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Do you find yourself overwhelmed with movies and TV episodes on Kodi? Believe it or not it can be a problem. But after a few years of using Kodi I just found a solution that was always available but I'd never heard of, the LazyTV addon. I just wanted to drop a note here in case someone else is in the same boat.
Kodi is so well designed and easy to use that I had excitedly spent over a month converting all my DVD movies and TV shows to MP4, only to find when I was done that I had an ironic problem. I suddenly had so many choices, over 600 TV episodes and 300 movies, I couldn't choose anything. Over a few months it had gotten to the point where I had pretty much stopped using Kodi and just gone back to cable surfing.
But last week I stumbled across a brilliant addon, LazyTV, that has me using Kodi for at least half of my viewing time again. In a nutshell it creates lists of random TV episodes and/or movies for you, turning Kodi into your own private TV station where only the shows you love are always on! I don't know how I missed it all this time, so like I said I just wanted to give it a shout out to others who may not have come across it. Heck, I liked it so much I had to make another donation to Kodi! Thanks to all the Kodi developers, and the LazyTV developer Subliminal Karnage, for all their excellent work. It's greatly appreciated.
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This isn't exactly news, since LazyTV has a dedicated thread in the add ons section, but I have to agree that LazyTV is amazing for getting that TV channel feel.
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As I said in my original post I knew it wasn't a new addon, and I'm sorry if I posted on an inappropriate thread. I didn't know it had its own thread though, and was just concerned that others may not have known about it. As I said I went for a few years as a Kodi user not knowing about it and it really made Kodi useful for me again. In fact it seems so critical to making Kodi useful it seems like it should be a default addon and clearly explained in the new user documentation. There must be a lot of people in the same situation as I was in, and initially it's just not something you think would be a problem (too many good choices). In any case that's all I'll say about it. Once again I apologize if this was the wrong thread to post about it in, it just seemed like the one most new users would see.
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I find that LazyTV solves a problem of indecision. While my machine only has the shows I like on it, unlike Netflix or something where I'd have access to a lot of shows, many of which I'd have no interest in, often I'm not in the mood for anything specific and will really watch 'anything'. LazyTV solves that problem nicely, since it just spins through unwatched episodes randomly but in order of airing and that really satisfies me. Its core concept is something that commercial streaming services would be wise to pick up on for when users just 'want to watch something, anything' so long as it fits their preference criteria.
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I hadn't thought of the concept in a general context, but I agree. The reason I'd gone back to cable surfing was because there are a core group of channels that generally have content I like, but it's relatively random. I don't know what it is but there seems to be something different about being "surprised" by an old movie or TV episode you like that you weren't thinking of. On the surface it would seem that seeking them out specifically would be better, but at least for me it isn't. In your example of Netflix it works the same way for me. Even though I have a Netflix subscription I rarely watch it, and when I do it's usually to watch something new. If they had something like LazyTV and were somehow able to only show things I liked, I would watch it much more often.
In fact, now with Kodi and LazyTV I find that the only time I'm watching cable is in the evening when new movies or new episodes of shows I like are on. During other times I just start Kodi and let LazyTV do its thing, and I don't even have to be distracted by changing the channel. In fact I just ordered two new TV series and a movie I don't have so I can add them to Kodi. I'd thought about buying them before but felt I'd never get around to watching them, but LazyTV changed that. As I said before, now I look at Kodi as my own private TV station and am willing to invest whatever I can afford to make sure it has all the content I love.
I have nothing to do with LazyTV development, but really do think it should be a default Kodi addon. I honestly wonder how many people were enamored by Kodi at first as I was, but then lost interest because of the issues we've discussed. I think if Kodi more directly advertised it as a "private TV station" more people would adopt it and not lose interest.
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Not trying to burst bubbles, or even down play the excellent work Karnage put into LazyTV...
For historical accuracy... the idea and concept comes from a xbmc users (forgot who, but will find the post). The idea became reality with "PseudoTV" by Jason102 and continues on with my project "PseudoTV Live".
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PatK
Team-Kodi Member
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Both LazyTV and PseudoTV occupy custom buttons on my home page, and guess what? They can work together for even more synergetic fun. These should really occupy a KodKutting episode on their own.
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I've never used PseudoTV, why does it have haters? o.o
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natethomas
Enjoying Retirement by Staying Busy
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I'm happy to write a reply here. I've somewhat intentionally avoided pseudotv live because it takes the relative difficulty of setting up Kodi and ratchets it up to 11. And least it did a year or two ago when I last tried it.
In my opinion, software should ideally never need a guide to get working. The parts of Kodi that need guides are, frankly, somewhat embarrassing for us and are invariably sources of discussion at devcon as we try to come up with ways to make them less confusing. Adding sources, for example, has been a problem for years.
If the initial set up process for these sorts of applications ever got easier, I'd love to feature them, but at least at present it's just too difficult.
Also, just to make clear what I think would be a "simple" setup process: if you have a Kodi library, you click run and you're done. No other questions. The addon should be smart enough to do everything else.
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To be fair Nate, I think the people who listen to KordKutters would be sort of *ahem* tragics who wouldn't be that put off by a guide for something like PseudoTV.
In fact for a decent portion, having to RTFM would be a feature, not a bug!
P.S. LazyTV is click-and-you're-done. Just putting that out there.
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natethomas
Enjoying Retirement by Staying Busy
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Toggling settings would be too much work. I'm willing to give it another look, but the fact that settings need to be toggled doesn't give me a ton of hope.
I'm just happy I found out about it and wanted to make sure others knew about the possibilities as well.
