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Kodi (formally known as XBMC) 14.0 officially released!

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Fire TV doesn't output at 24p so meh! Chromebox + Openelec all the way.
Holy crap, I didn't even know Chromebox was a thing. I can't easily get FireTV in Australia, but Chomebox is available, and not too expensive. Does it run smoothly, even with a slick skin on top? I think I want to upgrade from my RaspberryPi/OpenELEC setup, as although it works fine, it's a bit sluggish.

Man, there are just soooo many options for running Kodi. It's tough to know which way to go sometimes!
 
Everytime I think about using this I'm always stopped by the ugly unintuitive UI.
Well, I guess its a good thing then that there are all kinds of customized UIs, and if you don't like the literally hundreds that are available, you can make your own.
 
Is there a step-by-step process for this?

I don't think there is a step-by-step for my setup, but it isn't too hard.

Check out: http://www.mythbuntu.org/ and http://kodi.wiki/view/PVR. Those will get you basically there (outside some small configuration stuff).

When I can snag a chromebox for ~$100. I'll definitely considering doing an all-inclusive tutorial that covers everything including the hardware.

Everytime I think about using this I'm always stopped by the ugly unintuitive UI.

Even for dismissive drive-by posts this one is pretty bad.
 
Mmmm installed this on my nexus 9 the other day. Pretty much the only reason I got an android tablet over an iPad. Jailbreak shmailbreak.
 
Does anyone knows if Kodibuntu has better driver support than OpenElec. I have some usb-wifi dongle, that isnt recognized in OpenElec, but in Windows it works without any problems.
 
What is the use of such a software in 2014 ? It was very useful on my modded Xbox a decade ago as it vastly improved its media capabilities; but in 2014, when every piece of hardware released is powerful enough to read anything, what is the purpose of XBMC ?
I know, you can activate the simple TV DVR and watch up to 7700 channels without paying for cable.
 
Does anyone knows if Kodibuntu has better driver support than OpenElec. I have some usb-wifi dongle, that isnt recognized in OpenElec, but in Windows it works without any problems.
In my experience yes, it also had superior button mapping for MCE remotes on my Intel NUCs.
 
I was really interested about the video quality of the updated player so I took a screenshot of a scene of Edge of Tomorrow with the internal player and another one with MadVr with top quality settings. The source is an untouched BR. Honestly... I hardly find any difference even when I zoom 320%...intersting.

Can I post them somewhere (1.7 MB each) and ask your opinion about this comparison? Can I post them here or where? I really would like your opinion.
 
I was really interested about the video quality of the updated player so I took a screenshot of a scene of Edge of Tomorrow with the internal player and another one with MadVr with top quality settings. The source is an untouched BR. Honestly... I hardly find any difference even when I zoom 320%...intersting.

Can I post them somewhere (1.7 MB each) and ask your opinion about this comparison? Can I post them here or where? I really would like your opinion.
Go for it I'm interested in having a look.
 
I was really interested about the video quality of the updated player so I took a screenshot of a scene of Edge of Tomorrow with the internal player and another one with MadVr with top quality settings. The source is an untouched BR. Honestly... I hardly find any difference even when I zoom 320%...intersting.

Can I post them somewhere (1.7 MB each) and ask your opinion about this comparison? Can I post them here or where? I really would like your opinion.
Would madvr show a significant improvement on an untouched BD source? I've only used it for SD and 720p and there it works wonders.
 
I upgraded from Gotham to Kodi. Kodi actually crashed when playing a trailer. I've never had XBMC crash before. Not only that, but occasionally Kodi won't start and an error pops up. It'll usually launch the second time. I tried reinstalling but it's the same. Hopefully they fix these stability issues.
 
MadVR
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Kodi
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Don't know if minus keep the original resolution...
 
Well, I guess its a good thing then that there are all kinds of customized UIs, and if you don't like the literally hundreds that are available, you can make your own.

The biggest problem Kodi has is it's skinning engine. Out of all the skins there are only a handful that support 14.0 Helix. They constantly change the skinning engine which breaks compatibility with old skins which then rely on skin creators being bothered going back to make their skins compatible.

There are a number of skins I used to love and use a lot aren't compatible with latest version.

Also I'd love to see the literally hundreds of skins you are talking about, I only count 34 and probably only a quarter of them at best work on Helix, I'd also love to see you make a skin using the incomprehensible XML skinning format.
 
Would madvr show a significant improvement on an untouched BD source? I've only used it for SD and 720p and there it works wonders.

Well indeed with untouched BD is very hard to find any difference, with a 1080P Web good quality impossible and with 720P yes. But honestly is not as much as someone would imagine reading the MadVR topic around...if you just check that looks like is something much different and the hardware it require...mah...don't want to say that in the end doesn't worth it but - as I said - the only real difference is with SD/not-so-good-sources.
 
The biggest problem Kodi has is it's skinning engine. Out of all the skins there are only a handful that support 14.0 Helix. They constantly change the skinning engine which breaks compatibility with old skins which then rely on skin creators being bothered going back to make their skins compatible.

There are a number of skins I used to love and use a lot aren't compatible with latest version.

Also I'd love to see the literally hundreds of skins you are talking about, I only count 34 and probably only a quarter of them at best work on Helix, I'd also love to see you make a skin using the incomprehensible XML skinning format.
oh so you weren't just a drive by troll.

Of course the version that just came out doesn't have that many skins, I think that would be obvious. Don't upgrade then?

Also I never said *I* was going to make a skin, I find plenty that I like. I said *you* could make a skin since that seems to be the major hold up for *you*
Not my problem that you find XML incomprehensible.

Also, you're one of the only people I've ever seen call the UI unintuitive, but to each his own.
 
