the best of both worlds. I just feel that you should never be satisfied with having to transcode - it should never be an issue. Kodi (as well as OSMC, OpenElec, LibreElec, etc.) is clearly superior for power users. I do love the PMS part of the package, though.
Click to expand...

I have Plex in a dual core VM and have two FireTVs - transcoding has never been much of an issue. It does have the support to transcode ahead of time. Sounds like maybe your source material was more the issue?
 
ClariorHincHonos said:
I have Plex in a dual core VM and have two FireTVs - transcoding has never been much of an issue. It does have the support to transcode ahead of time. Sounds like maybe your source material was more the issue?
Click to expand...

From what I understand the first gen Fire TV Sticks don't work properly with the force-updated version of Plex (known issue) and the issue with NVIDIA Shield TV (also known) has been there since I got it and remains. Plex just makes shitty apps IMHO - and that extends to the Windows Store version (which I purchased a long while back, but tested again recently; loopback exceptions et al). I'm not terribly happy with the way Plex pushes for control over your media/access and wants a subscription, either. Luckily, Kodi does everything I need without wasting CPU power. (they were both forks of XBMC after all)
 
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