Kodi on Android TV · DIGIT-ARC

I now have Android 9.0 on Xiaomi Mi TV 4A. I got Kodi installed yesterday. I now want know to how to use it effectively. Which all adds on and skins do you use ?

I am not looking for illegal add-ons. Only safe ones please.

You can use the usual, Youtube, shoutcast, etc. If you are streaming from another machine in your network, Kodi has in-built support for network shares over NFS and SMB. Now sure about Plex or other such media servers.

I am not sure if it just a trick of light, but Kodi seems to give much richer colour to picture than VLC. VLC is much easier though. I am confused which one to use. VLC too can read network shared content.

But Kodi is much more convenient to use if you have a TV with HDMI. Just get a wireless keyboard or remote and you are good to go.

I am sorry, didn't follow. How does HDMI helps ? My TV has 2 HDMI and 1 HDMI arc port.

Desmond David said:
Just get a wireless keyboard or remote and you are good to go.

I have one from Logitech.

I don't have Android TV but have Amazon Fire stick.

Created streaming server in house network with KODI.

i.e. KODI client on Fire stick which would only playback contents that are streamed.

As source, I've my external HDDs connected to my PC. Created KODI streaming server in PC.
Why all such pain?

To d/l subtitles for movies where subtitles are not available.

Do I use it, or how happy I'm with this?
Not happy.

My network speed is slow, the streaming is slow and spoils the viewing experience.
But, the experiment succeeded that is a good thing.

I used to share media on PC through Plex server and use Plex client on TV. As you mentioned, the quality was not very good. Maybe because of 2.4 GHz wifi. Then started sharing media on PC and play it through VLC. I don't think that is streaming, perhaps " remote drive " or " network drive " as the source. I am no good at terminology, so I could be wrong.

I am not sure I have ever heard of a " Kodi Server ". Links to it please.

Also, in the end, I decided the best way to handle media is to use a Pen drive and plug it on TV. Much easier for me that way.

rhitwick said:
To d/l subtitles for movies where subtitles are not available.

Does Kodi have a plugin for that ? Which source does it use ?

W

There are basically 2 types of streaming:

1.No transcoding.i.e.source video is played directly just like a remote share.No processor usage but high network usage depending on bitrate of original video.

2.Transcoding.i.e.source video is "re-encoded" on-the-fly to give different resolutions choices(like youtube) to best suit the network speed.Minimum possible network usage for smooth viewing but high processor usage.

At this point, I have stopped sharing media over the network. I never liked the idea and found the USB drive method much easier to manage.

If it is just playing video or using a network shared drive or HDD, I might skip Kodi for now. Unless it can do something wonderful as the hype denotes.