[Gade]

Hi Gade

Just following up with some Amazon FireTV Stick feedback. I've had SPMC and Rapier on it for over a week now.

The performance of the FTVStick was a lot lower than I had expected especially compared to the FTV Box so a lot of what Ill say isn't really Kodis (or Rapiers) fault. The spec of the stick is half that of the box and it does show.

Using the stick fresh out of the box it felt slow and 'chuggy', the FTVBox was fast and responsive and stayed that way even after a few months.

I've read and seen some good reviews of Kodi on Android TV Sticks so was expecting it to feel a lot smoother then it was. Amazon also have all their crap running constantly and without root to disable it, it undoubtedly eats up the RAM and CPU.

Even using Confluence on a fresh install there is some stutter and lag when traversing Kodi and this doesn't get any better. But didn't get any worse...

After adding my library (through MySQL) the laggyness was still there but didn't get any worse. Even after setting all my backgrounds to rotating fanart.

The backgrounds transitioned smoothly all the time even when the main screens were doing things.

Anyway. In general, Rapier is working fine, the main screens run smoothly and it seems that all the skins functions are working as expected.

Hi IAmTheDude360.

Wow, what a great and detailed description

Thanks so much for testing and taking the time to do this.

Seems Rapier overall is performing ok on the stick.

My biggest gripe with it currently is the 'stutter' of screen transitions.

eg Clicking Videos and transitioning to the sources screen or clicking TV Shows and transitioning to the library screen there is clear lag of the animations.

I have to say, I have never noticed the transitions before as on PC and the FTV Box they were fast, smooth and almost unnoticeable.

Is it possible that you could add an option to disable these transitions? I dont know if its a skin thing that can be changed or if its hard coded into Kodi.

If not don't worry, its not a major issue and doesn't stop anything from working as it should.

The animations you mean is when going from the home screen to the libraries, videos etc.?

How fast is this in Confluence compared to Rapier?

I have already planned the feature to disable more animations, but it will probably not happen anytime soon.

For £19 (£35 now!), its a bargain to get Kodi on my TV that works well enough that I can think about repurposing my HTPC!

I think I will eventually get a FTVBox or possibly a RPi2 to replace it though, the performance is amazing and Kodi w/Rapier runs like butter on the FTVBox I set up for ma' Pa!

I love that it's getting so cheap buying a decent hardware solution for Kodi.

I have just bought a Raspberry Pi 2 for the basement and I'm impressed how fast and smooth Kodi/Rapier runs on this (and how cheap it was). Will definately buy more in the future

PS, I noticed in one of the updates that the small overlapping images thnigy I mentioned before has gone so a thank you for that

Glad you noticede Happened in v7.3.8.

[Gade]

Hi Gade,

Can you add support for Super favorites? I want to add my super favourites in the submenu.
The only favorites I can choose are the kodi.

Hi wackid.

What do you wish to do? Do you need to add items from the Super Favourites add-on to the custom submenus?

And can you make shortcuts possible in the custom section?

Add-on shortcuts?

I'm afraid not, as it would take waaaaay too much time and code to do this.

Is it possible to modify your skin to make skin shortcuts as mentioned here?


[/URL]http://kodi.wiki/view/Add-on:Skin_Shortcuts#Skins_using_Skin_Shortcuts[/URL]

Rapier doesn't use the add-on script.skinshortcuts. All custom sections are coded manually into the skin.

What do you wish to achieve?

[wackid]

Hi Gade,

The thing with super favourites is not a big thing. My thought was to set it to the submenu item.

OK it's a shame for shortcuts on the custom menu. But I understand.

And for the script Skin_Shortcuts I would like to have separate libraries nodes.

[Gade]

The thing with super favourites is not a big thing. My thought was to set it to the submenu item.

Hi wackid.

You can add the add-on itself as a submenu. But I think you mean items directly from the super favourites?

And for the script Skin_Shortcuts I would like to have separate libraries nodes.

You have to specify a bit.

Using the presets dialog when creating custom categories or submenus, you have access to all hardcoded nodes and much more.

You can add the custom library node as a favourite and add that favourite as a custom category or submenu.

[wackid]

For example in Aeon skin.

You can select default select action - video library - sources. And there you can specify a folder..