Speaking of the incomprehensible skinning format - anyone with better XML skills than I know how to modify the TV section's 'Recently Added' bar to show coverart rather than an episode screenshot? I know you can disable it completely, but I like having it for movies.

Not sure if it's people trolling on thetvdb or a coincidence, but whenever I add a new show/season and Recently Added displays the last few episodes, there's frequently massive spoilers in the chosen screenshot(s). Not a great way to kick off watching a new show.
 
None of that is possible with a roku, firetv, or PS4 and my choice of interface easily beats the pants off of those or anything else out there for the matter.

I use a plex server and a roku frontend with harmony remote is by far the greater option regards simplicity. I used to have an htpc by the tv, but it's not needed. media server with the plex channel on roku and netflix as well. Harmony remote controls all including the wii U and the lights. it's perfect.
 
oh so you weren't just a drive by troll.

Of course the version that just came out doesn't have that many skins, I think that would be obvious. Don't upgrade then?

Also I never said *I* was going to make a skin, I find plenty that I like. I said *you* could make a skin since that seems to be the major hold up for *you*
Not my problem that you find XML incomprehensible.

Also, you're one of the only people I've ever seen call the UI unintuitive, but to each his own.

I'm not the guy you quoted originally, just wanted to comment on what you were saying, there aren't literally hundreds there are 34 with minor variations on some themes such as colour changes.
 
Is it possible to have a media server connected to a router and a TV, and dragging and dropping files through the router (on the network)?

I guess this would beat bringing a USB stick from my computer and to my plasma TV for watching some TV shows...
 
I'm not the guy you quoted originally, just wanted to comment on what you were saying, there aren't literally hundreds there are 34 with minor variations on some themes such as colour changes.

Ok, I was posting from my phone and just assumed you were the same guy.

Yes, there aren't 100s of skins, I was exaggerating. But to say that the skins are just minor variations of the same thing is a little disingenuous.

Again, if you don't like it, the beauty of XBMC is you can make your own stuff.
 
I use a plex server and a roku frontend with harmony remote is by far the greater option regards simplicity. I used to have an htpc by the tv, but it's not needed. media server with the plex channel on roku and netflix as well. Harmony remote controls all including the wii U and the lights. it's perfect.

Context is important. Your setup cannot do everything my setup can do.
 
I've been using xbmc for a while now, but have yet to update to 14 (still on 13.2). What really bugs me is the lack of a good audio visualization add-on. The Zune desktop client had a really, really good one and I wish someone replicated it. I think Zune on the Xbox 360 had a similar one. I'm using refocus as my skin and that doesn't even support artist slideshow for some weird reason.
 
Still hate the new name, but the application itself gets better with every revision. Nothing beats Windows Media Center as a DVR still, but at least ServerWMC will let me pass along the non-protected channels to this.
 
Why the name change?
The old name was confusing. Even though officially it was no longer an acronym, it was still heavily associated with Xbox.

They also had no trademark or legal control over the old name. This prevented business deals and exerting control over how it's used by third parties.
 
Eminence works on Helix? I don't see it when I go to Get More... under Skins. How do you install it and get it working under Helix?

It works great. Download the zip and then push it. You can install it with the zip.
 
Can someone explain the differences between this and Plex? I want to start burning my Blurays and having the best quality streams to my TV. I have a Fire TV stick as well.
 
Anyone else have this problem with this version?

When i use my controller to view a zoomed picture, i can't navigate properly with the d-pad. Whatever direction i push, the camera only moves right : /
 
Can someone explain the differences between this and Plex? I want to start burning my Blurays and having the best quality streams to my TV. I have a Fire TV stick as well.

Plex is a fork of XBMC/Kodi. So at the heart it's similar, but Plex does a few things differently. For starters, you install the software as a server and it will find all your media, scrape it and organize it to distribute to any Plex client. The server is typically a PC you have dedicated to this and a client can be any other PC, tablet, phone, or game console that has a Plex client app. It'll keep things in sync, transcode the video (ie auto convert on the fly) to a format that other devices can understand, and allow for remote access. It is also a bit easier to setup because they guide you through the process in the installer. Plex also charges for some features which is something that rubs me the wrong way since they built themselves off XBMC.

XBMC on the other hand doesn't do the centralized server out of the box. You can easily set that up though and it takes 5 minutes to do, so you can still have that type of functionality. XBMC is available on a wide range of platforms but isn't available on some things like consoles. Where XBMC is better is it's more flexible, more configurable, has a ton of skinning options, and of course is 100% free. Plus you can integrate a lot of stuff into it like Steam, games, etc. It's a complete front end where as Plex is just strictly for media. There's also a ton of plugins and if you have a Fire TV, you can easily integrate HBO, Netflix, and any Android app into the GUI so it looks like it's a part of it.

Personally, I've used XBMC since the beginning and I've stuck with it. Plex doesn't offer me anything that I can't get out of XBMC, and XBMC has more features and customization while Plex is inflexible. Also as I stated before, I don't like how Plex makes money off of it while XBMC is free. I also hate transcoding as I want my videos to be native. XBMC might take a little bit more effort to get the most out of it, but it can just do more.

So how hard is it to get this running on an Apple TV. Mine is just stock.

You need a jailbroken Apple TV, and the last Apple TV to be jailbroken was the Apple TV 2. The current Apple TV still has not been jailbroken.
 
Eminence is back in the official repo. So you can install it like any other skin.
 
I'm still Team Eminence, but his new skin is pretty hot. It's a remake of one of his older skins, and it's really nice. Arctic: Zephyr.

Oh yeah, if you're on a FireTV and have Kodi sideloaded, there is now a really easy way to get it on the recent apps page. Sideload Kodi like normal, then you get it from Amazon. Go into your FireTV settings > Account > Sync Amazon Content. Kodi should then show up as an installed program.
 
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