[mythtv-users] What's the deal with Kodi?

[Gordon McCrae]

In my case it was the desire to find new media player hardware with the
slow but inexorable decline of my Acer REVOs. During my investigations I
basically came to the conclusion that I needed something that would run on
android rather than Linux, as the android settop market is at a much lower
price point. This brings up the immediate issue that none of the MythTV
android offerings were/are anywhere near complete, so I suppose if a full
port of MythFrontend was available on Android I wouldn't be switching. I
have found KODI to be like any piece of software that I'm new to, it can be
a steep learning curve initially, just as MythTV was, but once you find
what works for you, it's all pretty much good. I would say that KODI seems
to be much quicker on the same hardware, and also able to run on much lower
spec systems. Add to that, the ability to run on many platforms (let's face
it, MythTV is really best on Linux), that had me sold.

So now I have KODI on DroidBox T8 android devices, my own desktop, all of
our Android phones and tablets. On the TV side, the choice of Android also
allows for many more apps to run that Linux simply doesn't have, so I get
access to those without having to install Windows.

So I would say in summary that it's not really a question of whether
MythFrontend is better than KODI or vice versa, it's a question of what
complete solution is best. For me, that solution is now Android based and
is much better with KODI.

Oh, and my family refuse to use MythMusic, so that's another benefit.

As I mentioned, I initially found KODI to be daunting at first, just like
any other piece of relatively complex software when first used, but once
you read some of the wiki entries about configuring MySQL backends, finding
a theme you like (Metropolis in my case), learning what you want turned on
or off etc, THEN you can start comparing it MythFrontend. Personally I
don't watch live TV or even many recorded programmes, but I do notice that
this actually appears to work better in KODI using the MythPVR plugin than
MythFrontend does, perhaps a quirk of my setup, but still a fact.

Cheers
Gordon
On 20 May 2015 16:17, "Damian" <myth at surr.co.uk> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm really surprised to hear so many of you moving over to Kodi as a front
> end. Am I right in thinking that Kodi is based on (or 'is') XBMC? I have
> tried XMBC roughly once every year or two since it came out as I feel I
> must be 'missing something'. Every time I try it, I uninstall it after a
> couple of days. I find it repeatedly horrible to set up, sluggish and ugly
> (compared to the best Myth themes) and I just don't see any benefits. I
> think MythTV with one of the nice themes (like the most recent Steppes), is
> SO much better.
>
> What am I missing? What is it about XBMC/Kodi that people like and even
> prefer?
>
> I'm not trying to be on a high horse, I'm genuinely interested.
>
> Maybe XBMC/Kodi doesn't work very well with Ubuntu/MythBuntu setups for
> some reason?
>
> Looking forward to reading your thoughts,
> Damian
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