That's what I need.

[Gade]

For example in Aeon skin.

You can select default select action - video library - sources. And there you can specify a folder..

That's what I need.

You can do the same in Rapier.

Choose Preset and click Path. This opens up the presets dialog where you can Select Path for music, videos, programs, pictures.

You can use this dialog to customize pretty much everything in Kodi/Rapier.

[wackid]

Yes I did that, but the location acts as a folder.

I have the Addon yts2pulsar. It searches for new movies. In the Addon configuration you can specify a folder where the movies. *strm are downloaded.
It will be downloaded in a folder with movie name and in the folder is the *.strm.

With the scraper it provides movie info.

With aeon it goes directly in the library mode.
With your skin. I see the folders. And in the folder there is the movie.
So I have to open each folder to see the info....

[wackid]

Problem solved.... A Co administrator of our kodi FB page. Has edited a file from the Addon.

Still strange why it is no problem on aeon skin.

[Gade]

Really glad you got the problem solved.

Aeon Nox uses script.skinshortcuts (like you wrote) for the paths. Rapier does not, and this is probably be why it works differently.

I'd love to add something to the presets dialog - just not sure what

[IAmTheDude360]

The animations you mean is when going from the home screen to the libraries, videos etc.?

How fast is this in Confluence compared to Rapier?

I have already planned the feature to disable more animations, but it will probably not happen anytime soon.

Yup its that transition from a 'normal' screen (Main menu, video source list etc) to the actual 'library' screen (I use banner view) where it has the slight lag.

Its pretty much the same between the two skins, even on a clean install which, to me, points to it being a performance issue with the stick rather than Kodi or the skin.

Its not been too bad recently though but I may just be getting used to it and its far from a deal breaker.


Either way Kodi is working really well on the stick with Rapier

[Gade]

The animations you mean is when going from the home screen to the libraries, videos etc.?

How fast is this in Confluence compared to Rapier?

I have already planned the feature to disable more animations, but it will probably not happen anytime soon.

Yup its that transition from a 'normal' screen (Main menu, video source list etc) to the actual 'library' screen (I use banner view) where it has the slight lag.

Its pretty much the same between the two skins, even on a clean install which, to me, points to it being a performance issue with the stick rather than Kodi or the skin.

Its not been too bad recently though but I may just be getting used to it and its far from a deal breaker.


Either way Kodi is working really well on the stick with Rapier

If its the same in Confluence and Rapier I also doubt very much that it has anything to do with the animations. It's probably the stick not performing very well.

But I'm glad to hear that Kodi and Rapier is working good

Thanks again so much for testing and reporting back!

[Gade]

They are scraped, otherwise it wouldnt get the imdb rating, and I love the list. Gives such a nice overview. All I need is for the stars to show numbers instead

Thanks anyway.

I have added the rating labels for movies and tv shows to List View when using Normal View Style. This will be available in the next update.
I still think you should use the Movies and TV Shows libraries (clicking the Movies and TV Shows categories from the home screen). This will provide much more info, flexibility and artwork.
If you use List View 2 or List Info 3 Views you will see the exact same number of items in the lists as the regular List View.

Awsome, thanks alot!

Hi tuffno.

I had to remove the rating labels we made in the video library, as they were causing double labels to appear in the movies and tv shows library.

If you use the movie library and tv show library for your videos, you will still have the rating text labels in the list views (they appear by default).

[Deezel]

trying to add an intro video from http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=124124

Not seeing video.. any advice?

[Gade]

trying to add an intro video from http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=124124

Not seeing video.. any advice?

Hi Deezel.

Sorry, but Rapier doesn't support script.xbmc.intro.movie.

Have you tried coding it manually into the skin (startup.xml)?

[Carl314]

I've not tried intro.movie, but it sounds like it overlaps somewhat with Cinema Experience, which is working for me on Helix. You can configure it to play trailers, intro videos, transitions, intermissions, trivia, MPAA ratings videos, etc. http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=87563

I launch it by selecting information for the movie, then selecting Cinema Experience. That's a bit cumbersome, and it would be nice if there were a way to program a button on my Harmony remote to launch CE automatically (e.g. long press on Play button launches CE, short press simply plays the movie without intro).

Cheers, Carl.