Early thoughts on Kodi for Xbox One?

[Richard Devine]

Now Kodi is back where it truly belongs, on the Xbox One, what do you actually think of it so far?

It's a ridiculously early alpha and there's lots still broken (I can't use the NextPVR plugin for example) but generally it's quite impressive. The interface is still really good for a larger screen.

What don't you like, or what would you like to see them do before it hits full release? Equally, what do you like about it?!

 

[Richard Loveridge]

I have the Giotek media remote with keyboard. Works really well with it. As you say lots still not working, but that is exactly like the PC version Alpha 18.0 anyway. Looking forward to it coming out of Alpha. And more developers updating.

 

[todd7900]

I have hopes for Kodi as it develops. Unfortunately, as it stands now its pretty useless. I haven't been able to figure out how to use the Xbox tuner or set up DVR capability. Without those capabilities it's pretty pointless for me.

 

[Carter1997]

Waiting for full kodi

I love kodi, but still I think everyone should pay to even use kodi like Netflix or free movies is considered pirating. Every object is bought with a price. Try upgrading kodi microsoft so people need to pay to use. Everything has a price. I think still using things for free is stealing from company rights so that breaks the legislature law of piracy. Like 2 dollars for a yoyo or 10 dollars for a book. Every other app has pricing ranges, like Netflix. So everyone needs to pay to use kodi or have a warrant for there arrest for pirating free movies. Everyone will obey or there's punishment. Every human being pays for there own homes for exact. It's either release this law on kodi so we can have the full kodi app on Xbox or shut kodi down and we as the people sue the company for no full securified updated full payment kodi app. We need full app without bugs or my billionaire father and i will sue kodi for not releasing safe full free updated app with payment like Netflix.

We need full app or we can sue you for pirating files as a company. Watch yourselfs microsoft. We know your every move. So you better release full kodi app or you will regret not obeying the law of the one world. So remember my advice. Carter

 

[a5cent]

Re: Waiting for full kodi

I love kodi, but still I think everyone should pay to even use kodi like Netflix or free movies is considered pirating.

That makes no sense. Kodi doesn't include any content. No video. No audio. It's an open source software project, written by people who donate their spare time. Since Kodi doesn't offer any copyrighted content, and it's developers don't want money for it, they can ask any price they want, including $0.

If your version of Kodi comes with content, then you're likely running some modified, malware infested derivative that includes pirated content as a means to distribute even more nefarious stuff.

https://kodi.tv/article/piracy-box-sellers-and-youtube-promoters-are-killing-kodi

 

[Duvi]

Unnecessary.

 

[a5cent]

Yeah, unnecessary, particularly considering how bad Kodi is.

If you can live with the results standard scraping produces it's fine, but if you want your media collection to be accurate and/or sorted in a particular way you'll be fiddling forever. I couldn't even change the image for a movie set without having to look at documentation. If you're looking for examples of truly awful UI design, Kodi is a treasure trove.

You soon realize that setting up Kodi is a chore, at which point you'll understand why hundreds of Add-Ons exist to help with media organization and artwork. Many of these Add-Ons exist to fix things or provide features that should be simple or standard functionality. Unfortunately, many of these Add-Ons are hard to discover, not to mention they are also typically cryptic and often broken.

Eventually, you realize there aren't enough years in your life (or enjoyment in the task) to organize your media collection with Kodi. That is when you encounter the many media managers (like Ember), which have sprung up as way to address this difficulty. You'll be so happy to finally get away from the clunky Kodi UI, only to have the rug pulled out from under you. These tools are also often outdated, bug ridden and even more cryptic than Kodi is. Want to learn what the opposite of intuitive is? Take a look at Ember.

IMHO Kodi screwed up when they started making setup, configuration and media organizational features accessible to the 10 foot UI. They should have split this up.

Browsing / Playback Control: 10 foot UI
Setup / Configuration / Media Organization: HTTP only

You might think Chorus 2 could work for setup, configuration and media organization, but it isn't a complete solution. Without Add-Ons and SSH, not even Kodi itself is.

 

[efigalaxie]

Kodi 18 Alpha is a mess - as any alpha is. I run Kodi 17.x on the Nvidia Shield right now. It is as good of a platform as you could ask for. I rip my own DVDs and BluRays. I use Tiny Media manager to do my own metadata. I put the file onto my storage. What is so hard???? Yes, you can tinker endlessly, but you don't have to. It isn't Ember it is Emby. Emby is a competitor to Plex. Emby has a couple issues I am trying to solve. I am hoping Kodi 18 gets SMB running on XBox One S soon. I really don't give a flying F what Microsoft wants. I bought the damn console, it is mine. Before you start mouthing pious crap about the Xbox being licensed blah blah blah...I don't care. I buy a car and I can modify it. The dang console is no different. If I had my way, EULAs and such longer than a paragraph would be illegal. The only reason for pages long Eulas is to have ways to screw your customers.

 

[a5cent]

It isn't Ember it is Emby. Emby is a competitor to Plex.

No. It's Ember. Ember is an alternative to the Tiny Media Manager you use. Ember is ridiculously poorly designed software. Tiny might very well be far better, I don't know, but that isn't really the point. The point is that for a decent media manager, none of these would be necessary to begin with.

Kodi 18 Alpha is a mess - as any alpha is. I run Kodi 17.x on the Nvidia Shield right now. It is as good of a platform as you could ask for.

I can't comprehend how anyone could find Kodi decent, but I'm happy it works for some people. As far as I'm concerned it's very half-baked, amateurish, buggy (I've never required more than 5 minutes with any version to stumble onto bugs or changes that broke add-ins) and incomplete software that depends far too heavily on equally amateurish add-ins and external media managers to get anything decent setup.

A media manager can and should be trivial from a user's perspective. Just the fact that Kodi requires the amount of documentation it does speaks for itself.