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

[Brian J. Murrell]

On Wed, 2015-05-20 at 21:51 +0100, Gordon McCrae wrote:
> Hmm, can you expand on "enumerate shows", this isn't something I've 
> noticed, and as my wife is the only one using LiveTV, perhaps something 
> I wouldn't notice until she goes to use it. If you can explain where 
> this happens and what the symptoms are I can check if I'm seeing that issue.

Just the lag between choosing the PVR plugin and actually seeing a list
of shows you can watch.  Presumably it's spending that time loading the
data from MythBE.

> I think your complains about plugins it a little harsh,

You are entitled to your opinion of course.

>  after all, each 
> is written by a different developer and there would need to be some sort 
> of central management of plugins to get the type of functionality you're 
> looking for.

Yes.  Of course there would be!  It is indeed a lacking in the general
architecture of Kodi and it's plugin framework.  All (i.e. Video)
plugins should contribute a standardized format of metadata about the
shows it can show the user to a service which then provides that
information to the user in a single standard interface.

The whole idea of having to play content by plugin is arcane and does
not scale.  Pretty soon you have a pen and paper beside the remote to
jot down which plugin you need to use to watch each show.

> It's a bit like 
> complaining that NetFlix, Hulu, Amazon, BBC iPlayer etc all have 
> different interfaces to their on-demand video systems,

Absolutely!  That's another example of the exact same fragmentation
mess.  "Hrm, do I watch 'The Good Wife' on Netflix, or is it Hulu, or
Amazon?  Arrrggghh!".

> it's not very realistic to think they'd actually do it

Not for technical insurmountabilities at least.  It's very technically
doable.  But my (admittedly limited) experience is that the main Kodi
development team is a team of technical people (well duh!) making
something for technical people to use and not really considering the
general nontechnical entertainment consumer.

Just look at the disconnect between the watch and delete functions.
Without a plugin, after you watch something you have to navigate to a
completely different function (file management) to delete what you just
watched.  That they even call it "file management" demonstrates how
disconnected from the average media consuming grandma they seem to be.

The attitude when I asked about that disconnect was "but why would you
ever want to delete anything?" as if everyone has petabytes of storage
that they can just pile up episode after episode of television show that
they will never ever watch again.

And the disconnect between local media and streaming (i.e. most
plugins).  Again, I have to think about where some content is before I
can decide how I will ask Kodi to show it to me.

Probably nothing demonstrates Kodi's low usability more than the fact
that if I have it running on any of the PVR FEs around here, I make sure
that I switch them all back to MythFE before I go out of town, so that
the family can continue to use the PVRs while I am gone and I don't get
a constant stream of "how do I watch ..." questions.

That all said, I think Kodi is definitely more flashy and pretty than
MythFE but the lure of that only lasts so long when the usability is so
low.

b.

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